Two weeks from today is Good Friday! Today we feel the intensity in the plot against Jesus' life increasing as we read the scripture passages given us by the Church to read.
In the first reading from the book of Wisdom we hear of the prophecy of the shameful death that Jesus will be condemned to. This reading certainly sounds like it was written especially about Jesus. The wicked say that Jesus is obnoxious to them because he calls them on their transgressions. "He says he has knowledge of God!" We do not even like to look at him because he has the effect of censuring our thoughts. He debases us, while calling blest the destiny of the just. He boasts that God is his Father.
So, let us see if it is all true. If we condemn him to a shameful death, let us see if God is his Father, if this Father will take care of him!
They said all this because they were sure they were right and he was wrong; but it turns out that holiness always wins out and that the rewards coming to innocent souls is tremendous! (Including Resurrection from the dead!)
In the gospel passage Jesus has a brief run in with those who were carrying out the prophecy from the book of Wisdom – the religious leaders of his own day and place! Jesus again claims his origin in God his Father – and proclaims that he is here to do this Father's will. He is saying that it is true then, the prophecy that they would not know where he was from – because they did not know about, nor want to know of his origins in his Father. Either way the argument makes his persecutors angry enough to want to seize him. But it is not yet the time. Jesus hour is when Jesus says it is and not them!
Many are the troubles of the just man, but out of all of them the Lord delivers him.
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