Slavery to Sin

The passage from chapter eight of St. John’s Gospel which we proclaim today is difficult to understand because of the very first line. St. John tells us that Jesus is addressing Jews who believed in him. We ask ourselves why Jesus’ words are so harsh if he is addressing people who believed in him.

To explain this difficulty, we have to go back a little to chapter six, the chapter of St. John’s Gospel in which we find the discourse on the Body and Blood of Jesus. You might remember that while chapter six begins with more than 5,000 people listening to Jesus, by the end of the chapter, the only ones left are the Twelve. Verse sixty-six of that chapter reads: “As a result of this, many [of] his disciples returned to their former way of life and no longer accompanied him” (John 6:66). It is to these Jews that Jesus is speaking in today’s passage, men who had walked away from their faith in Jesus.

They take exception to the fact that Jesus tells them they are slaves rather than free men. Their pride in the fact that they are children of Abraham has blinded them to the truth. They are now actively engaged in plotting to kill Jesus, enslaved by their lack of faith.

This reading is paired with an excerpt from the Book of Daniel about those fabled young men, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. The connection between the two readings lies in the concept of slavery. The Book of Daniel is about a time when the Jewish people were held captive by the Assyrian Empire and its king, Nebuchadnezzar.  Yet those these three young men were slaves, their faith in God was so strong that they did fear the wrath of their king. They demonstrated true freedom, freedom from the tyranny of sin and idolatry.

Like the Jews in today’s Gospel reading, many people in today’s world are so unwilling to let go of their opinions that they are enslaved by them. Jesus proclaims that true freedom lies in faith in God and in God’s will. 

In these last days of Lent, we are given the opportunity to examine our own faith, to explore God’s word and to immerse ourselves in it. As we near the feast in which we will once again renew our baptismal promises, let us recognize that true freedom comes about when we follow God’s will in our lives rather than our own.

Fr. Lawrence Jagdfeld, O.F.M., Administrator