24 March 2026 - when you lift up the Son of Man

Today's Readings
(Audio)

I belong to what is above.
You belong to this world,
but I do not belong to this world.
That is why I told you that you will die in your sins.

Since they belonged to the world they were destined to share its death directed destiny. Decay, entropy, and eventual dissolution were the ultimate defining realities of temporal existence. Humans were subject to "the ruler of this world" (see John 12:31) unless someone greater than the one who is in the world (see First John 4:4) set them free by plugging them in to a higher reality.

For if you do not believe that I AM,
you will die in your sins.

The point was not so much that he would punish them for unbelief as it was that unbelief would prevent them from availing themselves of their one opportunity for rescue. If they did not believe that Jesus had a unique connection to the Father, or that he was stronger than the forces of darkness, they would not open themselves to allow that power to come into their own hearts and work in them. An ark had been sent for their rescue. But they had to actually get onboard. Or, better, a power greater than death and stronger than the devil had finally appeared on earth. And now they needed to welcome that power into their own hearts so as to be transformed.

So they said to him, “Who are you?”
Jesus said to them, “What I told you from the beginning.
I have much to say about you in condemnation.
But the one who sent me is true,
and what I heard from him I tell the world.”

He had been revealing the truth of his identity and the reason that he came to earth for some time by then. But the people who heard had not been a receptive audience. Jesus could have said much in condemnation about the hardness of their hearts. He could have gotten frustrated. He could have gotten mad and sought retribution. But he was too deeply rooted in his own mission and purpose for that. He was too committed to helping the world to know everything he heard from the Father.

When you lift up the Son of Man,
then you will realize that I AM,
and that I do nothing on my own,
but I say only what the Father taught me.

When the Son of Man was lifted up upon the cross the people would have to reckon with the ugliness of sin. But as they looked on him whom they had pierced they could also experience the revelation of the ever greater love of God, love that was stronger than sin, more powerful even than death itself.

The one who sent me is with me.
He has not left me alone,
because I always do what is pleasing to him.

Although Jesus would in some way feel alone on the cross, bearing the alienation of the people from the Father, he always remembered that the Father was with him. Jesus remained on the cross, not out of weakness, but out of obedience. And his last words were words of trust in the Father as he handed over his Spirit. We see in Jesus the fact that death could not overcome the connection between the Father and the Son, even when it did its worst. This was meant to convince us that the Son is who he claims so that we might come to share in this connection. The only alternative is death. And we already know how toxic the is the poison of the seraph serpents. It only gets worse from here without the divine intervention of the great I AM. 

Because he spoke this way, many came to believe in him.

May we too hear the truth in the voice of Jesus and come to believe in him more deeply, that we may more fully share in his life.

The Maranatha Singers - Lord, I Lift Your Name On High

 

23 March 2026 - stone's throw away

Today's Readings
(Audio)

“Teacher, this woman was caught 
in the very act of committing adultery.
Now in the law, Moses commanded us to stone such women.
So what do you say?”

It was amazing the lengths to which the scribes and Pharisees went in order to ensnare Jesus in their trap. They did not particularly care about the sanctity of marriage, but used the law as an excuse to find fault with Jesus. The women, whose dignity, as one created in the image of God, they clearly did not recognize, was merely acceptable collateral damage as far as they were concerned. Jesus, who was the bridegroom of Israel, did care deeply about marriage. He himself had given the commandment that prohibited adultery. But he did so precisely because of how adultery tarnished the dignity of his creatures and made them less than they were meant to be. Offenses against the dignity of marriage made those guilty of them less capable, not only of human love, but of relationship with Jesus. But since it was precisely this relationship that he desired above all else his instinctive response to guilt was not first judgment, but rather mercy. The Pharisees assumed that Jesus might endorse stoning the woman, thus bringing upon himself the wrath of the Romans, who reserved to themselves the right to administer the death penalty. Or else they thought he would set mercy against the Mosaic law, contradicting the punishment Moses commanded. But he did neither.

