The Cross and Death of Jesus Are God's Wisdom

Homily for Thursday in the Fourth Week of Lent

Today the gospel passage that we proclaim is a continuation of the interchange between Jesus and the Jews who were seeking to kill him because he had violated the law of the Sabbath and had claimed to be the son of God. Today we hear him speak of the difference between human testimony – namely; the testimony of John – and divine testimony which is divine wisdom. Of the two, human testimony is the easier to accept. However, with hearts open to the voice of God, divine wisdom is obviously the greater.

The difference between human and divine wisdom is that we generate the one, God gives us the other. Faith, then, is a word spoken to me by Another, the Eternal Word, whose impact strikes me square between the eyes as something I could never myself speak. And it lays an obligation upon me. We think philosophy. We receive faith.

The Jesus tells the Jews that while the emissaries they sent to John came away convinced that he testified to the truth, he is armed with a testimony greater than John’s. Because he himself is this truth, standing incarnate before them. Yes, John was a burning and shining lamp, but the incandescence of Jesus shines infinitely brighter. Still they won’t believe, averting their gaze from the glory that overflows the universe.

St. Ignatius of Antioch recounts in one of his letters: “when I heard some people saying, ‘if I don’t find it in the original document, I don’t believe it in the Gospel.’ I answered them: ‘it is Jesus Christ who is the original document. The inviolable archives are his cross and death and his resurrection and the faith that came by him.’”

One can hardly find a better footnote to impress upon the mind the centrality of the One who came to perform his Father’s works. Let that be our testimony as well.