Thursday of the 5th week of Lent, St Mary’s Cathedral, Sydney, 26 March 2026
Yesterday, on the Feast of the Annunciation, we meditated on Why Jesus was born—why God became human and dwelt amongst us. Today’s Gospel points to the flipside question: Why Jesus died—or why humanity killed Him. As we draw near to Holy Week, we face that uncomfortable question. What claims did Jesus make, implicitly or explicitly, which so threatened the established order or certain people’s interests, that rather than dismiss Him as a clown they were determined to exterminate Him?
¸Well, our Gospel passage (Jn 8:51-59) presents Jesus’ interrogators as absolutely exasperated with Him. “Who do you think you are!?” they ask, in effect three times.
It’s a question that cuts both ways, and one that we are all asked at various points in our own life. Who does Jesus claim to be, and what are the implications for us? A young parent, suddenly responsible for a small life, wonders if they are equal to the task. A young professional, stepping into a new role, experiences imposter syndrome. A person of faith, challenged to explain why they believe what they do, struggles to find the words. At every threshold, we are asked to give an account of who we are. In the weeks and months ahead, our new principals, APs, RECs and beginning teachers will all be asked that, whether explicitly by someone in particular, implicitly by the world, or personally when they look in the mirror.
How does Jesus respond when the question is put to Him? Not evasively, that’s for sure. His answers are direct, provocative, bewildering… Today He makes three extraordinary claims, each more confronting than the last, but each worth our examination because of what it says to us as Christian leaders and teachers.
¸First, Jesus claims to hold the key to immortality. “Whoever keeps my word will live forever.” Since the dawn of time people have sought the secret of eternal life and youth. They’ve tried magic, alchemy, the quest for the Holy Grail, Faustian deals with the Devil. In modernity we have biohacks, cold plunges, hyper-optimised diets, transplants. We imagine that if we throw enough money, tech and effort at ageing and death, one day we’ll beat them. So when someone who is not a scientist or doctor but a carpenter, not from Silicon Valley or Jerusalem but nowheresville Nazareth, claims to have the secret we are incredulous. What’s His life hack? “Believe me, keep my word, and live forever!” Not even Abraham, Moses or the prophets made such claims. Jesus’ examiners recognise immediately that He is claiming a greater authority than all of them. He must be possessed by a demon!
His second claim is more subtle but no less staggering. He says He is the fulfilment of Abraham’s dreams and so all Israel’s hopes. “Your father Abraham rejoiced to think that he would see my Day; now he sees it and is glad” (Jn 8:56). It’s a bamboozling claim. For one thing, Abraham lived as long before Jesus as Jesus lived before us. And Abraham and Sarah’s dream was not to see Jesus to have a son of their own and descendants (Gen 17:3-9).
¸But his hope was sorely tried. Sarah was infertile into old age. Then, when they miraculously had a child together, Abraham was required to sacrifice him. “Don’t worry boy. The Lord will provide the lamb of sacrifice,” he told young Isaac, hoping against hope. It was a premonition to be fulfilled two thousand years later, when God offered his only Son Jesus. The sacrifice and saving of Abraham’s son on Mount Moriah prefigured the Passion and Resurrection of God’s Son and Abraham’s greatest descendant on Mount Calvary. And it is to this that Jesus refers when He says Abraham rejoiced to see His day. Jesus was the fulfilment, not of some amorphous desire for more and better earthly life, but of the deeper longing of the human heart: for redemption, for a new future, for union with others, communion with God.
Now if Jesus’ opponents had their noses out of joint about his claims to have greater authority than them and to be the fulfilment of all Israel’s hopes, His third claim was a knock-out blow. “Before Abraham was, I AM,” He declares (Jn 8:58). In effect He is saying: not only am I the fulfilment of hopes and dreams, I’m their source. I’m Being before all being, the maker of the promises, the implanter of aspirations. Not just some miracle-worker, or revolutionary leader, or guru. “How dare you!” His interlocutors say, “Who do you think you are to say such things?!”
“Who do I think I am? I’m the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. I’m Yahweh, I’m ‘I AM’.” ¸No wonder they immediately moved to stone Him as a blasphemer!
It’s instructive for us. If believing and living Jesus’ word is key to earthly and eternal life, Catholic leaders and teachers have an especially precious task: to treasure and transmit that news, that faith, to others, so they too might have fullness of life. If Christ is the key to our deepest aspirations and sacrifices, to redemption and communion, then bringing young people to Christ is doing them the greatest favour we can. And if Jesus is Yahweh, I AM, the source of being, He can enable our mission to transmit faith and hope to the young.
But the response Christ received was not always applause; today it was stones. Authority grounded in truth will not always win you friends. It can be costly. There will be moments in the classroom, staffroom or office when you will be called upon to witness—quietly, persistently, charitably—to uncomfortable or unfashionable truths. Who do you think you are—the world will ask—to be teaching such God stuff, to be trying to live it, to be building a school culture where God is known, loved and served? Who are you to be defending that vision of the human person that comes from Abraham, and Jesus, and SCS?
¸ Sometimes it feels easier to just rest on our qualifications. But notice Jesus’ words: “If I sought my own glory, it would be no glory at all; the real glory is that conferred by the Father.” So, too, your authority as Catholic educators comes from your studies and degrees, experience and ideals; it comes from your appointment by the Church and Sydney Catholic Schools; it comes from the trust families, school, the community have invested in you. It comes from your own hard work in service of students and the mission. But it does not finally rest on these things. It rests above all on the truth of the One in whose name you teach. On the truth to which you will witness as much as teach. On the truth that means, even met with stones in the culture or the classroom, yet shall we live, live in God, live forever.
So have great confidence, beginning teachers, as you embrace the great adventure of Catholic education. Have great courage, education leaders, in your mission of guiding Sydney Catholic Schools. Have joy, Christian disciples and children of Abraham, in the promise of eternal life. Welcome to Sydney Catholic Schools!
Introduction to Commissioning Mass for New Leaders +
Beginning Teachers for Sydney Catholic Schools
Thursday of the 5th week of Lent, St Mary’s Cathedral, Sydney, 26 March 2026
Welcome to St Mary’s Cathedral for our Commissioning Mass for new Principals, Assistant Principals, Religious Education Coordinators, and Beginning Teachers of Sydney Catholic Schools. It’s a joy to see so many enthusiastic educators ready to live out their Christian discipleship in the crucial vocation of Catholic school teaching and leading.
To those newly with us, you join a long and rich tradition reaching back more than two-hundred years here in Sydney and on this very site, and more than a thousand years world-wide. A tradition of education that today impacts the lives of around 75,000 students in this archdiocese, 830,000 nationwide, and over 65 million worldwide, with their families and communities.
With me are Frs Roberto Keryakos and Ben Saliba. I salute the Executive Director of Sydney Catholic Schools, Danielle Cronin, together with board members, directors, SCS management and staff, as well as all school leaders, teachers, and general staff. Above all, dear beginning teachers, a very warm welcome to this Mass and to the Archdiocese.
