[RB Williams, OP]

FRIDAY, MARCH 15, 2024  FRIDAY IN THE 4TH WEEK OF LENT

[Wisdom 2:1a; 12-22 and John 7:1-2, 10, 25-30]

     The wicked said among themselves, thinking not aright, "Let is beset the just one, because he is obnoxious to us; he sets himself against our doings, reproaches us for transgressions of the law and charges us with violations of our training....He calls blest the destiny of the just and boasts that God is his Father....Let us condemn him to a shameful death; for according to his own words, God will take care of him."

     "You know me and also know where I am from.  Yet I did not come on my own, but the one who sent me, whom you do not know, is true.  I know him, because I am from him, and he sent me."  

     The Book of Wisdom is dated roughly 50 years before Jesus' birth and was probably written by a Jewish author in Alexandria, Egypt, because it was written in Greek and aimed for the edification of a Jewish community.  Because it was originally written in Greek, Luther and other Reformation leaders excluded it and several other "books" from their biblical canon because they believed only those books of the Bible written originally in Hebrew were inspired.  The books written originally in Greek were called "apocryphal" and considered worthy but not inspired.

     However, the early Christian community found the words in the Book of Wisdom in today's passage to be a foreshadowing of Jesus' life and death.  Indeed they seem eerily  predictive of the drama we are seeing in the Gospel According to John, from which the gospel scriptures are being taken as we approach Holy Week.  The "just one" suffers the fate of all great prophetic figures,  but Jesus is above them all.  In the Gospel According to John, he is the personification of God's wisdom.  The Jewish authorities thought they had Jesus "pegged" because he was just a carpenter from Nazareth in Galilee.  As the passage says, they were "thinking not aright!"   The majestic prologue to the Gospel According to John is worth reading at this time to remind us of where Jesus is from and who has sent him.  AMEN

[RB Williams, OP]

MONDAY, MARCH 18, 2024  MONDAY IN THE 5TH WEEK OF LENT

[Daniel 13:1-9, 15-17, 19-30, 33-62 and John 8:1-11]

     "Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to cast a stone at her."  Again he bent down and wrote on the ground.  And in response, they went away one by one, beginning with the elders.  So [Jesus] was left alone with the woman before him.  Then Jesus straightened up and said to her, "Woman, where are they?  Has no one condemned you?"  She replied, "No one, sir."  Then Jesus said,  "Neither do I condemn you.  Go, and from now on do not sin any more."  [John]

     The two scriptures today tell the stories of two women accused and condemned.  From the Book of Daniel we have the story of Susannah, who is falsely accused by the two elders whose advances she spurned.  The second is from the Gospel According to John in which the woman has been caught in the act of adultery.  Her guilt is not in question.  The real story is not about the two women, however, even if, on the surface it is also about the Jewish authorities trying to trap Jesus.  The real story is about mob judgment and violence.  It is about God's mercy in contrast to the mob's condemnation.  Daniel, still young, is accorded "the prestige of old age," and pulls off an interrogation worthy of Perry Mason to catch the elders in their lies, thus sparing Susannah.  Jesus says nothing to the mob except whatever he writes on the ground.  One tradition has it that he was writing the sins of the elders!  Note that it is the elders who leave first!

     On Good Friday we will see another example of mob violence in the scene with Jesus before Pilate in which Pilate, who believes Jesus to be innocent, questions the mob and they reply: " Take him away,  take him away! Crucify him!"  [John 19:15].  It can be a difficult but instructive exercise to go into each of these scenes - Susannah, the woman caught in adultery, and Jesus, bloody and dressed like a king - and ask if we could be mere spectators?  Would we have the courage to intervene like Daniel, or even write about it in the face of the mob like Jesus and then show mercy?  Today's scripture is preparing us for the coming of Holy Week and Good Friday.  Where will we be?  AMEN