And they no longer dared to ask him anything
1 Mac 6,1-13; Ps 9; Lk 20,27-40
23 NOVEMBER
The questions addressed to Jesus are not humble, sincere, true requests of light, but instead they are traps armed before Christ the Lord to make him fall so as to be able to accuse him of sin against the Holy Law and thus kill him in a legal and peaceful way. We know that every alteration of the law was a curse declaration. They wanted to come to declare Jesus as a cursed one. Stoning would have followed. The Apocalypse itself ends with a declaration of eternal perdition for those who will alter or modify the words of the prophecy given by Jesus to John.
“Cursed be the man who makes a carved or molten idol – an abomination to the Lord, the product of a craftsman’s hands – and sets it up in secret!’ And all the people shall answer, ‘Amen!’ ‘Cursed be he who dishonours his father or his mother!’ And all the people shall answer, ‘Amen!’ ‘Cursed be he who moves his neighbour’s landmarks!’ And all the people shall answer, ‘Amen!’ ‘Cursed be he who misleads a blind man on his way!’ And all the people shall answer, ‘Amen!’ ‘Cursed be he who violates the rights of the alien, the orphan or the widow!’ And all the people shall answer, ‘Amen!’ ‘Cursed be he who has relations with his father’s wife, for he dishonours his father’s bed!’ And all the people shall answer, ‘Amen!’ ‘Cursed be he who has relations with any animal!’ And all the people shall answer, ‘Amen!’ ‘Cursed be he who has relations with his sister or his half-sister!’ And all the people shall answer, ‘Amen!’ ‘Cursed be he who has relations with his mother-in-law!’ And all the people shall answer, ‘Amen!’ ‘Cursed be he who slays his neighbour in secret!’ And all the people shall answer, ‘Amen!’ ‘Cursed be he who accepts payment for slaying an innocent man!’ And all the people shall answer, ‘Amen!’ ‘Cursed be he who fails to fulfil any of the provisions of this law!’ And all the people shall answer, ‘Amen!’ (Dt 27,14-26).
I warn everyone who hears the prophetic words in this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book, and if anyone takes away from the words in this prophetic book, God will take away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city described in this book (Rev 22,18-19).
A veiled sentence of curse had already been pronounced by Jesus. It was enough that it had been made an obvious curse and for Him it would have been the end. For this to be possible, Pharisees, scribes, Sadducees persisted with every tendentious question.
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 one.” 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.” Nicodemus, one of their members who had come to him earlier, said to them, “Does our law condemn a person 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 (Jn 7,45-53).
Jesus is filled with the Holy Spirit. No one can resist his divine and human wisdom together. In the end it was decided that they needed to go through other ways. The way of the questions is a real waste of time. Jesus is beyond all wisdom, cunning, shrewdness and intelligence of man. His answers are very pure truth according to the Law.
Some Sadducees, those who deny that there is a resurrection, came forward and put this question to him, saying, “Teacher, Moses wrote for us, ‘If someone’s brother dies leaving a wife but no child, his brother must take the wife and raise up descendants for his brother.’ Now there were seven brothers; the first married a woman but died childless. Then the second and the third married her, and likewise all the seven died childless. Finally the woman also died. Now at the resurrection whose wife will that woman be? For all seven had been married to her.” Jesus said to them, “The children of this age marry and remarry; but those who are deemed worthy to attain to the coming age and to the resurrection of the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage. They can no longer die, for they are like angels; and they are the children of God because they are the ones who will rise. That the dead will rise even Moses made known in the passage about the bush, when he called ‘Lord’ the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob; and he is not God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive.” Some of the scribes said in reply, “Teacher, you have answered well.” And they no longer dared to ask him anything.