FIFTH SUNDAY OF LENT

[cappie]

“The days are coming,” Jeremiah prophesies in today’s First Reading. “The hour has come,” Jesus says in the Gospel. The new covenant that God promised to Jeremiah is made in the “hour” of Jesus—in His Death, Resurrection, and Ascension to the Father’s right hand. Today’s Gospel reading is taken again from John.  Chapter 12 of John’s Gospel is a preparation for the beginning of the passion to follow. Jesus has just raised Lazarus from the dead, which inspired many people to believe in Jesus. This event also marks the turning point in Jesus’ conflict with the Jewish authorities. John’s Gospel tells us that the Sanhedrin met after this event and made plans to kill Jesus.

Now some foreigners, outsiders, show up for the festival. They say, “We wish to see Jesus.” Philip runs to Andrew and presumably says; What should we do?” Andrew obviously has no answers.  So, they run off to Jesus to tell him the foreigners are at the gates looking for him. Jesus says, in effect, if you want to see me, really, really see me, then stick around. You’ll have to deal with my death at the hands of Rome to really, see me. Are they ready for that? Are you ready for that?  

Then obviously there was some noise. Some thought it was thunder, so it must have been loud. Some thought it looked as if Jesus was talking to someone, but there was no one there. It was that voice from heaven. The same voice he heard at his baptism, the same voice from the cloud on the mountaintop with Peter, James, John, and Jesus that said, “This is my beloved, listen to him.” Are we listening yet?

 While everyone is trying to figure out what is happening, Jesus announces, “This voice has come for your sake, not mine.”  This voice that keeps coming around is for us, not for Jesus, which makes perfect sense. He knows the voice. The voice knows him, He comes to get us to listen to the voice.

Surely, we must wonder why we do not hear the voice like Jesus does more often?  Most people say we are too busy to be listening, or think we are too sophisticated to hear voices. Someone has suggested that maybe it is because we are too grown up.  

  In all the debate on capital punishment, how often are we asked to reflect upon what it might mean that the One who calls us into a relationship with the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is the victim of state-sanctioned capital punishment?

All we know is that he says, “This voice has come for your sake, not for mine.” This voice that says, “You are my beloved. I am well pleased with you. I have glorified my name and I will glorify it again.” We are left feeling that for God’s name to be glorified, we need to be listening to God’s voice and learn how to become part of the glorifying process.

The problem is that those of us who, like the foreigners, want to see Jesus are the very people to whom others come expecting to see Jesus in us. In what we say and what we do.  

Every single one of us is significant to someone else. The people to whom we are significant will catch this thing from us if they know that we are, beyond a shadow of a doubt, devoted and loyal to Jesus Christ. But the trouble is that in those moments we think of as off moments, others decide whether we are truly committed. The times when we are weeding the garden, cooking a meal, speaking to a child. These are the times and places where the other person decides who we really are. There can be no ‘off moments’ for Christians if our faith and its vitality are to be contagious.

Next Sunday is Palm Sunday. The beginning of Holy Week, the most important week in the Christian year. We must all make time to come and serve him, follow him, be with him wherever he may be. Holy Thursday, Good Friday, the Great Vigil of Easter are all times we need to come and be with him. “Follow me,” he says.

And we need to listen for the Voice. The Voice that is for our sake, not for his. The Voice speaks to us so that we might know how beloved we are. So that we might know how well pleased God is with us. Once we hear this voice and believe it, others will see Jesus, in all that we say and all that we do.