Posted by The WORD in other words (2011) by Fr Cyril Ortega SVD – Divine Word College of Abra
Thursday 4th Week of Lent
Have you ever testified in court? What was that experience like?
One way to read and understand the entire Gospel of John is to see it as a series of legal confrontations! The language of testimony and judgment appears in many contexts. This is nothing new in the Bible. For example, much of the Old Testament is framed this way with mountains and hills called as witnesses in a dispute between God and Israel!
In the Gospel of John, the background of the material arises from disputes between the early Christian community and the Jewish community which was beginning to expel Christians for their beliefs about Jesus and his teachings. This gives rise to a large scale “dispute” on the “truth” about Jesus and about what he teaches. To bolster the “truth” about Jesus and his teachings, “testimonies” are invoked ( in today’s Gospel text): John the Baptist (v. 33), Elijah (v.35), the works of Jesus (v. 36), God the Father (v. 37), the Scriptures (v. 39) and Moses (v. 46).
After the presentation of “testimonies” or “witnesses” comes the resulting “judgment” on those who refuse to accept the “truth” on Jesus’ testimony.
Our situation today is different and similar at the same time! The dispute is not between Christians and Jews but between belief and non-belief in a society that rejects faith as a given and chooses a secular “scientific materialism” as the given against which Christianity must make its appeal! The underlying ethical implications of this are enormous!
For example, the “testimony” of our own lives and our willingness to stand up for the “consistent ethic of life” in contrast to the “culture of death” and “violence” will be powerful. The poor, the homeless, the unborn, the migrant, the elderly and disabled will be the first to suffer from this secular morality but soon others will find themselves being “selected out.”
The primary reason and factor this situation arose, is that we, Christians, have failed to provide convincing “testimony” for the truth that is Jesus Christ and his teachings, and “judgment” is against us as well as against the philosophy that seeks to expel faith from public life!
And as a last point of reflection: What difference does Jesus’ testimony make in your life?
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