Introduction

Jesus’ Public Life:  FROM THE FIRST SIGN TO PETER’S CONFESSION

     After contemplating Jesus’ birth, his hidden life, the start of his public life with his Baptism and tempting by Satan, we will now try to meditate and contemplate a summary overview of Jesus’ public life. This contains what the disciples and all followers of Christ saw, heard and touched regarding Jesus of Nazareth. Each one of the Evangelists, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, has given a personal touch to his gospel. We consider it illuminating to enter his public life through the eyes of one of them, hoping that the gospel will become more familiar for us as we go through it.

     For this reason, we consider it fitting to take the gospel of John, which presents Jesus’ public life through a few miracles, which are called “signs.” Each of them is followed by long discourses in close connection with the sign-miracle performed. We suggest trying to find time every day, to read one of the chapters, in order to taste the gospel’s flavor in a couple of weeks. Some parts of each chapter will be highlighted to help us in our daily personal contemplation of Jesus’ words and actions.

     This week, we try to know Jesus more, through the “signs” he performed, as described in the 1^st 6 chapters of John so as to enter increasingly into the way he performs miracles in order for us to be convinced of our Christian faith.

Day 1

JOHN CHAPTER ONE: From Eternity to the Flesh; John the Baptist and Mary signaled the Hour of the Son

     John’s gospel starts with a prologue in heaven and eternity that presents Jesus as the word made flesh dwelling among us (John 1:14), revealing to us the invisible God (John 1:18). John the Baptist points at Jesus and sends his disciples after him. In the Gospel of John, Jesus did not go out to look for people, instead the disciples came and entered into Jesus’ life. Jesus made his hidden life public by welcoming them to “come and see.” The explosive joy of the treasure found provokes those first disciples to immediately tell others, at the start of the gospel!

     “..the Law having ceased, Jesus comes, bringing the grace of the Gospel, to which that Law bears testimony. Jesus walks, to collect disciples.”

(Alcuin)

     “The walking of Jesus has a reference to the economy of the Incarnation, by means of which He has condescended to come to us, and give us a pattern of life.”

 (Bede)

     “Christ came to unite the Church to Himself; He said nothing Himself; but John, the friend of the Bridegroom, came forth, and put the Bride’s right hand in His; i.e. by his preaching he delivered into Christ’s hands, men’s souls, whom receiving He so disposed of, that they returned no more to John.”                    

(St John Chrysostom)

     “Come and see: that is to say, My dwelling is not to be understood by words, but by works; come, therefore, by believing and working, and then see by understanding.”              

(Alcuin)

Am I witnessing with my life that Jesus is the Lamb of God?

How can I make more real from now on, that I am “going and seeing where he lives and staying with Him this day”?

Day 2

JOHN CHAPTER TWO: The joy of the Wedding and the zeal for the Temple

     In the second chapter, Jesus started performing signs in the wedding at Cana, with his mother and his disciples (John 2:1-13). It was not his initiative but the impelling complicity of his mother who knew well that the Old Testament alliance was running short of joy and fulfillment (wine). Hence, the disciples believed in him and came to Capernaum (“the land of consolation”) with his mother and brothers, having had a foretaste of Jesus’ hidden life.

     “those Scriptures were the water. He made the water wine when He opened to them the meaning of those things, and expounded the Scriptures; for thus that came to have a taste which before had none, and that inebriated, which did not inebriate before.” 

(St Augustine)

     After enjoying the new wine of the Son, Jesus decided to go straight to the Place of the Alliance, the place of God’s marriage with Israel i.e., the Temple, but He found that the Father’s house had become a market place (John 2:14-22). His  spousal love at Cana then became devouring zeal for the Father’s house. And that action became the sign for the people of Jerusalem!

     “For inasmuch as they sought a sign from our Lord of His right to eject the customary merchandise from the temple, He replied that the temple signified the temple of His Body, in which was no spot of sin; as if He said, ‘by My power I purify your inanimate temple from your merchandise and wickedness.’”

(Bede)

Do I recognize the need of having the joy of the better wine as the beginning of any mission and responsibility?

