The Tuesday after Quinquagesima Sunday (Esto mihi)
Posted on February 17, 2026 by under
Scripture: St. John 14:21-24 (NKJV)
14:21 “He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him.”
22 Judas (not Iscariot) said to Him, “Lord, how is it that You will manifest Yourself to us, and not to the world?”
23 Jesus answered and said to him, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him. 24 He who does not love Me does not keep My words; and the word which you hear is not Mine but the Father’s who sent Me.”
Devotion
Judas “gets us.” Following Jesus would be easier if everyone could see Him for who He is! Yet, seeing is not necessarily believing. Judas Thaddeus (“not Iscariot”) confesses that Jesus manifested Himself, that His works reveal Him as the Only-begotten Son of God, come as True Man to save us. Thaddeus wants all to trust in Jesus as He does. Judas Iscariot, though, having seen the very same things, betrays Jesus!
Lack of trust in Jesus’ teaching robs one of the understanding of His works, just as it robs the understanding of His parables (Matt. 13:14). Judas Thaddeus embraced Jesus’ answer that those who believed His teaching would have Him and the Father dwelling in them. Judas Iscariot would find it another reason to betray Jesus: Jesus wasn’t doing what the unbeliever wants done—making him rich, making his children behave, giving his party political sway, overthrowing Rome—He’s just making life more difficult for some intangible benefit of “having peace with God.”
Judas Iscariot continued to desire what Judas Thaddeus learned is not possible, that all would live by sight, not faith. Israel’s history demonstrates that ‘sight’—seeing repeated acts of deliverance—will not save sinners, because faith isn’t just a confession of the facts. It is trust in God’s abiding favor toward us behind those facts. It is something that comes only through the Word, which promises grace will continue to us through Jesus’ perfect life and atoning death in our place.
Collect: O Lord, we beseech Thee mercifully hear our prayers, and, having set us free from the bonds of sin, defend us from all evil; through Jesus Christ, Thy Son, our Lord, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the Holy Ghost, ever One God, world without end. Amen.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
