{"id":261,"date":"2023-05-07T00:00:57","date_gmt":"2023-05-06T23:00:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ww.turski.me\/?p=261"},"modified":"2023-05-07T00:00:57","modified_gmt":"2023-05-06T23:00:57","slug":"5th-sunday-of-easter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/?p=261","title":{"rendered":"5th Sunday of Easter"},"content":{"rendered":"

Once I visited a baroque church in Poland where my attention was drawn to a picture of the Holy Trinity on the wall.\u00a0 God the Father was shown as an elderly, majestic man with a full white beard and, on his head, a triple crown resembling the one used by popes before Paul VI. Every time I looked at that particular part of the picture, I had a strange feeling that something was not quite right.<\/span><\/p>\n

In today\u2019s gospel one of the Apostles, Philip, addresses Jesus with a request: \u2018Lord, let us see the Father.\u2019 The problem is that nobody has ever seen God; and, for a Jew, seeing God is a blasphemous idea. If Philip expresses such a desire, he must believe that Jesus can fulfil it. His request is in fact an indirect profession of his belief that Jesus is someone much more significant than even the greatest of teachers; someone much closer to God than anyone else. That belief of Philip is the result of what he has seen and heard while following Jesus \u2013 today\u2019s passage of the gospel is part of a farewell speech made at the Last Supper.<\/span><\/p>\n

Jesus\u2019 reply to that request is a really bold claim: \u2018To have seen me is to have seen the Father.\u2019 A similar claim confirmed in front of the Jewish Council, the Sanhedrin, sealed his fate when the high priest called that a blasphemy. Ever since then, there have been many people questioning that special, unique position of Jesus the man in relation to God; some attempts to explain and to understand that position ended up as heresies, rejected and condemned by the Church. Do we accept more easily today that Jesus is God? There are many who can accept Jesus as an exceptional teacher or speaker, or as a champion of social justice, but many are reluctant to acknowledge him as God. Despite two millennia of Christianity, for many, it\u2019s still incomprehensible that God can become man.<\/span><\/p>\n

However bold that claim may be, accepting it in faith is the only way forward if Christianity is to make any sense. It was difficult in the ancient world, where Jesus crucified was an insult to the Jews and ridicule to the Greeks. It\u2019s no easier in our modern world, where Jesus is <\/span>\u201ca stone to stumble over, a rock to bring men down\u201d <\/span><\/i>as St Peter says in today\u2019s second reading; he continues: <\/span>\u201cthey stumble over it because they don\u2019t believe in the word.\u201d<\/span><\/i> Faith is the key factor to the acceptance of Jesus as someone unique in his relation to God. At the beginning of today\u2019s gospel, he says: <\/span>\u201cTrust in God still, and trust in me. Do not let your hearts be troubled\u201d<\/span><\/i> and then he finishes with these words: <\/span>\u201cwhoever believes in me will perform the same works as I do myself, he will perform even greater works.\u201d<\/span><\/i> His words have been proven, initially by the Apostles and their immediate followers, and then by the generations of Christians taking their faith seriously.<\/span><\/p>\n

Today\u2019s world is as challenging to our faith as it was two thousand years ago. The Christian faith and its moral teaching is ridiculed and scorned. It seems fashionable to reject religion, particularly Christianity, by those considering themselves to be modern and enlightened. Today, as two thousand years ago, declaring ourselves Christian makes quite a strong statement because it goes against the tide of fashion. It requires some spiritual strength. We are not short of it if we believe. St Peter shows us the source of it: <\/span>\u201cthe man who rests his trust on him will not be disappointed.\u201d<\/span><\/i> We don\u2019t have to trust an old bearded man with a triple crown on his head. We are called to trust Jesus, who is our way, our truth and our life.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Image by Thomas Wolter<\/a> from Pixabay<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Once I visited a baroque church in Poland where my attention was drawn to a picture of the Holy Trinity on the wall.\u00a0 God the Father was shown as an elderly, majestic man with a full white beard and, on his head, a triple crown resembling the one used by popes before Paul VI. Every time I looked at that particular part of the picture, I had a strange feeling that something was not quite right.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13938,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-261","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sermon","category-year-a"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=261"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=261"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}