Wednesday, May 25, 2005
CHRIST IS RISEN!
The Feast of Mid-Pentecost
1st Vespers Mid-Pentecost: Micah 4:2-3;5:2-5, 8 Epistle: 2 Corinthians 4:6-15 Gospel: St. John 7:14-30
St. John 7:14-30, especially vss. 25, 26: "Now some of them from Jerusalem
said, 'Is this not He Whom they seek to kill? But look! He speaks boldly, and they say nothing to Him." Today's reading
adds three more reasons to those examined yesterday why people resist submitting to Christ: 1) holding assumptions that
militate against belief in Christ as God and Savior; 2) being convinced that while the Lord Jesus was kind and insightful,
He actually was deluded or insidiously insane; and 3) being satisfied with one's existing beliefs and therefore setting one's
heart against the truth that is in Christ Jesus.
In today's world many extol education as the cultural engine for creating openness and tolerance to new ideas. The truth is
that much which poses as education actually is training in contemporary bias and prejudice. "Popular wisdom" in this
century accepts the "truth" of the theory of evolution and upholds it unquestioningly as scientific fact. Great leaders among
the "educated" will not even consider the validity of other alternatives. Hence the luminaries of the day suggest the
teaching of creation is simply blind, misinformed, religious bigotry.
The Lord Jesus faced just these same sort of closed, "educated" assumptions. Religious authorities in the first century
accepted the standards and "givens" provided in the training of the official schools of the day. Jesus of Nazareth was a
shock to such people, as were His Apostles after Him (Acts 4:13). The Jewish teachers marveled, "How does this Man
know letters, having never studied?" (Jn. 7:15). In many other places in the Gospels, evidence of shock at the Lord's
wisdom abounds (e.g., Mt. 13:54; Lk. 20:26), for regularly He silenced His educated opponents with His answers and
questions (Mt. 22:32).
It was unthinkable that anyone not trained under famous Rabbinic instructors could possibly have true knowledge of Holy
Scripture. Yet the educated were confronted with a Man of Wisdom. Let us not quail before the experts. Let the Lord's
answer be ours: "My doctrine is not Mine, but His Who sent Me" (vs. 16).
In St. John 7:19 the Lord poses a question which seems to appear out of the immediate context: "Did not Moses give you
the law, yet none of you keeps the law? Why do you seek to kill Me?" No direct words had been said about killing Him,
yet He brings up the plan and potential as if it were common knowledge. Clues concerning a deadly opposition do appear
earlier in this Gospel (7:1,11; 5:16; 3:14). It would be fair to say there was a veneer of polite tolerance and acceptance for
Him, while underneath far more sinister forces were at work.
The Lord understood the social processes of the time, for He knew "what was in man" (Jn. 2:25). Notice the response
when He stripped away the veneer by His question about killing Him. They accused Him of being demon-possessed, and
flared up in "innocence," "Who is seeking to kill You?" (Jn 7:20). Do you see? They thought Him crazy and dangerously
deluded. Later the High Priest would say "that it was expedient that one man should die for the people" (Jn. 18:14).
Dostoevsky placed this theme of "dangerous insanity" in the mouth of the Grand Inquisitor in The Brothers Karamazov. In
the past century, likewise, Marxist ideology vigorously took a similar position against the Church and Christian Faith.
Do men harden against the Faith? Study Romans 1:20, 21 along with vs. 28 of today's reading. Something in the people
who resist the Lord knows that He is true and comes from above, and yet, in darkness they "do not know." In the end,
"they sought to take Him" (vs. 30).
I have no life, no light, no joy or wisdom; no strength except in Thee, O God. Because of my unrighteousness I dare not
raise my eyes to Thee." Archimandrite Sophrony Sakharov
