The Word of God
As He spoke to the Jews
in the Gospel of St. John

“In the beginning was the Word,
the Word was with God
and the Word was God.
He was with God in the beginning.
Through Him all things came to be,
not one thing had its being but through Him.
In him was Life, and the Life was the Light of men.
A Light that shines in the darkness,
A Light that darkness could not overpower.
The Word was the true Light that enlightens all men,
And He was coming into the world.
He was in the world that had its being through Him,
and the world did not know Him.
He came into His own domain,
And His own people did not accept Him.
But to all who did accept Him
He gave power to become children of God.”

“For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return without watering the earth, making it yield and giving growth to provide seed for the sower and bread for the eating, so shall it be with My Word that goes forth from My mouth; it shall not return to Me empty without carrying out My will and succeeding in what it was sent to do.” [Is. 55:10-11].

“And His own people did not accept Him ...”
“But even so, He shall not return to Me empty ...”

          “From the contrast of ideas, great light shall spring forth.” [An old French saying].

          And in the life of the Son of God on earth, contrast there certainly was. Contrast between Light and darkness, between Reason and blindness, between Life and death. We shall pursue it in the narrative, the Gospel of one of the greatest story-tellers that ever lived, St. John the Apostle, the Evangelist, ‘the disciple Jesus loved ...’.

          The disputes of the Jews with Our Blessed Lord could only have one outcome. The fierce controversies could only lead to one climax. It was then the same matter of ‘life and death’, the same contrast, as the Holy Church now faces with Her greatest enemies of the day: the Modernists. The same darkness against the Light; the same blindness against Reason; the same suicidal collision course as it was then for the same coveted prize: power. Power to control. Power of will over mind.

          Yes, under the direct influence of the Holy Spirit, St. John has succeeded in making this whole one-sided encounter, this hopelessly dead-end street for one of the two sides, as fascinating as he possibly could for our time and for our instruction.

          We pick up the drama at its first major confrontation in chapter 5 of St. John’s Gospel. But the first wrong-footing of the Jews had already occurred in chapter 2, when Our Lord made a whip of some chords and drove everyone out of the Temple who at that moment did not make the House of God into a House of Prayer. That event must not be seen as simply a shot across the bow of the Pharisees’ man-of-war, but a direct hit which was immediately accepted by the opposition as an act of war. As the saying goes: “The first shot had been fired” and, characteristically, it had not been fired by the men who, in their illusion of power, had become so complacent that they had not realised that their territory had been invaded. And equally characteristically, the action that had brought the power struggle into the open had been perfectly legitimate.

          It is of great significance that St. John uses the word ‘Pharisees’ very sparingly, and so, very judiciously. For him the main confrontation was between ‘the Jews’ and Our Blessed Lord. Between ‘His own’ as he had put it so clearly in the first lines of his Gospel, and their Maker, their Messiah and Redeemer. As will come out in all its starkness, the Jews had no intention of admitting that they were in any way in need of a Redeemer. Corrupted by the Pharisees, the ruling party, to only see and accept the letter of the Law, after having lost its spirit way back in the dim past, the Jews were taught to look forward to a mighty earthly ruler who would confirm the superiority of the Jewish race and nation and so wrest the kingdom once again from the Romans and restore it to God’s chosen people. Being forced to deal with Someone who so obviously had other ideas, another script and a totally different timetable – although they had to admit that there was a monumental authority behind all these – was too much for them to tolerate, let alone to accept. They either would in time come around to see things His way, or else the matter would be resolved in murder. Whichever way it went, it would make for absorbing, even fascinating reading.