(Ref. Texts: Ezek 37:12–14; Rom 8:8–11; John 11:1–47)  

Introduction

Rein­ter­pret­ing the text of Isai­ah (61:1–2a) in Luke 4:16–20, the Evan­gel­ist Luke presents the mis­sion of Jesus as a mis­sion of hope, encour­age­ment, susten­ance, motiv­a­tions, lib­er­a­tion and psy­cho­lo­gic­al re-assur­ance. We saw this in last Sunday Gos­pel read­ing (John 9), and this Sunday Gos­pel con­tin­ues and con­tains the same theme. Laz­arus’ sick­ness and even­tu­al death are events that will mani­fest the shek­i­nah (glory) of God.….…

Jesus wept

There are only two instances in the entire Gos­pel where Jesus wept. After John 11:35, the next instance is Luke 19:41. As Jesus approached Jer­u­s­alem, when he saw the city, Luke says he “wept over it.” The reas­on for the weep­ing is giv­en in the fol­low­ing verses (Luke 19:42–44).….…

FOR DETAILS, GET YOUR OWN COPY OF THE BOOK “THE WORD OF LIFE” (vol.I)!! The reflection for this First Sunday of Lent is found on pages 191–201. Happy reading!

For details on how to get it, con­tact the author on this link: https://m.me/uchennabiblia?fbclid=IwAR2yeg4a6sDGBp9QGkIvKj6FSADumMokN6lshdE0zuo-JHs6qOmlhA7jyHo or email me at: postmaster@uchennabiblia.com or simply send an SMS on 08055265909, and I will get back to you.

(Ref. Texts: 1Sam  16:1b.6–7.10–13a; Eph 5:8–14; John 9:1–41)

Introduction

John chapter nine (John 9) is meant to show that things are not always the way they look and the way we think. As Isai­ah (55:8) rightly poin­ted out, God’s ways are quite dif­fer­ent from the human way. In John 4:5–42, Jesus suc­ceeded in mak­ing the Samar­it­ans under­stand that dis­crim­in­a­tion is not of God, but of the evil one. This he did by enga­ging the Samar­it­an woman in a con­ver­sa­tion that later involved the entire Samar­it­ans of Sychar, and cul­min­ated in believ­ing in Jesus and recog­niz­ing him as the mes­si­ah. Their joy and faith were so intense that they invited Jesus to stay with them in their town. Sur­pris­ingly, Jesus spent two days with them before pro­ceed­ing to Jer­u­s­alem. Hav­ing giv­en the Samar­it­ans who recog­nized him as the mes­si­ah the liv­ing water, Jesus now con­fronts the Jews to des­troy the bridge that is pre­vent­ing them from par­ti­cip­at­ing in the liv­ing water. Will he suc­ceed? The end of the story will clarify.

Who sinned?

“As he passed by he saw a man blind from birth. His dis­ciples asked him, Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his par­ents, that he was born blind?” (John 9:1–2). When Jesus told the Jews that their fath­er Abra­ham rejoiced at the thought of see­ing his day, and that he saw it and was glad, they wondered how Jesus could have seen Abra­ham when he was not even fifty years old. At such con­clu­sion, Jesus told them that before Abra­ham was born, he was already (John 8:56–58). On hear­ing this blas­phemy (in their under­stand­ing), they wanted to stone him, but Jesus slipped away from their pres­ence (John 8:59). As Jesus walked away from the temple premise, he saw this blind men­dic­ant. The dis­ciples confronted.….…

FOR DETAILS, GET YOUR OWN COPY OF THE BOOK “THE WORD OF LIFE” (vol.I)!! The reflection for this First Sunday of Lent is found on pages 179–190. Happy reading!

For details on how to get it, con­tact the author on this link: https://m.me/uchennabiblia?fbclid=IwAR2yeg4a6sDGBp9QGkIvKj6FSADumMokN6lshdE0zuo-JHs6qOmlhA7jyHo or email me at: postmaster@uchennabiblia.com or simply send an SMS on 08055265909, and I will get back to you.

(Ref. Texts: Exod 17:3–7; Rom 5:1–2.5–8; John 4:5–42)

Introduction

The Len­ten peri­od is gradu­ally pro­gress­ing towards the resur­rec­tion, the ful­fil­ment of sal­va­tion. The Len­ten Sundays con­tin­ue to enrich us with mes­sages that pre­pare us spir­itu­ally for the paschal mys­tery. While the First Sunday invited us not to allow food, power, and wealth suf­foc­ate our desire for God, the Second Sunday explained to us the right atti­tude in the pres­ence of God. This Third Sunday an. But unlike the lat­ter, he did not come to draw water, but was rest­ing and wait­ing for his dis­ciples who have gone to the town to buy food. How­ever, this was a plot to bring the Good News to the Samar­it­ans. Jesus ini­ti­ated a con­ver­sa­tion with this woman by ask­ing her to give her some water to drink. While Jesus was refer­ring to spir­itu­al thirst, which the Samar­it­an woman lacked, the woman taught Jesus meant mater­i­al thirst.

