The Gospel for Friday in the fourth week of Lent is taken from St. John. Jesus moved about within Galilee. He did not wish to travel in Judea because the Jews were trying to kill him. But the Jewish feast of Tabernacles was near. But when his brothers had gone to the feast, he himself also went up to, not openly, but as it were, in secret.

Some of the inhabitants of Jerusalem said, is he not the one they are trying to kill? And look, he’s speaking openly and they say nothing to him. Could the authorities have realized that he is the Christ? But we know where he is from. When the Christ comes, no one will know where he is from. So Jesus cried out in the temple area as he was teaching and said, you know me and you also know where I am from.

Yet I did not come on my own. But the one who sent me, whom you do not know, is true. I know him because I am from him, and he sent me. So they tried to arrest him, but no one laid a hand on him because his hour had not yet come. Jesus coming to the end of his ministry. He knows that he’s about to die.

And his anxiety, I would feel, is about whether or not people are going to believe him. And he has something so beautiful, so powerful to teach them and to say to them. But it sounds so different than the temple that they’re just confused. Where does he get this authority? And he makes it clear. What I’m saying to you that is truthful is not from me, the man that grew up in Nazareth.

It’s from God. So he is witnessing something that you and I have to believe in. If we have an intention to bring truth into a relationship, into any situation, we have to trust that it is not from us, but through us. Foreign the closing prayer. Father, your intention is to use us to be an instrument like you were to the people of God, to those around us. Bless us with confidence in the insights we have so that when we share them, we can trust more in them as coming from you, the source of all good, the source of all transformation.

And we ask this in Jesus name, Amen.