Saturday of the Fifth Week of Lent
To exit the bunker
Now many of the Jews who had come to Mary and seen what he had done began to believe in him. But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done. So the chief priests and the Pharisees convened the Sanhedrin and said, “What are we going to do? This man is performing many signs. If we leave him alone, all will believe in him, and the Romans will come and take away both our land and our nation.” So from that day on they planned to kill him. Jn 11,45-46.53
Jesus had just performed the miracle of the resurrection of Lazarus and “Now many of the Jews who had come to Mary and seen what he had done began to belive in him”. Then
the priests and the pharisees, having gathered the council, ask “What are we going to do?” and they decide to condemn him, to avoid problems with the power of Rome. The miracle is an event which calls for a position, you accept or decline it, there are no alternatives. It poses a question: “Who is Jesus of Nazareth?”. There are only two answers: either the Christ expected since long time or a charlatan. In other words: he is all or nothing, a mid way in between cannot exists. It is not easy to refuse the miracle because there are no logical reasons to do it, but it is not easy even to accept it because, at those times as presently, it completely undermines the foundations of our existence. Nearly all men live in a well protected house, which they themselves have built and the walls of which are named well-being, habits, social and spiritual life, which puts them in contact with the “transcendent”. Each of the four walls reflects the personality of the one who built it and, being the man a thinking animal, it always responds to a certain criterion of human logic. Instead, the miracle reflects the personality of God and it follows a divine logic, which cannot be understood if we remain prisoners within our four walls. When Abraham asked to the Lord why he was forced to grow old and sad without children, the Lord took him outside and said: ” Look up at the sky and count the stars, if you can. Just so”, he added “shall your descendants be” (Gn 15,5). To Peter, when fishing near to the shore without taking anything, the Lord said: “Run away into the deep water” (Lk 5,4), which means get out of your safe zone. Also to us, when we agreed to come out of our securities, marvellous things always happened and we have seen miracles. Help us, Lord, not to lock us in the bunker of our material securities and spiritual certainties; help us go outside, where we will be deprived of any protection, but we will at last meet with you.