“Let the one among you who is without sin 
be the first to throw a stone at her.”

They would likely have seen themselves as without sin, just as Paul once saw himself, saying "as to righteousness under the law, blameless" (see Philippians 3:6). But they also knew that Jesus did not consider them to be faultless. Thus he was not actually suggesting any of them could rightly throw a stone. But there was more. What they would have desired to do at that point was almost certainly to stone the woman themselves, in order to uphold their public image of righteousness. But they could not, since it would upset the Roman authorities. They were thus made to look like sinners in the eyes of the crowd. They had been caught in the trap they themselves set.

They set a net for my steps; my soul was bowed down. They dug a pit in my way, but they have fallen into it themselves (see Psalm 57:6).

The scribes and the Pharisees were thus humiliated and went away with no ability to respond. But what of the woman, whom they had used and abused for their own ends? She was in fact guilty. And Jesus was in fact without sin. He was qualified to throw a stone if he chose. But the one person who could see clearly enough to be eligible to issue forth punishment instead chose to show mercy. There was no board in the eye of Jesus and so he was able to see clearly enough to actually help this sister who had been wounded by her sin. The Pharisees and the scribes were the opposite, since their own vision was so impaired they caused damage around themselves wherever they turned. They suffered precisely the sort of darkening of vision described in our first reading.

They suppressed their consciences;
they would not allow their eyes to look to heaven,
and did not keep in mind just judgments. 

We are not without sin ourselves, since, "If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us" (see First John 1:8). But this need not be the end of our story as long as we continue to listen to our consciences and look to heaven. We can discover, like both Susanna, who was innocent, but also like the woman caught in adultery, that, "saves those who hope in him".

Bob Fitts - He Will Come And Save You

 

22 March 2026 - do you believe this?

Today's Readings
(Audio)

“This illness is not to end in death, 
but is for the glory of God, 
that the Son of God may be glorified through it.”

The illness did not end in death, but it did pass through it as a middle point. Jesus did not act immediately so as to avert all suffering. Rather, he delayed, Lazarus died, and the hearts of Martha and Mary were broken. Yet we read that it was precisely because "Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus" that, "when he heard that he was ill, he remained for two days in the place where he was". This is hard for us to reconcile. It did not seem like the act of a true friend, since it seemed clear by that point that he had the power to save him. And yet we are forced to recon both with the intentionality of Jesus in his choice but also with his obvious love for Lazarus and his sisters. We are not allowed to believe that he didn't care, for the evidence is against that option. Nor can we believe that he couldn't have acted, since by now his power as a healer was evident. Nor can we assert that he didn't fully understand the situation, since they made sure he was aware of it. No. He had sufficient knowledge, power, and goodness. But he did not use them as we would have done. His plan involved a greater good, and an objective that was less temporary than the momentary avoidance of suffering.

“Where have you laid him?”
They said to him, “Sir, come and see.”
And Jesus wept.
So the Jews said, “See how he loved him.”

We cannot even conclude that Jesus didn't act because it was easier for him, as though he were too lazy or disinterested to prevent the death of Lazarus. Rather we see that although he allowed suffering in order to bring forth a greater good, he did not disdain to share in that suffering. He asked Mary, Martha, and Lazarus to share in his cross in preparation for the when he himself would bear it. But the fact that Jesus allowed any suffering at all in the world was always predicated on the plan of God in which the death and resurrection of Jesus would redeem all suffering. It wasn't as though he allowed suffering and then remained aloof. Rather, he allowed suffering and then bore the brunt of it for us. Like Mary and Martha we don't always or often see the connection of our particular trials to the Paschal Mystery. But we can be sure that in us, as in Mary, Martha, and Lazarus, the consequences of sin and death are being overcome.