What are the zones of my life that are still a market place in need of Jesus’ zealous intervention?

Day 3

JOHN CHAPTER THREE: Born of water and Spirit; Jesus is lifted up and we decrease

     In the dialogue with Nicodemus, the conflict between one’s admiration for Jesus and the search for approval from human and religious institutions challenges us to believe in his crucified love (John 3:14-16) beyond any human understanding.

          ⁸The wind blows where it pleases; you can hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.

(John 3:8)

     “The Psalm sounds, the Gospel sounds, the Divine Word sounds; it is the sound of the Spirit. This means that the Holy Spirit is invisibly present in the Word and Sacrament, to accomplish our birth.”

(St Augustine)

          ¹⁴as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so must the Son of man be lifted up ¹⁵so that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.

(John 3:14-15)

     “Herein too is typified the glory of Christ: for the height of the cross was made His glory for in that He submitted to be judged, He judged the prince of this world; for Adam died justly, because he sinned; our Lord unjustly, because He did no sin. So He overcame him, who delivered Him over to death, and thus delivered Adam from death. And in this the devil found himself vanquished, that he could not upon the cross torment our Lord into hating His murderers: but only made Him love and pray for them the more. In this way the cross of Christ was made His lifting up, and glory.”

 (Theophylus)

          ²⁹‘It is the bridegroom who has the bride; and yet the bridegroom’s friend, who stands there and listens to him, is filled with joy at the bridegroom’s voice. This is the joy I feel, and it is complete. 

(John 3:29)

     “Therefore the friend of the Bridegroom ought to stand and hear, i.e. to abide in the grace which he has received, and to hear the voice in which he rejoices. I rejoice not, he said, because of my own voice, but because of the Bridegroom’s voice. I rejoice; I in hearing, He in speaking; I am the ear, He the Word. For he who guards the bride or wife of his friend, takes care that she loves none else; if he wish to be loved himself instead of his friend, and to enjoy her who was entrusted to him, how detestable does he appear to the whole world? Yet many are the adulterers I see, who would fain possess themselves of the spouse who was bought at so great a price, and who aim by their words at being loved themselves instead of the Bridegroom.”  

(St Augustine)

What does this mean for me now: “you must be born from above”?

What is the contrast between the envy of John’s disciples and the joy of the bridegroom’s friend?

Day 4

JOHN CHAPTER FOUR: The transformation of the thirsty woman into a spring of God’s life and the Second sign in Cana of Galilee (‘desire of migrating’); the cure of a royal official’s son

     After the conversation with the Jewish man, Jesus dialogues with the Samaritan woman and gives universal reach to his ministry because this encounter helps him to see that the pagans are ready for the harvest (John 4:35). After the tensions in the Judean district (chapter 3), Jesus experiences the comforting answer of these outsiders who quench Jesus’ thirst and help him to realize that the fulfillment of his mission is real food for him:

“my food is to do the will of my Father and to complete his work!”                        (John 4: 34)

     “The woman here is the type of the Church, not yet justified, but just about to be. And it is a part of the resemblance that she comes from a foreign people. The Samaritans were foreigners, though they were neighbors and in like manner the Church was to come from the Gentiles, and to be alien from the Jewish race.”                  

(St Augustine)

     “You have no bucket, sir,” she answered, “and the well is deep: how do you get this living water?”  

(John 4:11)

     “The Jews would not even use their (Samaritans’) vessels. So it would astonish the woman to hear a Jew ask to drink out of her vessel; a thing so contrary to Jewish rule.” 

(St Augustine)

     “the water that I shall give will become a spring of water within, welling up for eternal life.”

(John 4:14)

     The Holy Spirit is the living water ‘welling up to eternal life’ in the heart that prays. It is he who teaches us to accept it at its source: Christ.

 (CCC 2652)

How am I experiencing now that “Jesus is a prophet”?

In which aspects is Jesus’ truth making me free to dialogue with him and with my brothers and sisters?

