But you do not believe, because you are not among my sheep

23 APRIL (Jn 10,22-30)

The Jews, cunning and clever people, want to make Christ get out in the open. They ask him to manifest his true identity: “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly.” This is an ambiguous request, due to their ambiguous heart. They do not ask in order to know, but to condemn, accuse, stone and put to death. If Jesus had answered them openly, directly, he would have condemned himself to certain death by stoning.

Jesus answers them indirectly. If you want to know who I am, observe my works. Look at them with eyes that seek the truth and with a mind that knows how to discern what comes from God and what comes from man. It is my works – Jesus says – that testify of me. These attest that I am from God, or that God works in me and for me. It is my works that attest to God in my life.

Jesus sends to the Father. After all, the Jews do not have to believe in Jesus Christ. They are invited to believe in God, in the Father. Never might there be true faith in Jesus if it is not true faith in the Father. Let the Jews believe that the Father is in Jesus and from this faith they might open to the faith in Jesus. They will certainly not come to the profession of faith in the divinity of Jesus, but at least they will believe that He is from the Father or that the Father has sent him. This is the beginning of faith. Without this beginning, never might there exist any journey, progress and perfection. The first foundation, the basis for the edification of the true faith are missing.

The feast of the Dedication was then taking place in Jerusalem. It was winter. And Jesus walked about in the temple area on the Portico of Solomon. So the Jews gathered around him and said to him, “How long are you going to keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.” Jesus answered them, “I told you and you do not believe. The works I do in my Father’s name testify to me. But you do not believe, because you are not among my sheep. My sheep hear my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish. No one can take them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one can take them out of the Father’s hand. The Father and I are one.”

The Jews do not believe in this truth of God and of Jesus because they are not his sheep. They are not because they did not let themselves be given by God to Him. God wished he could have given all the Jews to Christ, but these refused to listen to the voice of the Father that spoke to them through the human voice of Lord Christ. On the contrary, if they were sheep of Jesus, everything would change. They would know how to listen to every word of Jesus and look at his works with different eyes, eyes of truth, justice, holiness, eyes able to cross the visible and reach up to the invisible God who always works through Lord Jesus. Eyes that see with a heart that believes and loves their pastor. The real problem of the Jews is not Christ Jesus. It is instead the Father, God. They do not have a real faith in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. If they had a true faith, they would know that their God is the God who walks with man today and not yesterday. Yesterday is gone. Today we must walk with Him. Today, hear his voice. Today again choose Him according to the novelty of truth and charity which he comes to bring us. It is what the Epistle to the Hebrews teaches, that invites us to listen to the voice of the Lord today.

Moses was “faithful in all his house” as a “servant” to testify to what would be spoken, but Christ was faithful as a son placed over his house. We are his house, if (only) we hold fast to our confidence and pride in our hope. Therefore, as the holy Spirit says: “Oh, that today you would hear his voice, ‘Harden not your hearts as at the rebellion in the day of testing in the desert, where your ancestors tested and tried me and saw my works for forty years. Because of this I was provoked with that generation and I said, “They have always been of erring heart, and they do not know my ways.” As I swore in my wrath, “They shall not enter into my rest.”‘” Take care, brothers, that none of you may have an evil and unfaithful heart, so as to forsake the living God. Encourage yourselves daily while it is still “today,” so that none of you may grow hardened by the deceit of sin. (Heb 3,5-13).

Virgin Mary, Mother of the Redemption, Angels and Saints give us the true faith in God.