“Father, I thank you for hearing me.
I know that you always hear me; 
but because of the crowd here I have said this, 
that they may believe that you sent me.”

The immediate upshot to the fact of the death of Lazarus was that it demonstrated something about the power of Jesus that would have been otherwise merely hypothetical. As the time drew near for his own suffering and death he began to plant the seeds that that too would be intentional, not a defeat, but rather a victory of love. This was not something he could have conveyed on a chalkboard in a classroom, not something they could have accepted if he merely said it. They had to confront the reality of death in order to truly come to believe that Jesus was himself the resurrection.

Jesus told her,
“I am the resurrection and the life; 
whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live, 
and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.
Do you believe this?”

We would suggest that the greatest good we see accomplished because of this specific plan of Jesus was precisely the fact that Martha was able to affirm her belief that Jesus was the resurrection and the life, something she did even before Jesus called Lazarus forth from the grave. Indeed it was almost as if it was her faith that drew the future reality of the resurrection into the present moment for Lazarus. Thus the sisters obtained something greater than to merely have their brother again for a few more years or decades. The witnesses were empowered to understand that, with Jesus, even death was not final. But they were also prepared to live on in the era of faith, during which they would still have to endure the consequences of sin and death, until the last day, when the reality they tasted that day would finally destroyed death forever and all things were transformed. 

There is something more important in this present age than to avoid death and prolong life. If our life is merely fleshly life, it does not avail, since in such a state we cannot please God. We are then living on a death-ward trajectory, not connected to the only life that can truly last. Here below what we need more than life itself is the gift we receive when we believe Jesus is the resurrection and the life, when we confess that he is the Christ the Son of God. That gift is his Spirit. When his Spirit is within us we may still feel the effects of death. The body is still in some sense dead because of sin. But the Spirit already has access to the resurrection. The connection is so real as to go beyond the spiritual into physical reality. It is actually precisely this that guarantees that our mortal bodies too will be raised to life. Thus we become the recipients of the promise made through the prophet Ezekiel:

Then you shall know that I am the LORD, 
when I open your graves and have you rise from them, 
O my people!
I will put my spirit in you that you may live, 
and I will settle you upon your land; 
thus you shall know that I am the LORD.

David Crowder Band - How He Loves

 

21 March 2026 - believe the hype

Today's Readings
(Audio)

Some in the crowd who heard these words of Jesus said,
"This is truly the Prophet."

They thought that Jesus was the one promised by Moses when he said that "your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers—it is to him you shall listen" (see Deuteronomy 18:15). If this were true Jesus was more significant than if were merely a compelling teacher or miracle worker. In that case he would not be speaking his own words, no matter how clever, since God said, "I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him" (see Deuteronomy 18:18), implying that adherence was no longer an optional extra for those who happened to vibe with what he said. The Lord continued speaking to Moses saying, "And whoever will not listen to my words that he shall speak in my name, I myself will require it of him" (see Deuteronomy 18:19).

Others said, "This is the Christ."

People were probably primed to debunk messianic claims, since there had been other pretenders to that position in the past. Others had claimed they fulfilled these promises of God to David for the restoration of Israel, but had failed to do so. Now people were on guard against believing hype or daring to hope. They had been disappointed before by people who might have been something but turned out not to be. So they easy thing for them to do was to poke holes in anything which dared them to hope again. They had been jaded. In many ways people in our world share this cynicism. They have placed their hope in many places and been disappointed. Most things that seem too good to be true are, in fact, not true. But the defensive posture of cynicism can lead us to miss the ways that God really at work in the world. We may use confirmation bias to support our assumptions. We may line up any number of purported 'facts' to justify what we believe a priori. We won't be open to the encounter God desires to have with us, nor to the good he desires to do, which far surpasses all our hopes and dreams.

So the guards went to the chief priests and Pharisees,
who asked them, "Why did you not bring him?"
The guards answered, "Never before has anyone spoken like this man."

