The Holy Prophet Jeremiah (625-585 BC); Coronation of Pochaiv Icon of the Mother of God (1773); Passing into Eternal Life (1951) of Blessed Klymentii (Clement) Sheptytsky, Archimandrite of the Studites and Confessor
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Acts 4:13-22; John 5:17-24
Christ is risen! Truly, He is risen!
We may ask where in the Gospels does Jesus claim divinity? St. John’s Gospel is filled with references, teachings and proclamations of divinity. Today’s Gospel lesson starts with one such claim, which we often take for granted: that God is Jesus’ Father. No Jew would ever dare claim God as Father. This would be considered presumptuous and grasping at the Divine. To claim that someone is your father means that you come from them and that you share a common nature. Since you share the same nature you are then capable of living and acting just like your father. Being the first born means that you receive from the father status, blessing and inheritance. The Jews understood Jesus’ claim and for this reason, they wanted to kill him.
Jesus could have responded to the Jews: “You are mistaken, for I only meant God is my Father in s spiritual symbolic sense. Don’t get so upset.” But he did not say these things. Just as with the Eucharist when people were scandalized at his teaching, Jesus did not recant or nuance his teaching, so too with his divine identity. Instead, Jesus responds by proclaiming ‘Truly, Truly I say to you…’ in other words, ’what I’m about to say is not negotiable or up for discussion.’ For the Son receives from the Father all that the Father is and able to do including the power of life and judgment. Jesus makes it clear that not only is nice to honour the Son but if we do not honour the Son we do not honour the Father. Not only is Jesus claiming to be like God, but that he is “Light from Light, True God from true God…” Everything that the Father is the Son is also and those who hear him, believe him and accept him will have eternal life. This divine eternal life is what Jesus wants to share with us every time we come to the receive the Holy Eucharist: “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you;” (John 6:53).
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