Day 5

JOHN CHAPTER FIVE: Healing of the dry man and Jesus working as his Father

     In this chapter we see Jesus’ compassion for the paralytic lying close to the pool. The water and the Spirit for being born from above (chapter 3) and the living water springing for eternal life (chapter 4) become here, Jesus himself, who is the man that restores life in the paralytic (“dry man”).

     “When Jesus saw him lie, and knew that he had been a long time in that case, He said to him, “Will you be made whole?” He does not ask this question for His own information, (this were unnecessary,) but to bring to light the great patience of the man, who for thirty eight years had sat year after year by the place, in the hope of being cured; which sufficiently explains why Christ passed by the others, and went to him.”

 (St John Chrysotom)

     The lack of respect for the Sabbath is connected with the fact that Jesus calls God his own Father. “But that only made the Jews even more intent on killing him, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he spoke of God as his own Father and so made himself God's equal.”  

(John 5:18)

     Jesus shows the Father who gives life and can raise from the dead those who hear his words. “whoever listens to my words, and believes in the one who sent me, has eternal life; without being brought to judgement such a person has passed from death to life.”

(John 5:24)

     “We see the lovers of this present transitory life so intent on its welfare, that when in danger of death, they will take any means to delay its approach, though they can not hope to drive it off altogether. If so much care and labor then is spent on gaining a little additional length of life, how ought we to strive after life eternal? And if they are thought wise, who endeavor in every way to put off death, though they can live but a few days longer; how foolish are they who so live, as to lose the eternal day?”  

(St Augustine)

     “He said not, because they live, they hear; but in consequence of hearing, they come to life again. But what is hearing, but obeying? For they who believe and do according to the true faith, live, and are not dead; whereas those who believe not, or, believing, live a bad life, and have not love, are rather to be accounted dead.”

(St Augustine)

     “Search the Scriptures; for in them you think you have eternal life: and they are that which testify to me. And you will not come to me, that you might have life.” 

(John 5:39-40)

     “He does not say, ‘For in them you have eternal life’, but, ‘For in them you think you have eternal life;’ meaning that they did not reap much fruit from the Scriptures, thinking, as they did, that they should be saved by the mere reading of them, without faith. For which reason He adds, You will not come to Me; i.e. you will not believe in Me.”

(St John Chrysostom)

In my life, what could the sleeping-mat to pick up and walk around with, be?

Is my “poring over the Scriptures” a sincere effort of “coming to Him and receiving life” from Him?

Day 6

JOHN CHAPTER SIX: Feeding the five thousand but remaining almost alone after his words

     Jesus publicly manifests himself as the new Moses who can feed the crowds and be king of Israel.

“Seeing the sign that he had done, the people said, 'This is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world.'  Jesus, realizing they were about to come and take him by force and make him king, fled back to the hills alone.”          

(John 6:14-15)

     “Baskets are used for servile work. The baskets here are the Apostles and their followers, who, though despised in this present life, are within, filled with the riches of spiritual sacraments. The Apostles too are represented as baskets, because, through them, the doctrine of the Trinity was to be preached in the four parts of the world.”  

(Alcuin)

     As with Israel during the desert, the people murmured against Jesus because those did not know who gave them bread and these don’t know now who gives them the living bread. “It was not Moses…it is my Father who gives you the bread from heaven, the true bread”    

(John 6:32)

     Jesus’ argument with the people led them to abandon their discipleship after his Eucharistic discourse, but it evokes Peter’s confession of faith: 'Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the message of eternal life, and we believe; we have come to know that you are the Holy One of God.'

(John 6:68-69)

What does it mean for me now “do not work for food that goes bad but work for food that endures for eternal life”?

What is my actual answer to Jesus’ question: “do you want to go away too?” How does it compare with Peter’s?

Sunday Readings

28th Sunday in Ordinary Time

1^st Reading: Isaiah 25:6-10

Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 23 - I shall live in the house of the Lord all the days of my life

2^nd Reading: Philippians 4:12-14, 19-20

Gospel: Matthew 22:1-14

Read a reflection on this Sunday's readings by Fr. Dara O'Brian, a Verbum Dei Missionary Priest. Go to our Inspiration Online page.