Somehow it is often the sophisticated people who fail to find Jesus, because their own cleverness becomes a trap. Whereas it is the simple who are often less committed to intellectual abstractions and thus able to actually experience encounter with Jesus. The chief priests and Pharisees, if they heard the words of Jesus at all, only heard them through several layers of mental filters. But the guards heard what he actually said. They had probably heard other teachers, sophists, and charlatans. And they knew that this one was not like those others. They knew that he was not like anyone else, then or ever.

Have any of the authorities or the Pharisees believed in him?
But this crowd, which does not know the law, is accursed.

Sometimes experts only use their authority to endorse their own existing positions. They take offense at the prospect of anything that would diminish or usurp their authority in the eyes of others. The Pharisees saw themselves as the ones who knew the law, and Jesus as an outsider and a threat to that claim. They became increasingly committed to the idea that Jesus was a fraud in order to protect their own positions. Or most of them did. But some of them were able to remain open enough to at least hear him out. 

Nicodemus, one of their members who had come to him earlier, said to them, 
"Does our law condemn a man before it first hears him
and finds out what he is doing?"

Nicodemus already had a sense that Jesus someone extraordinary. He saw his fellow Pharisees claiming to object on the basis of the law while not even giving Jesus the fair hearing which the law required. He was suspicious of this rush to condemn too quickly without hearing him out. Nicodemus himself maintained and encouraged a posture of humble openness to the possibility that one or more of the things that were claimed about Jesus were true. Such a posture is an antidote against both jaded cynicism and prideful cleverness. He is in this sense worthy of our emulation. If we open ourselves to the full reality of Jesus, if we allow ourselves to truly hear his words, and if, in response, we give him our hearts, we will find that he not only fulfills our deepest desires but that he indeed far surpasses them.

Elevation Worship - Here As In Heaven

 

20 March 2026 - where he is from

Today's Readings
(Audio)

But we know where he is from.
When the Christ comes, no one will know where he is from.

What they knew about where he was from in earthly terms was partial at best, missing the most important data about his birth in Bethlehem, the city of David. It is always bad to judge people based on our assumptions about their origins. We typically overlook many concrete details of their existence and only arrive at stereotypes and prejudices rather than anything real. All the more so when the individual in question was both son of God and son of man. For, as much as they misunderstood his earthly origin, even more did they fail to grasp his heavenly origin. Though he already explained that he had been sent by the Father, they clearly didn't understand or accept it, so he challenged them.

You know me and also know where I am from.

They knew if they believed what he told them. Otherwise it could be taken ironically, in the sense of, 'So you think you know where I am from?'. Thus he went on to explain the sense in which they definitely did not know where he was from, and could not, since they did not know the who sent him. Sure, they knew about that One in some sense, and even worshiped him as their God. But they did not understand him on the sames terms that his only begotten Son understood him. Obviously, they weren't privy to the plan in which the Father decided to send the Son and the Son obeyed and allowed himself to be sent. So any understanding they did have was external, did not penetrate into the heart of God, and thus could not account for the origin of Jesus. Their preconceptions about Jesus and their presumptions about God were both insufficient.

Yet I did not come on my own,
but the one who sent me, whom you do not know, is true.
I know him, because I am from him, and he sent me.

Here was an opportunity for the confused crowds to look beyond what they thought they knew in order to ask, 'Could it actually be as he said?' But instead of taking it as an invitation they received it as a challenge and became, first defensive, and then aggressive. They might have received the good news of the Gospel but instead heard only blasphemy. They were provoked like the wicked described in the first reading from Wisdom:

Let us see whether his words be true;
let us find out what will happen to him.
For if the just one be the son of God, he will defend him
and deliver him from the hand of his foes.

And so the judgment given in Wisdom applied also to those opponents of Jesus in Jerusalem in today's Gospel: 

These were their thoughts, but they erred;
for their wickedness blinded them,
and they knew not the hidden counsels of God;
neither did they count on a recompense of holiness
nor discern the innocent souls' reward.