FOR DETAILS, GET YOUR OWN COPY OF THE BOOK “THE WORD OF LIFE” (vol.I)!! The reflection for this First Sunday of Lent is found on pages 164–178. Happy reading!

For details on how to get it, con­tact the author on this link: https://m.me/uchennabiblia?fbclid=IwAR2yeg4a6sDGBp9QGkIvKj6FSADumMokN6lshdE0zuo-JHs6qOmlhA7jyHo or email me at: postmaster@uchennabiblia.com or simply send an SMS on 08055265909, and I will get back to you.

Introduction

Hav­ing suc­cess­fully con­cluded his retreat, Jesus offi­cially begins his mis­sion. As soon as he came down from the wil­der­ness, and with the with­draw­al of John the Baptist, Jesus trans­ferred to Caper­naum, by the lake in the region of Zebu­lum and Neph­tali, where he began his mis­sion with the fol­low­ing words “repent, for the king­dom of heav­en has come near” (Matt 4:17). “In the Gos­pel accord­ing to Mark (1:15), we also read that as soon as John the Baptist was arres­ted, Jesus went into Galilee and there pro­claimed the Gos­pel say­ing: “the time is com­pleted, and the king­dom of God has come, repent and believe the Gos­pel.” This is the sum­mary of how Jesus began his pro­clam­a­tion of the mes­sage of sal­va­tion. And all his teach­ings and actions revolve around this king­dom of heav­en which has drawn near. .….…

The Context of Matthew 17:1–9

Six days after Peter’s con­fes­sion on Jesus’ iden­tity, Jesus took the three Apostles to a high moun­tain for this won­der­ful exper­i­ence (cf. Matt 17:1). While on this moun­tain, Jesus was trans­formed or trans­figured (Greek: meta­morph­oō).……

Moses and Elijah

Imme­di­ately after Jesus meta­morph­osed, Moses and Eli­jah appeared on the scene. But why these two?

FOR DETAILS, GET YOUR OWN COPY OF THE BOOK “THE WORD OF LIFE” (vol.I)!! The reflection for this First Sunday of Lent is found on pages 150–163. Happy reading!

For details on how to get it, con­tact the author on this link: https://m.me/uchennabiblia?fbclid=IwAR2yeg4a6sDGBp9QGkIvKj6FSADumMokN6lshdE0zuo-JHs6qOmlhA7jyHo or email me at: postmaster@uchennabiblia.com or simply send an SMS on 08055265909, and I will get back to you.

Introduction

The Len­ten sea­son recalls the bib­lic­al peri­od of forty days and forty nights Jesus spent in the desert in pre­par­a­tion for his mis­sion. Jesus’ forty days and forty nights in the desert recalls the forty days and forty nights that Moses spent on the Moun­tain dur­ing his encounter with God.……

The First Trial

“If you are the Son of God, com­mand these stones to become bread” (Matt 4:3). The first test/examination presen­ted to Jesus was the request to turn stones into bread.

The Second Trial

“If you are the Son of God, throw your­self down; for it is writ­ten, he will com­mand his angels con­cern­ing you, and on their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone” (Matt 4:6).

The Third Trial

“Again, the Dev­il took Jesus to a very high moun­tain and showed him all the king­doms of the world and their glory; and he said to him, all these I will give you, if you will fall down and wor­ship me” (Matt 4:8–9). The last attempt of the Accuser was to take Jesus to a very high moun­tain where he showed him all the king­doms of this world with their splend­our and prom­ised to bequeath everything to him, on one con­di­tion, that he wor­ships him.

Conclusion

The Satan wanted Jesus to put his own will and desire above the will of his Fath­er. He wanted Jesus to act and live inde­pend­ently of God. We must always remem­ber our depend­ence on God because, sep­ar­ated from him, we are noth­ing and can do noth­ing (cf. John 15:5). Giv­ing in to these tempta­tions means sac­ri­fi­cing our future hap­pi­ness for a short-term gain.….……

FOR DETAILS, GET YOUR OWN COPY OF THE BOOK “THE WORD OF LIFE” (vol.I)!! The reflection for this First Sunday of Lent is found on pages 132–149. Happy reading!

For details on how to get it, con­tact the author on this link: https://m.me/uchennabiblia?fbclid=IwAR2yeg4a6sDGBp9QGkIvKj6FSADumMokN6lshdE0zuo-JHs6qOmlhA7jyHo or email me at: postmaster@uchennabiblia.com or simply send an SMS on 08055265909, and I will get back to you.