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Gospel: John 8: 21-30
Jesus said to the Pharisees:
“I am going away and you will look for me,
but you will die in your sin.
Where I am going you cannot come.”
So the Jews said,
“He is not going to kill himself, is he,
because he said, ‘Where I am going you cannot come’?”
He said to them, “You belong to what is below,
I belong to what is above.
You belong to this world,
but I do not belong to this world.
That is why I told you that you will die in your sins.
For if you do not believe that I AM,
you will die in your sins.”
So they said to him, “Who are you?”
Jesus said to them, “What I told you from the beginning.
I have much to say about you in condemnation.
But the one who sent me is true,
and what I heard from him I tell the world.”
They did not realize that he was speaking to them of the Father.
So Jesus said to them,
“When you lift up the Son of Man,
then you will realize that I AM,
and that I do nothing on my own,
but I say only what the Father taught me.
The one who sent me is with me.
He has not left me alone,
because I always do what is pleasing to him.”
Because he spoke this way, many came to believe in him.
The Gospel of the Lord.
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“You will die in your sins.”
That’s a grim promise.
But Jesus is reading the hearts of these men standing before him. They do not see him as the “way” to God; as the “way” to happiness; or as the “way” to anything good.
Rather, they see him as “in” the way.
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Jesus is “in” the way of their religion.
He’s “in” the way of their egos.
He’s “in” the way of their convenient lifestyles.
He’s upsetting their plans, flipping tables, and turning their belief system upside down, while dining with tax collectors, forgiving sinners, and breaking the Sabbath.
On Palm Sunday we will see the scribes and Pharisees’ frustrated desire to remove Jesus from their way finally begin to unfold.
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As Christians, Jesus is always “the” way to anything good, which is why we should seek ways to strengthen our relationship with him.
In what ways can I draw closer to the Lord or better understand his Word?
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As the Psalmist reminds us, “LORD, your Word is a light for my steps and a lamp for my path.”
A path that leads to life in abundance.
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Image credits: (1) CL Church Leaders (2) Jesus, Wikipedia (3) Live Science