Importantly, Jesus knew all this, and yet did not suddenly deviate from his plan to die for these very people who tried to arrest him and would one day agitate for his execution. They were his enemies, and yet, as with us all, he desired to offer his life to save them. Because we know this we can be sure that even when we make mistakes or fail to live as good friends of Jesus he does not on that basis turn aside from us either. He continues to pour out his love in the hope that we may eventually receive it and be restored. It is important for us to recognize in Jesus the presence of this God-like agape love that transcends any other love we have ever known. It is precisely in our weaknesses and failings that it becomes possible for us to be convinced of this love at the deepest level of our being. It is then that we will say with Saint John, and in the same spirit of wonder in which he said it, that "we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us" (see First John 4:16).

Newsboys - You Are My King (Amazing Love)

 

19 March 2026 - father in faith

Today's Readings
(Audio)

she was found with child through the Holy Spirit

It was discovered that Mary came to be with child through supernatural circumstances. Whatever may be said of Joseph's response, one thing is clear: he didn't plan for this. He understood that Mary was special, that he had a mission to watch over her and protect her throughout her life. But the element of the supernatural had probably not entered into his calculations. He saw himself as up to the task when it seemed to be a merely human task. But now it seemed to be much more.

Joseph her husband, since he was a righteous man,
yet unwilling to expose her to shame,
decided to divorce her quietly.

Joseph was probably already concerned about the way an imperfect man such as himself could bring shame to his immaculate bride. It was precisely because he was righteous that he had an appropriate sense of his own weakness. And it wasn't as though he needed the definition of the Immaculate Conception handed to him in order to understand that Mary was special. But he probably still saw his mission to her in terms of his superficial value as a Jewish man, and what he could offer her on that basis. He thought of the ways in which he might have been interchangeable with a thousand other men, and so could conceive of filling that role himself. But when it was revealed the way that God was at work in the life of Mary it became clear to Joseph that more was needed. What she needed was not something that any decent man whosoever could provide. Instead, she needed the one specifically anointed and chosen by God for the task. The destiny of the child demanded it.

Such was his intention when, behold,
the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said,
“Joseph, son of David,
do not be afraid to take Mary your wife into your home.
For it is through the Holy Spirit
that this child has been conceived in her.

Holy fear made Joseph rightly doubt his own capacity. But the angel conveyed the fact that it was not merely what Joseph was in himself that mattered. What mattered was that he was in fact not an accidental addition to the story. He was chosen as a specific and necessary part of the plan. He was the son of David the great king, through whom Jesus himself would be a part of the royal lineage. It was precisely because of Joseph that Jesus was the heir to the promise made to David in our first reading:

I will raise up your heir after you, sprung from your loins,
and I will make his kingdom firm.
It is he who shall build a house for my name.
And I will make his royal throne firm forever.
I will be a father to him,
and he shall be a son to me.

Of course just hearing that he was part of the plan still gave Joseph no sense of how a relatively ordinary man such as himself could somehow play that role. Thus the angel reminded him that it was in fact the Holy Spirit that was directing the show. Joseph knew well enough that he did not have the necessary competence in supernatural matters to make good decisions for the Holy Family or even to provide them sufficient protection from the forces arrayed against them. But he didn't need that competence. He needed instead to rely on the Holy Spirit who was already at work and would continue to work, not only in the lives of Mary and Jesus, but also in the life of Joseph himself.

She will bear a son and you are to name him Jesus,
because he will save his people from their sins.

Thus Joseph was commanded to do something that only he could do. He was told to name the child, claiming him as his son, but also and at the same time as his savior. Joseph, for his part, did not argue the point or hesitate as he wavered between possibly choices. Rather, when he awoke, he obeyed. Such was the character of Joseph. He didn't always know the right way immediately. But when he learned it, he always gave immediate assent of faith. He was, in this sense, like Abraham, a father in faith. Thus, the following passage is also true of Joseph. Let us honor him with the words of Paul:

I have made you father of many nations.
He is our father in the sight of God,
in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead
and calls into being what does not exist.

