From the responsorial psalm: “A shield before me is God, who saves the upright of heart; A just judge is God, a God who punishes day by day. O Lord, my God, in you I take refuge.”
A reading from the holy Gospel according to John (Jn 7:40-53, today’s readings)
So the guards went to the chief priests and Pharisees, who asked them, “Why did you not bring him?” The guards answered, “Never before has anyone spoken like this man.” So the Pharisees answered them, “Have you also been deceived? Have any of the authorities or the Pharisees believed in him? But this crowd, which does not know the law, is accursed.”
The people react to Jesus in various ways as they hear him teach. Some say that he is the Prophet; others, that he is the Messiah. The chief priests and Pharisees ask why the guards did not bring Jesus with them. They answer that they have never heard anyone speak like him, and the Pharisees criticize them for being deceived. Only Nicodemus defends Jesus, saying it is just to hear him before he is judged. Just as Jeremiah was “like a trusting lamb led to slaughter” as people plotted against him, Jesus faced the rejection of the Pharisees and other skeptics who questioned which town the Messiah would come from. Jesus presents the truth to every person he encounters; whether they accept the truth of his divinity results in unity or division. John emphasizes this by noting the response of the Pharisees: “Then each went to his own house.”
God, guide me today to trust in your justice and judgment. Help me uphold what I know to be true, especially when truth is challenged or dismissed, because small truths matter and begin and end in your Truth. The guards in the Gospel failed to bring Jesus to the Pharisees because they had never heard anyone speak like him. Despite the guards’ witness to the truths Jesus spoke, the Pharisees rejected this, continuing to live outside of the reality of Jesus’ divinity: “Have you also been deceived?” they ask. Strengthen my faith; give me the grace to stand firm in the truth—the embodiment of truth in the person of Christ. O searcher of heart and soul, O just God, I take refuge in you.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.