2020 Lenten Devotional March 31, 2020 - Tuesday of the Fifth Week of Lent

Gospel Reading:  Nm 21:4-9; Ps 102; John 8:21-30 

The readings for today call to mind the tensions of the Lenten season—even after the Lord has led the Israelites out of Egypt, their human fears overtake them and darken their freedom. On the one hand there is the promise—that the Lord will walk with them and be their God; on the other there is their all-too-human second guessing—why, then, don’t we have more food and water, why, then, does the Lord seem to “hide his face?” How hard to wait in the darkness of what we cannot know. How hard to wait when what lies before us does not make sense from our human perspective. In Moses’ last speeches, he reminds the Israelites that the choice before us is always one of life or death.

In John’s gospel the Pharisees have unwittingly chosen death. Like the Israelites, the Pharisees are preoccupied by their own needs and desires. Like the disciples, they do not want to answer the question Christ poses: who do you say I am? John says many came to believe in him because of the way he spoke, which is to speak “only what the Father taught me” and with the voice of the Father.  Now, towards the end of the Lenten season, may we hear that voice, which is the voice of the eternal in the darkness, the voice that Moses hears and Job hears in the Whirlwind. May we, too, hear that voice, and answer.