The Father is in me and I am in the Father – Jn 10:31-42
In the second half of Lent, the Gospels tell us more and more about attempts to kill the Lord Jesus. In today's Gospel we read that the enemies tried to stone Him - because He said, " the Father is in me and I am in the Father.".
It is unusual to observe how much the Lord Jesus - so hated by them - fights for them, fights for their good. After all, he came from his Father to save everyone, not just some.
In today's Gospel, the Lord Jesus uses this pedagogical method twice, which consists in having the child take a bitter medicine which is served to the child along with sugar.
You have seen, he tells them, many of my good deeds that come from the Father. But they, yes, do not deny that they have seen many good works done by Jesus. But they deny that they come from the Father. The fact that Jesus came from the Father and that all His deeds and words come from the Father arouses their deepest opposition. In short, they recognize sugar as sweet, they recognize Jesus as doing many good deeds, but they absolutely cannot agree that his good deeds come from His Father. For they know that to acknowledge this would be the same as to acknowledge that he is equal to God, and that this thought seems blasphemy to them.
The Lord Jesus rightly said to them during one of his earlier disputes: " I came in the name of my Father, but you do not accept me; yet if another comes in his own name, you will accept him." (cf. Jn 5:43).
Because pointing to the good he was doing had no effect, the Lord Jesus fights for them from a different side. He points to the text of the Psalm which says that even they, ordinary people, are capable of some real participation in God. Why, then, he asks them, they reject in advance his testimony that "the Father is in me and I am in the Father”? Unfortunately, this attempt to reach out to their hearts and minds was also unsuccessful.
It is a great mystery that sometimes even God himself may lose the fight with us for our good.
Until Tomorrow
fr. george