John 10: 31-42, (Friday, March 14, 2008)

The people are trying to stone Jesus Christ for the sin of blasphemy. He is claiming that he is “I Am” i.e. he is God. For them, there is nothing in him that says he is the Messiah they have been expecting. They know his parents, they know about his birth, they know every bit of his human history. All these do not match up to their expectations of the messiah.

In this gospel, Jesus Christ is saying to them, do not just believe me because of my talk, look around and see the works I have done. Are these works not speaking for themselves. In our Christian journey, they got to be a point we must stop do the talking, and let the works we do speak for us. It does not make any point if I preach about the need to help the poor, if people can see us as a church helping the poor. The works of Jesus, made many people to believe in him. Rather than tell the people what the bible says about Jesus Christ, let us begin to live lives in which people would see Jesus in us.

How can you be Christ-like today?

John 8: 51-59, (Thursday, March 13, 2008)

Jesus Christ reveals himself to the people as “I Am.” They were very familiar with God’s revelation of himself to Moses as the “I Am.” For them, Jesus must be going crazy to think of himself as God. Jesus is making so many assertions that they are finding uncomfortable. He is telling them that if they keep the word, they will never die. How can they make sense of this?

Abraham kept the word, and for that it was credited to him of all righteousness. The prophets kept the word and that is the reason they continued to be the messengers of God. But these all died. For them, Jesus is making a very illogical assertion. What they failed to understand is that good logic does not always translate into good theology, neither does the word of God follow human logic. Jesus Christ was referring to the eternal life that he offers. For Christian people, death is not a total annihilation but a transition into a new life. It is in this sense that Jesus Christ was speaking to them. It is this eternal life that Jesus Christ offers everyone of us that keeps his word.

How can we keep the word of God?

John 8: 31-42, (Wednesday, March 12, 2008)

In the course of my ministry, I have come across many people who have been enslaved to sin. These are generally good people who strive to do better but they cannot. They find themselves caught up in a sin they very much enjoy and at the same time they really want to get out of. They cannot get out of the sin because the sin has held them bondage. There also have been instances where by the repercussions of getting out are very grave. It is very easy to put ourselves in situations like these. Many people who get addicted to drugs will tell me they wanted to just try it once and then they got hooked up. I have also heard something like this, “I just wanted to have casual sex with her and now she has turned to gum, she wouldn’t let me alone.”

As Christian people, Jesus has liberated us from the slavery of sin and has given us the freedom of righteousness. If we turn around and enslave ourselves, we would be ejected from his family. A slave has no permanent residency in the Master’s house. However, sons and daughters do. As Jesus tells us in John 1:12 that by virtue of our belief in him, we are his sons and daughters, let us maintain this identity.

In what ways am I a prisoner to sin?

John 8: 21-30, (Tuesday, March 11, 2008)

How do you overcome all the challenges of the world? How do you navigate this hostile world? How do you relate with difficult people in your life? Jesus Christ faced with a lot of difficulties and challenges knew where he belongs, not of this world, but above. He was able to show that he is beyond the things that try to hold him back in this world. As a Christian people, we do not belong to this world. We belong to something above. If we believe this fact, we would be careful how we respond to things that come our way daily. Our problem sometimes is that we drag ourselves below. When someone who is not a Christian is trying to make trouble with you and make life difficult for you, do you stoop low and engage them, or do you show them through your actions that you belong to something that is greater. Jesus Christ did not engage the people in useless arguments. He knew his identity, he stated it and he lived it. We are told at the end of today’s gospel that, “Be he spoke this way, many came to believe in him.” If we being to live like Jesus rather than engaging in fruitless arguments with non-believers, we will be able to draw many people into the family of Jesus.

How will you respond to attacks today?

John 8: 1-11 (Monday, March 10, 2008)

“GO AND FROM NOW ON, DO NOT SIN ANY MORE”

Jesus Christ uses these powerful words. These words of healing; these words of consolation; these words of challenge in the gospel of today. Let us for a moment imagine how this woman felt when she heard Jesus say to her, “neither do I condemn you.” This is a woman that was about to be stoned to death. She committed one of the worst crimes in Jewish law. The three capital sins in Jewish law are Idolatry, murder and adultery. These sins were punishable by death.

Adultery simply means unfaithfulness. In Christian tradition, we refer to this sin of unfaithfulness as Mortal sin. When we are unfaithful to God, we have committed a mortal sin. Mortal sin is a turning away from God and choosing something else; it is a rejection of Jesus. Mortal sin is deadly, because it separates us from God. There are three things that make a sin mortal: it is a grave matter, you know it is a sin and you willfully go ahead to commit it. At one point or the other in our lives, we have fallen into this kind of sin. And some people are living in this sin, separating themselves from Jesus Christ. This period of lent, it is an opportunity for us to turn once more towards God and turn away from our unfaithfulness.
In what ways have you been unfaithful to God?