Home > Lenten Blog 2025
Amid the Noise, a Quiet Call to Justice
April 11, 2025
Jeremiah 20:7–13 | John 10:31–42 | Psalm 18:1–7
In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus once again outwits the religious leaders of his time.
Provoked by his claim to be the Son of God, they accuse him of blasphemy and prepare to stone him. But Jesus responds with a bold and unexpected appeal to their own Scriptures:
“Is it not written in your law, ‘I said, you are gods?’ If those to whom the word of God came were called ‘gods’—the scripture cannot be annulled—can you say that the one whom the Father has sanctified and sent into the world is blasphemous because I said, ‘I am God’s Son’?”
Jesus would have made a good lawyer. He turns his accusers’ own sacred texts against them, exposing their inconsistency.
He draws from Psalm 82, where God rebukes unjust rulers—those entrusted with divine authority to govern rightly, but who fail in their responsibility:
“How long will you defend the unjust
and show partiality to the wicked?
Defend the weak and the fatherless;
uphold the cause of the poor and the oppressed.
Rescue the weak and the needy;
deliver them from the hand of the wicked.”
Then come the very words Jesus echoes in John’s Gospel, followed by a sobering vision:
“I said, ‘You are gods;
you are all sons of the Most High.’
But you will die like mere mortals;
you will fall like every other ruler.”
In contrast to these corrupt figures, Jesus embodies the true justice of God. He defends the weak, lifts up the forgotten, and focuses his ministry on “the lost sheep of the house of Israel”—a mission that, through Saint Paul, would ultimately reach all nations.
May his example shine through the rancor and tumult of our own times, and may his quiet call to justice be heard anew.
John Walsh
