It
is difficult to put ourselves in the place of the people in the Gospel
accounts. We have the advantage of hindsight and the testimony of not
only the Gospel writers, but also the testimony that Jesus is indeed the
incarnation of God, who was risen three days after being crucified.
Today’s
Gospel reading presents this. The Pharisees, who were beholden to the
ancient laws, held steadfast to their belief that one person cannot
validly testify for himself; rather, a testimony must be made in the
same way by two men to be verified. In their eyes, Jesus was there
alone, claiming that He is the “light of the world” and that whoever
follows Him will never be in darkness.
This
belief system is still prevalent today. Individuals who make
far-reaching statements about themselves are branded as boastful, or
even worse, are thought of as lunatics. From where we stand, we really
cannot judge the Pharisees as being crazy people, though many of us
speak of them in that way while looking back through the context of
history.
Try
to place yourselves in the sandals of the Pharisees, who not only heard
Jesus talk about being the light of the world, but then went on to
state that whatever he says is also the words of his Father who sent
him, thus making it a valid testimony of two people. We would have
probably called for this man to be institutionalized like many
rebellious individuals of modern times.
It
is not right for us to criticize the Pharisees for not accepting Jesus’
divinity, particularly if we don’t always accept this today. After all,
the Pharisees hadn’t seen Jesus rise from the dead and appear to
thousands. None of those things had happened yet. On the other hand, we
have the Gospel accounts of the Passion and Resurrection. We have the
accounts in Acts. We have the writings of Saint Paul. Yet, there are
times when we have our doubts about faith in Jesus. It is more important
for us to stand firm in our belief in Jesus than to judge the
uninformed, often using the term “Pharisees” when we do.
James Hoffman
Compliance Officer
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