There is within me a me which is both greater
than me and at the same time authentically myself. One way of approaching this mysterious fact would be by what is called the paradox of grace. The more God gives me his grace (i.e. himself), the more I am myself.
- Tensions, by H. A. Williams (The true self! Do you know this
experience?.)
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Exodus 32:7-14; Psalm 106:19-20, 21-22, 23 John 5:31-47 Jesus said to the Jews:
‘Were I to testify on my own
behalf,
my testimony would not be valid;
but there is another witness who can speak on my behalf,
and I know that his testimony is valid.
You sent messengers to John,
and he gave his testimony to the truth:
not that I depend on human testimony;
no, it is for your salvation that I speak of this.
John was a lamp alight and shining
and for a time you were content to enjoy the light that he gave.
But my testimony is greater than John’s:
the works my Father has given me to carry out,
these same works of mine
testify
that the Father has sent me.
Besides, the Father who sent me
bears witness to me himself.
You have never heard his voice,
you have never seen his shape,
and his word finds no home in you
because you do not
believe in the one he has sent.
‘You study the scriptures,
believing that in them you have eternal life;
now these same scriptures testify to me,
and yet you refuse to come to me for life!
As for human approval, this means nothing to me.
Besides, I know you
too well: you have no love of God in you.
I have come in the name of my Father
and you refuse to accept me;
if someone else comes in his own name
you will accept him.
How can you believe,
since you look to one another for approval
and are not concerned
with the approval that comes from the one God?
Do not imagine that I am going to accuse you before the Father:
you place your hopes on Moses,
and Moses will be your accuser.
If you really believed him
you would
believe me too,
since it was I that he was writing about;
but if you refuse to believe what he wrote,
how can you believe what I say?’
Reflection on the Scriptures
Back in the distant 1950’s I recall watching a program( hosted by a very funny man from Nebraska, Johnny Carson), called "Who Do You Trust?” The quiz show pitted husband against wife, giving the husband the first
choice of answering the question posed, or trusting his wife to know the answer and punting the question to her. Well, it was the 50’s. Maybe we’ve come a long way. So how does today’s Gospel fit in here? The overarching theme seems to be who do you trust, Jesus or idols? In this rather detailed scripture, Jesus seems to be coming up with all the
reasons his hearers don’t trust in him, but in things they can see and touch. One Golden Calf in history. That "burning and shining lamp", John the Baptist (all well and good but John only pointed the way to Jesus whom they do not seem to believe). Even Moses.The praise of men. Even the Scriptures which can be searched to prove one’s own point, not necessarily the truth. All idols, all seemed more trustworthy than The Way, The Truth and The Life. A few years ago I had the opportunity of visiting the monastery which housed the famous monk, Thomas Merton. Over the arch leading into the monastery and chapel were the words: “God Alone.” All this has me considering my idols. Anxiety over our
country’s situation has me turning to news reports too often. Anxiety in general - I’m not in charge, why worry as if I must control events and outcomes? I'm sure we can all, with a little searching, find the ways we lack trust in Jesus. Each day gives me innumerable opportunities to renew my trust in Jesus. As the poet Rumi said long ago, “Try something different: surrender." -by Suzanne Braddock
The Bodily Resurrection of Jesus, by James Arraj
https://innerexplorations.com/catchtheomor/resurrecion.htm Inner Growth Publications, 2007.
Chapter 4: The Resurrection of Jesus Visions and the Resurrection When we take these modern visions of Christ as a whole, we find no
compelling reason to interpret them as other than interior visions, and while Wiebe will marshal arguments by which he tries to show that these visions could be similar to the resurrection appearances, the general impression remains that what the New Testament writers were trying to describe were what they considered outer events, and their reports do not show the characteristics of subjective perceptual alterations that we noted in these modern visions. We may argue, as Wiebe does, that such
subjective alterations were present, but not reported upon, but that is a rather weak argument. What can we conclude from this analysis of these subjective events? The resurrection stories were
written in the belief that Jesus physically appeared to his disciples, and these stories are free from the characteristic marks of subjective visions that we have been seeing. Did the reporters of these stories carefully erase these marks? That is not likely because they clearly left in place descriptions of the extraordinary qualities that the body of Jesus possessed. But we can still wonder about the distinctive character of the resurrection narratives themselves. Fitzmyer, for example, quotes V. Taylor about these stories, “Here the immediate need was assurance about a new and astounding fact. Was it true that Jesus had risen and had appeared to His own? To satisfy this clamant need single stories were enough; there was no demand for a continuous Story such as the modern man desires. Testimony, witness-bearing to the fact of the
Appearances, was the first essential for preachers and hearers alike.”41 The disciples, in other words, gave much less thought to the transmission of the details of these appearances and their physical settings than simply recording the overwhelming fact of their existence. But while this might be true it does not get to the heart of the matter. The strange nature of the appearances, themselves, which were real yet somehow breaking into this world from a deeper dimension, and demanding in
addition to an external passive seeing an active interior assent, would have made the logical expression of these appearances more difficult.
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