Friday of the Fifth Week of Lent

Today's Mass Readings

If you have the chance, take some time to go back and look through the previous Fridays’ readings from this Lenten season. You will discover that this is at least the fourth time this Lent that people have tried to arrest or kill Jesus. Thus far, it seems, Jesus stands as the traditional hero in an action film, just managing to escape from tight spots to the relief of adoring fans. Jesus is working against evil and going around doing good, and all the while managing to stay one step ahead of his enemies. Attentive readers may well wonder, though, how long this fortune can last. If the people really are out to get Jesus, won’t they succeed at some point? Most Fridays of the year (barring a solemnity or other feast day), the lectionary readings foreshadow Good Friday. Often, the readings will describe feelings of anguish, despair, and sadness, in remembrance of the cross on which Jesus died. Perhaps today, this Friday of the week before Holy Week, the readings are most pitched to foreshadow Good Friday – the day when Jesus will not escape death.

The Old Testament reading (Jeremiah 20:10-13) depicts a person who is deliberately being framed, and he is aware of that fact. What hurts is not only that he appears to be falsely accused, but that it is his supposed FRIENDS that are the ones doing the denouncing. Despite all that, Jeremiah is able to proclaim that God is there even when no one else seems to be supportive.

This reading sets us up for the gospel reading (John 10:31-42) – for here we find that Jesus is, in fact, being denounced in ways similar to what Jeremiah suggested. And now, note, it is not merely the scribes and Pharisees that are out to get Jesus, but more generally, the “Jews”, Jesus’ own kinsmen. They say he is being blasphemous; he maintains he is doing good. They say he can’t be the Son of God; he asks them why they should be uncomfortable with him being consecrated the Son of God, since after all God’s own word in the Bible names people as “gods”.

Of course, there are those who believe in him, and who follow him, as the gospel suggests at the very end of today’s passage. But yet, as Jeremiah’s writing reminds us, even Jesus’ supposed friends will betray him. The crowds that love him one week will have disappeared by the next. Only a very few friends will hang around after Jesus’ arrest – and even then, as with Peter’s denial, their true friendship seems spotty.

Again and again in the readings, Jesus has shown us how God’s life and God’s vision, which is shown to us in Jesus’ own life, is at odds with the world. They just don’t get him. They don’t agree with him; they think he is blasphemous. No matter what Jesus says in his own defense, the majority of the crowds will not like him. That will lead him to the cross, which is the journey we will follow as well next week. Let us, then, reflect on how we might be good friends and witnesses for Jesus, rather than following with the crowds.

- Jana M. Bennett