Better understanding the Gospel

with Marie-Noëlle Thabut

GOSPEL according to Saint John 10:27-30

At that time, Jesus declared:

27 “My sheep listen to my voice;

I know them, and they follow me.

28 I give them eternal life; they shall never perish, and no one shall snatch them out of my hand.

29 My Father, who gave them to me, is greater than all, and no one can snatch them out of the Father’s hand.

30 The Father and I are one.

IF YOU ARE CHRIST, SAY SO

We may not realize how explosive the few sentences of Jesus recorded here were; the Jews, for their part, reacted very strongly, since if we read just a few more lines, Saint John tells us: “The Jews again picked up stones to stone him.” What did he say that was so extraordinary? In reality, he didn't initiate this speech; he was simply responding to a question. Saint John tells us that he was in the Temple in Jerusalem, under the colonnade known as the “Portico of Solomon,” and that the Jews, determined to corner him, gathered around him and asked: “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly.” It's a kind of ultimatum, along the lines of “yes or no? Are you the Christ (that is, the Messiah)?” "Decide to say it clearly, once and for all." Instead of answering "yes, I am the Messiah," Jesus speaks of his sheep, but it amounts to the same thing! For the people of Israel readily compared themselves to a flock: "We are the people of God, the flock he leads" is a phrase that recurs several times in the psalms. In particular, in this Sunday's psalm: "He has made us, and we are his; we are his people, his flock"; a flock often mistreated, abused, or poorly guided by the kings who succeeded one another on David's throne... but it was known that the Messiah would be an attentive and devoted shepherd. So, quite naturally, to affirm that he is indeed the Messiah, Jesus borrows the familiar language of the shepherd and the sheep. And his listeners understood this perfectly. But Jesus takes them much further; Speaking of his sheep, he dares to declare: “I give them eternal life; they shall never perish, no one shall snatch them out of my hand”… a very audacious statement: who then can give eternal life? As for the expression “to be in the hand of God,” it was common in the Old Testament; in Jeremiah, for example: “Yes, as clay is in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel!” (Jeremiah 18:16). Or again in the book of Qoheleth (Ecclesiastes): “The righteous and the wise, and their deeds, are in the hand of God.” (Ecclesiastes 9:1). Or finally, in the Book of Deuteronomy: “I kill and I make alive; I strike, I heal; no one can deliver out of my hand.” (Deuteronomy 32:39), and a little further on: “All the holy ones are in your hand.” (Deut 33:3). This is precisely what Jesus is referring to, since he immediately adds: “No one can snatch anything out of the Father’s hand”; he thus clearly equates the two phrases “my hand” and “the hand of the Father.” He doesn’t stop there; on the contrary, he persists and affirms, as we would say today: “The Father and I are ONE.” This is even more audacious than saying “yes, I am indeed the Christ, that is to say, the Messiah”: he outright claims to be equal to God, to be God himself. For his interlocutors, this was intellectually unacceptable.

He came home, but his family didn't receive him.

They were expecting a Messiah who would be a man; they couldn't imagine him being God. For faith in the one God was so strongly affirmed in Israel that it was practically impossible for devout Jews to believe in the divinity of Jesus! Those who recited the Jewish profession of faith every day, "Shema Yisrael," "Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one," could not bear to hear Jesus declare, "The Father and I are one." This perhaps explains why the fiercest opposition to Jesus came from the religious leaders. Their reaction was immediate; as they prepared to stone him, they accused him: "What you have just said is blasphemy, because you, a man, claim to be God." Once again, Jesus encountered the incomprehension of those who, nevertheless, awaited the Messiah with the greatest fervor. Here we find a recurring theme of meditation in John: “He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him.” The entire mystery of Christ’s person is contained within this, and also, subtly woven into it, his trial. And yet, all is not lost; Jesus faced incomprehension, even hatred; he was persecuted, eliminated, but some believed in him. John himself states this clearly in the Prologue of the Gospel: “He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him… but to those who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God” (John 1:11-12). And we know that it is thanks to these that the revelation continued to spread. From this small remnant was born the people of believers: “My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life.” Despite the opposition Jesus encounters here, despite the already foreseeable tragic outcome, there is undeniably a language of victory: "No one will snatch them out of my hand"... "No one can snatch them out of the Father's hand": we hear here an echo of another phrase of Jesus reported by the same evangelist: "Take heart, I have overcome the world." Throughout history, Jesus' disciples have needed to rely on this certainty: "No one can snatch them out of the Father's hand."