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YOUCAT Daily

Fri, March 24, 2023
Jesus was a Jew
Jesus was a Jew
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Jn 7, 1-2. 10. 25-30

After this, Jesus moved about within Galilee; but 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 up to the feast, he himself also went up, not openly but (as it were) in secret. So some of the inhabitants of Jerusalem said, "Is he not the one they are trying to kill? And look, he is speaking openly and they say nothing to him. Could the authorities have realized that he is the Messiah? But we know where he is from. When the Messiah 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 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 upon him, because his hour had not yet come.

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97
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Are the Jews guilty of Jesus’ death?

No one can assign collective guilt for the death of Jesus to the Jews. Instead, the Church professes with certainty that all sinners share in the guilt for Jesus’ death. (597–598)

The aged prophet Simeon foresaw that Jesus would become “a sign that is spoken against” (Lk 2,34b). And in fact Jesus was resolutely rejected by the Jewish authorities, but among the Pharisees, for example, there were also secret followers of Jesus, like Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea. Various Roman and Jewish persons and institutions (Caiaphas, Judas, the Sanhedrin, Herod, Pontius Pilate) took part in Jesus’ trial, and only God knows their guilt as individuals. The idea that all Jews of that time or living today are guilty of Jesus’ death is irrational and biblically untenable.

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Inspiration
The conviction of many Christians that "the Jews" are to blame for the death of Jesus has brought great suffering to Jews over the centuries. This anti-Judaism paved the way for later racist anti-Semitism. Right up to the crime of the Holocaust. I am depressed by this shameful history and I see us Christians as having a special responsibility to counter the anti-Semitism that is flaring up everywhere in word, deed and prayer.
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Michaela von Heereman
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