March 16, 2013

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Saturday of the Fourth Week of Lent 
Lectionary: 249

Reading 1JER 11:18-20

I knew their plot because the LORD informed me;at that time you, O LORD, showed me their doings.

Jeremiah is a figure who foreshadows Christ.  He is a prophet whom God sent to proclaim His Word and whom the Jews wanted to kill.

Yet I, like a trusting lamb led to slaughter,
had not realized that they were hatching plots against me:
“Let us destroy the tree in its vigor;
let us cut him off from the land of the living,
so that his name will be spoken no more.”
But, you, O LORD of hosts, O just Judge,
searcher of mind and heart,
Let me witness the vengeance you take on them,
for to you I have entrusted my cause!

Like they would plot to kill Jesus Christ, the Messiah, in the future.  They were plotting to kill Jeremiah in his lifetime.  But he, like all good and faithful people, put his trust in God.

Responsorial PsalmPS 7:2-3, 9BC-10, 11-12

R. (2a) O Lord, my God, in you I take refuge.O LORD, my God, in you I take refuge;
save me from all my pursuers and rescue me,
Lest I become like the lion’s prey,
to be torn to pieces, with no one to rescue me.
R. O Lord, my God, in you I take refuge.

My God, in you is my shelter.  Protect me or my enemies will destroy me.

Do me justice, O LORD, because I am just,
and because of the innocence that is mine.
Let the malice of the wicked come to an end,
but sustain the just,
O searcher of heart and soul, O just God.
R. O Lord, my God, in you I take refuge.

My God, give me the reward of righteousness, for I keep your word.  Destroy sinners and uphold the righteous.  Because you are the one who can see into our souls.

A shield before me is God,
who saves the upright of heart;
A just judge is God,
a God who punishes day by day.
R. O Lord, my God, in you I take refuge.

God is my protector.  He saves those who do good.  God is righteous.  God rewards each person according to their works. 

GospelJN 7:40-53

Some in the crowd who heard these words of Jesus said,
“This is truly the Prophet.”
Others said, “This is the Christ.”
But others said, “The Christ will not come from Galilee, will he?

While Jesus was in Jerusalem for the feast of the tabernacles, some who heard Him immediately recognized that He is the Messiah.  But others questioned, because they knew that He was raised in Nazareth in Galilee.

Does not Scripture say that the Christ will be of David’s family
and come from Bethlehem, the village where David lived?”
So a division occurred in the crowd because of him.
Some of them even wanted to arrest him,
but no one laid hands on him.

 They did not yet know that He was born in Bethlehem.  Some became so angry that they wanted to arrest Jesus.  But no one touched Him.

So the guards went to the chief priests and Pharisees,
who asked them, “Why did you not bring him?”
The guards answered, “Never before has anyone spoken like this man.”

The guards of the Temple did inform the leaders though.  And when questioned, said, "No one has ever spoken like this man."

So the Pharisees answered them, “Have you also been deceived?
Have any of the authorities or the Pharisees believed in him?
But this crowd, which does not know the law, is accursed.”

So, the Pharisees said, "What?  Are you also His followers?  The religious leaders and theologians don't believe in Him.  But the ignorant crowds do."

Nicodemus, one of their members who had come to him earlier, said to them,
“Does our law condemn a man before it first hears him
and finds out what he is doing?”
They answered and said to him,
“You are not from Galilee also, are you?
Look and see that no prophet arises from Galilee.”
Then each went to his own house.

But Nicodemus, a ruler of the Synagogue and secretly a follower of Christ, said, "The Law of Moses does not allow a man to be condemned without a trial."  But they said to Him, "Are you from Galilee also?  Look around, the Messiah is not to come from Galilee."  And they went home.