Friday of the Fourth Week of Lent
Wisdom 2:1,12-22  +  John 7:1-2,10,25-30

So they tried to arrest him, but no one laid a hand upon Him, because His Hour had not yet come.

Today’s Gospel Reading might not seem very dramatic.  There is more said about Jesus than there is said by Him.  A good part of the reading is the evangelist describing Jesus’ moving about and avoiding conflict.  Yet the final sentence of this passage heightens the setting of all that is said and done here.

In the Gospel Readings this past Tuesday and Wednesday, we heard two reasons for His enemies to threaten Him.  Today’s passage sees Jesus acting and speaking in the face of this danger.  Yet despite attempts to arrest Jesus, “no one laid a hand upon Him, because His Hour had not yet come.”

This “hour” is key to St. John’s account of the Gospel.  The evangelist isn’t referring to a chronological hour of sixty minutes.  He’s talking about the point within human history when God will destroy the power of sin and death.  Each of the signs that Jesus works during the “Book of Signs” foretells the events of Jesus’ Hour, and all of His teaching describes His reason for undertaking His Hour out of love.