Thursday of the Fifth Week of Lent

Gospel: Jn 8:51-59

Jesus said to the Jews: “Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever keeps my word will never see death.”So the Jews said to him, “Now we are sure that you are possessed. Abraham died, as did the prophets, yet you say, ‘Whoever keeps my word will never taste death.’Are you greater than our father Abraham, who died? Or the prophets, who died? Who do you make yourself out to be?”Jesus answered, “If I glorify myself, my glory is worth nothing; but it is my Father who glorifies me, of whom you say, ‘He is our God.’You do not know him, but I know him. And if I should say that I do not know him, I would be like you a liar. But I do know him and I keep his word. Abraham your father rejoiced to see my day; he saw it and was glad.”So the Jews said to him, “You are not yet fifty years old and you have seen Abraham?”Jesus said to them, “Amen, amen, I say to you, before Abraham came to be, I AM.”So they picked up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid and went out of the temple area.

The Gospel of the Lord: Praise You, Lord Jesus Christ.

The Word of God For Everyone

Dear people of God,

The Word of God today teaches the Jews and everyone that whoever believes and keeps the Word of Jesus Christ will never die.

The words of Jesus teach humans to go deeper and deeper into eternal life in the future.

He makes known that the eternal life of a person will never die again. And He revealed to humans that His own identity and life originated from God the Father.

He is the Eternal One who has existed from the beginning, from everlasting to everlasting.

He continues to reveal to humans the life of His existence. He existed before Abraham was born. But with their limited intelligence, along with the arrogance of mortals, they did not recognize the Word of Jesus Christ as the Word of truth. This Word of truth was also revealed in the Bible that the Jews studied, and they declared that they only believed and worshiped God alone as their Father. Jesus distinctively pointed out their weak and sinful nature, and He showed them: that when they profess to worship only one God, then they must surely believe in the Words of Jesus Christ, who is The Second Person of God who came to earth to become a human, and they must believe that: those who believe in God, their soul life created by God will never die.

Today, it is because people have lost faith in the afterlife that has brought people to despair, seeking death because they consider death to be the end. These people are mistaken and on the wrong path. As a result, there are many people who fall into the path of sin, there are too many souls that fall into the hands of Satan when they have no faith in the eternal God, and no longer believe in an immortal soul that exists in the afterlife. God calls those thinking and following that wrong path to return and believe in God, to believe that: human beings have a soul and a body, and the soul created by God will always be eternal.

Thanks be to God. Amen.