“His time had not yet come” - Friday 4th of Lent

Liturgic day: Friday 4th of Lent

Gospel text (Jn 7,1-2.10.14.25-30): Jesus went around Galilee; He would not go about in Judea because the Jews wanted to kill him. Now the Jewish feast of the Tents was at hand. But after his brothers had gone to the festival, He also went up, not publicly but in secret.

Some of the people of Jerusalem said, “Is this not the man they want to kill? And here He is speaking freely, and they don't say a word to him? Can it be that the rulers know that this is really the Christ? Yet we know where this man comes from; but when the Christ appears, no one will know where he comes from”. So Jesus announced in a loud voice in the Temple court where He was teaching, “You say that you know me and know where I come from! I have not come of myself; I was sent by the One who is true, and you don't know him. I know him for I come from him and he sent me”. They would have arrested him, but no one laid hands on him because his time had not yet come.

Comment: Fr. Josep VALL i Mundó (Barcelona, Spain)

“His time had not yet come”

Today, evangelist John tells us that Jesus' time “had not yet come” (Jn 7:30). He is referring to the hour of the Cross, to the precise and precious time of his submission for the sins of the entire Humankind. His time has not yet come, but it is getting very close. It will be Good Friday when our Lord will bring to its end his Celestial Father's will, while feeling - as Cardinal Wojtyla wrote - all “the burden of that hour, when the Servant of Yahweh must accomplish Isaiah's prophecy, by pronouncing his “Yes””.

Christ - in his continuous priestly longing - spoke many times about this definite and determining hour (Mt 26:45; Mk 14:35; Lk 22:53; Jn 7:30; 12:27; 17:1). The Lord's life will be completely dominated by the supreme hour and He will long for it with all his heart: “But, there is a baptism with which I must be baptized, and how great is my anguish until it is accomplished” (Lk 12:50). And “before the feast of Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to pass from this world to the Father. He loved his own in the world and he loved them to the end” (Jn 13:1). That Friday, our Redeemer shall hand over into the Father's hands his spirit and, as of that moment, his mission already completed shall become the mission of the Church and of all its members, pushed by the Holy Spirit.

After Gethsemane, after his death on the Cross and his Resurrection, the life initiated by Jesus “underlies all history” (Catechism of the Church, n. 1165). Life, work, prayer, Christ's submission is being now made present in his Church: it is also the hour of the Lord's Body; his hour becomes our hour, the time to join him in the prayer of Gethsemane, “always awake - as Pascal asserted - by his side, in his agony, till the end of time”. It is the hour to act as living members of Christ. This is why “The prayer of the Hour of Jesus always remains his own, just as his Passion “once for all” remains ever present in the liturgy of his Church” (Catechism of the Church, n. 2746).

Source: www.evangeli.net