Friday of the Ninth Week in Ordinary Time
The real scandal of faith
As Jesus was teaching in the temple area he said, “How do the scribes claim that the Messiah is the son of David? David himself, inspired by the holy Spirit, said: ‘The Lord said to my lord, “Sit at my right hand until I place your enemies under your feet.”‘ David himself calls him ‘lord’; so how is he his son?” (The) great crowd heard this with delight. Mk 12,35-37
In these two verses, there shines a reflection of that light that the disciples will receive only after Easter and Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit descends upon them and they realize that this Jesus of Nazareth, whom they have followed for three years, was truly the Lord of life and history. “No one – says Paul – can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except by the holy Spirit” (1Cor 12,3). The Lordship of Jesus shines with all its splendor when he dies on the cross, and those who recognize him as Lord at that moment, they fully understand the basic message of the gospel. The real scandal of the Christian faith, in fact, is not believing in the Lordship of Jesus when he reveals the hidden mysteries of the Kingdom in parables, when we are surprised by the power of miracles, or when he answers the enemies’ questions with divine wisdom. That is the Lord of our aspirations and our ideals, because we all want to be like that and we are not. The real scandal of our faith is to believe that this carpenter from Nazareth, who does not follow any other law but that of love, and without any powers but that of being a servant, is the Son of God and my Lord, because he goes to die on the cross for me, as a blasphemer. If, when people were yelling to him to get down from the cross to demonstrate the power of the Son of God, he had really got down, we would not have had any faith in him, because he would have shown himself more powerful than others, but history is full of powerful people and none of them has ever saved the world. I remember one day, when a a Jehovah’s Witness came and knocked at my door, wishing to sell us his Bible. “I do not need it – I said – I already have it”. “Anyway – I added – our Bibles are different”. “It’s impossible – he said – the Bibles are all the same”. “Hold on one second” I said, and went to take my Bible. When we were facing one another, each with his own Bible in the hand, I asked him to open it at the beginning of Mark’s Gospel, and so did I. In his Bible it was written: “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ”. In mine, it was written: “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, Son of God”. “You see – I said – here lies all the difference between us: I believe that Jesus Christ, who died on the cross and resurrected, is the Son of God”. I remember that he mumbled something and walked away. And I put my Bible back to its place, my Bible where it is clearly written that Jesus of Nazareth is the Son of God.