Thursday of the
Fifth Week of Lent
(Genesis 17:3-9; John 8:51-59)
A friend once expressed the wonder of seeing young people
smoke and in other ways defy death. He was
telling the story of a person who was “twenty-one, drunk, and never going to
die.” Would that we could stave off
death indefinitely! But we cannot, and
for this reason many are curtailing livelihood, companionship, and recreation
in face of the Corona-19 virus. Yet
sooner or later we all die. And then
what is there? In today’s gospel Jesus provides a way to
overcome not death itself, but its permanence.
Jesus tells the people that if they keep his word, they
“’will never see death.’” He means that
death will not wash away their existence forever. He is promising them eternal life with the
resurrection of the dead. He offers as witness to the truth of his
statement the patriarch Abraham. Abraham
is alive for the faith he held. It is
the same faith that Jesus preaches (his word).
Keeping the word of Jesus, we love one another as he
loved us. In the supper he shared with
his friends the night before he died, Jesus gives more specific instructions. We are to wash one another’s feet. No, not literally, but figuratively. We are to always help one another, even inconveniencing
ourselves doing so.