Damascus Worship Featuring Aaron Richards - Hail Joseph

 

18 March 2026 - doing the work

Today's Readings
(Audio)

"My Father is at work until now, so I am at work."
For this reason they tried all the more to kill him,
because he not only broke the sabbath
but he also called God his own father, making himself equal to God.

Jesus explained the sense in which it was appropriate for him to work on the sabbath by stating that it was in keeping with the way his Father himself worked on the sabbath, as a commentary says, "Jewish reflection on the nature of God’s sabbath rest (Gen 2:2–3) led to the conclusion that God continued to perform two major activities on the sabbath: giving life and passing judgment on the dead, as seemed evident from the fact that people are born and die on the sabbath"¹. 

Amen, amen, I say to you, the Son cannot do anything on his own,
but only what he sees the Father doing;
for what he does, the Son will do also.
For the Father loves the Son
and shows him everything that he himself does,

The basis was not merely that God did it and it was thus acceptable for anyone. It wasn't as though everyone was eligible to dispense both life and judgment. Rather Jesus said it was appropriate for the Son to do what he received from the Father. He had a privileged relationship with the Father that was different from that of others. To say a normal man could do something because God did it would be blasphemy. For example, we are not to give our own moral laws or dictate our own ideas about good and evil. Jesus was indeed acting like God, but because he was himself God from God and True God from God.

and he will show him greater works than these,
so that you may be amazed.
For just as the Father raises the dead and gives life,
so also does the Son give life to whomever he wishes.

Jesus did give life on the sabbath, in the sense of restoring those whom he healed. But he promised to demonstrate greater works than those healings. Those healings, and his judgment on those who were critical of them, were only meager foreshadowings, since the lives of those whom he healed would still end in death. But they pointed beyond to the resurrection on the last day. On that day those who had heard the words of Jesus and believed in him would pass definitively from death to life. The dead would hear the voice of the Son of God and live. So too would there be definitive judgment on that day, not merely like the temporary judgment of Jesus on the religious leaders, after which repentence was still possible. When the dead heard the voice of Jesus and came out from their tombs those who had done good deeds would be raised to life, but those who had done wicked deeds would go on to the resurrection of condemnation. Thus the activities from which God did not cease on the sabbath, that Jesus continued in his earthly ministry, would find their fulfillment on the last day when the just would enter into the perpetual sabbath rest of life together with God, and the wicked would be cast out.

I cannot do anything on my own;
I judge as I hear, and my judgment is just,
because I do not seek my own will
but the will of the one who sent me.

The opponents of Jesus may have been concerned that he was setting himself up as an alternative, a potential rival, to the God of Israel. They knew that for a mere human to actually have such power would result in selfish egotism preventing judgment from being truly objective. But, humanly speaking, Jesus did not introduce any of his own preferences or predilections into the judgment of God. Rather, he did what mere humans could not and perfectly received, internalized, and conveyed the will of the one who sent him. Thus he was able to judge with perfect justice. But not only that. Because of his connection to the Father he is the one who is able to help lead us beyond our own self-will in order that we too may truly seek the will of the Father. In this way, God fulfilled in Jesus what he promised through Isaiah.

In a time of favor I answer you,
on the day of salvation I help you;
and I have kept you and given you as a covenant to the people,
To restore the land
and allot the desolate heritages,
Saying to the prisoners: Come out!
To those in darkness: Show yourselves!

1) Martin, Francis; Wright, William M. IV. The Gospel of John (Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture): (A Catholic Bible Commentary on the New Testament by Trusted Catholic Biblical Scholars - CCSS) (p. 100). (Function). Kindle Edition. 

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