Friday of the Fifth Week of Lent
You will be gods
The Jews again picked up rocks to stone him. Jesus answered them, “I have shown you many good works from my Father. For which of these are you trying to stone me?” The Jews answered him, “We are not stoning you for a good work but for blasphemy. You, a man, are making yourself God.” Jesus answered them, “Is it not written in your law, ‘I said, “You are gods”‘? … If I do not perform my Father’s works, do not believe me; but if I perform them …, believe the works, so that you may realize (and understand) that the Father is in me and I am in the Father.” Jn 10,31-38
“Homo homini lupus – the man is a wolf versus the man”: this is the philosophical synthesis of Thomas Hobbes, the father of the english political thought of the modern times. “Homo homini deus – the man is a god versus the man”: it could be the summary of the christian social thought. The wolf-man lives in the pack to have more strength, to hunt and attack. The god-man lives in communion with all the persons and he devotes himself to the others, but he is destined to be alone as Jesus has always been, even when he was in the crowd. “You are gods” is written in the Jewish law and Jesus reminds it today to that pack of wolves attacking him from all the sides, to stone and kill him. But what does it means “You are god “? How does a man become deus, a god for the other man? There is one only answer to this question in the Bible: to become “gods” means to become “servants”. The attribute of “servant” in the history of the salvation is the greatest, after that of “Son of God” and it is it in Jesus so much that the two words touch together: he is the “Servant of Yahweh” and the “Son of God”. The word “servant” in the history of the salvation has evolved, taking larger and larger dimensions: Abraham was a lonely servant in the service of God’s plan of salvation, Moses, to be servant of the same project, became the servant of the people of Israel. For Jesus, to be the servant of Yahweh meant to die on the cross for the salvation of every man, every time and every race. Today in our society the word “servant” has a negative meaning, referring to a person without a will and without his own plan of life, it is almost synonymous with “slave”. For the christian, however, the word “servant” has a very high meaning: it implies the recognition of the lordship of Jesus on our life and the existence of a project which the Lord has prepared for us. A project which will allow us to be fruitful in the best way with relation to the talents which we have received. For the christian, the word “servant” is synonymous with the person who puts into effect the God’s dream about him.