9 January 2027 · Syro-Malabar Rite
Open in the Daily Word appAlso: Latin Rite · Syro-Malankara Rite · മലയാളം
“But if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, so that you may know and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father.” John 10:38
In the season of Denha the Church keeps asking: who is this Jesus revealed at the Jordan? In today's Gospel the question becomes dangerous. In the Temple the crowd picks up stones, and Jesus asks: “I have shown you many good works from the Father. For which of these are you going to stone me?” They answer that it is for blasphemy, “because you, though only a human being, are making yourself God.” Jesus does not withdraw his claim. He is “the one whom the Father has sanctified and sent into the world”, and he points to his works: “believe the works, so that you may know and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father.” The voice at the Jordan said the same: this is my Son.
St Paul faces the same mystery from another side. Gentiles who were not seeking righteousness have received it, “that is, righteousness through faith”, while many in Israel, seeking it by works, “have stumbled over the stumbling stone”. Christ is that stone: for some a rock to trip over, for others a sure foundation, for “whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.” The same Jesus who is the light of Denha can become a stone we trip over, if we want to save ourselves on our own terms. Faith receives him as a gift.
Theme: “The Father is in me and I am in the Father.”
Faith receives the Son whom the Father sent.
“And he believed the LORD; and the LORD reckoned it to him as righteousness.” Genesis 15:6
“What then are we to say? Gentiles, who did not strive for righteousness, have attained it, that is, righteousness through faith;” Romans 9:30
Apply: Thank God each night this week for one undeserved gift.
“therefore thus says the Lord GOD, See, I am laying in Zion a foundation stone, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone, a sure foundation: “One who trusts will not panic.”” Isaiah 28:16
“as it is written, “See, I am laying in Zion a stone that will make people stumble, a rock that will make them fall, and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.”” Romans 9:33
Apply: Bring one area of pride to Christ in confession.
“I say, “You are gods, children of the Most High, all of you;” Psalm 82:6
“But if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, so that you may know and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father.” John 10:38
Apply: Write down one work of God you have seen this year and thank him for it.
The Son revealed at the Jordan is one with the Father.
Faith builds on him; pride stumbles over him.
Take-home resolution: Make an act of faith in Jesus, true God and true man, each morning this week.
Dear friends, in the season of Denha we keep asking: who is this Jesus revealed at the Jordan? In today's Gospel some in the Temple pick up stones to throw at him. Jesus asks: I have shown you many good works from the Father; for which of these are you going to stone me? (John 10:32).
They answer: not for a good work, but because you, though only a human being, are making yourself God (John 10:33). They understood his claim correctly; they refused to believe it. Jesus does not soften it. He is the one whom the Father has sanctified and sent into the world. Believe the works, he says, so that you may know that the Father is in me and I am in the Father (John 10:36–38).
St Paul looks at the same mystery. Gentiles who were not searching for righteousness received it through faith, while many who tried to earn it by works stumbled over the stumbling stone (Romans 9:30–32). Christ can be a stone we trip over, if we want to save ourselves by our own strength. Or he can be our foundation, for whoever believes in him will not be put to shame (Romans 9:33).
At the Jordan the Father said: this is my Son. Let us receive him by faith, look at his works in our lives and in the Church, and build everything on him. Amen.
Children, some people did not believe that Jesus was God's Son. Jesus said: look at the good things I do! Let us thank Jesus for the good things he does for us, and do good things in his name.
Lord Jesus, sanctified and sent into the world by the Father, you are in the Father and the Father is in you. Let me not stumble over you through pride, but build my life on you by faith, and let your works lead me to adore you as my Lord and my God. Amen.
Both readings are about people who stumble at what God has done. Paul grieves that many of his own people have not received Christ, and he speaks of a stone laid by God himself. In John, Jesus is in the Temple and is accused of blasphemy for calling himself God's Son. In this season of Denha, the manifestation of the Lord, we hear that manifestation is not the same as acceptance: the light shines, and each person must still respond.
Setting.
Romans 9–11 is Paul's long wrestling with one question: why have so many of Israel, to whom the promises belong, not come to believe in the Messiah? He begins with “great sorrow and unceasing anguish” for his own people (9:2) and ends with the mercy of God for all (11:32). This short reading must be heard inside that whole movement. It is not the last word on Israel. Paul himself says that “the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable” (11:29).
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“Gentiles, who did not strive for righteousness, have attained it, that is, righteousness through faith;” (9:30)
A surprise for anyone who thinks in terms of merit: the outsiders receive what they did not chase. Grace is not a wage.
“Because they did not strive for it on the basis of faith, but as if it were based on works.” (9:32)
Paul is not attacking the Law, which he calls holy (7:12). He warns against treating a relationship with God as something we earn. Christians too can fall into this.
“and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.” (9:33)
The same stone that trips one person holds up another. The verse ends with a promise.
How the Church reads it.
The Church teaches that “our justification comes from the grace of God” (CCC 1996), and that faith and the works of love belong together, as gift and response. On Israel she follows Paul's own conclusion: God does not take back his gifts, and the Jewish people may not be spoken of as rejected or accursed (Nostra Aetate 4; CCC 839). This passage gives no room for Christian pride; a few chapters later Paul warns the Gentile believers, “do not become proud, but stand in awe” (11:20).
Setting.
It is winter, at the feast of the Dedication, the feast that recalls the rededication of the Temple by Judas Maccabeus (1 Maccabees 4:36–59), and Jesus is walking in the Temple, in the portico of Solomon (10:22–23). He has just said, “The Father and I are one” (10:30).
When John writes “the Jews” here, he means those authorities and opponents who confronted Jesus in the Temple on this occasion, not a whole people. Jesus and his disciples were themselves Jews. The Church firmly rejects any blame of the Jewish people as such for his death (Nostra Aetate 4; CCC 597–598).
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“It is not for a good work that we are going to stone you, but for blasphemy, because you, though only a human being, are making yourself God.” (10:33)
Without intending it, they state the mystery the Gospel will overturn. He is not a man making himself God; he is the Word, who is God, made man (1:1, 14).
“Is it not written in your law, ‘I said, you are gods’?” (10:34)
The quotation is from Psalm 82:6. “Law” here means Scripture as a whole. The argument moves from the lesser to the greater: if those who received God's word could be called “gods”, how much more the one whom the Father sent. Scholars discuss who the “gods” of the psalm were; the argument does not depend on settling that.
“can you say that the one whom the Father has sanctified and sent into the world is blaspheming because I said, ‘I am God’s Son’?” (10:36)
Two verbs carry the weight: sanctified and sent. His mission comes from before his appearing in the world.
“so that you may know and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father.” (10:38)
The works are signs. They lead beyond themselves to the deepest truth: the communion of the Father and the Son.
How the Church reads it.
The Catechism says that Jesus asked the religious authorities to believe in him because of the works of the Father he accomplished (CCC 591), and it recalls that this faith was a hard step: the authorities could not make it without a kind of death to what they had known. Verse 38 is at the root of the Church's language about the Trinity: because of their unity, the Father is wholly in the Son and the Son wholly in the Father (CCC 255).
By quoting “you are gods”, did Jesus deny that he is God in a unique way?
No. He does not say that he is a god in the same sense as those in the psalm. He argues from the lesser to the greater, and he goes on at once to say that the Father is in him and he in the Father. His opponents understood him: “they tried to arrest him again”.