FIFTH SUNDAY OF LENT B (Passion Sunday)

[cappie]

Our readings today are filled with anticipation. 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.

Firstly we gain a glimpse of Jesus reacting with two of his disciples. Philip and Andrew came to tell him that some Greeks had arrived asking to see him. Jesus  took the opportunity  to teach – to lay out what his followers needed to understand.  

His reply to Phillip and Andrew indicated his readiness for what would be his final days. He said that it was time for him to reveal what all humankind would see about him and his role in the divine drama. “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.”

This must have excited his disciples and the Greeks. Having recently experienced Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead, perhaps they thought he would work even greater wonders and bring an end to their difficulties in life. Or, maybe,   they thought he meant it was time for him to prevail over all the world’s kingdoms. Any such euphoria, however, would have been short-lived. It was   a different kind of conquest that Jesus had in mind – the conquest of the cross.

Jesus immediately began to lay out the hard truth of what lay ahead. In a similar way, as we worship one week away from Palm Sunday, our gospel reading lets us see what lies ahead for us in making the Holy Week journey.

Jesus used a parable,  “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” A seed, by itself, is only a small piece of matter.  But if it is buried and dies beyond its present condition, it can release all that is contained within – the very nature and substance of a whole stalk of ripened wheat.

His own death and resurrection would be the vehicle through which not only his disciples but all humankind, could truly see what Jesus was all about. It was by dying that the power of God contained in Jesus would be fully released. By “glorified,” Jesus meant crucified. Jesus was saying that only by his death could true life come. Just as a grain of wheat, remaining unfruitful in the protective security of a barn, can only release its power by being buried and dying to what it has been.

Making sure there would be no mistake Jesus added this to the parable: “Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.” So, what was true for Jesus, he said, was also true for his followers. Those who would truly see him would know that only by their deaths to the values of the world could they gain true life. He said, “Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also. Whoever serves me, the Father will honour.”

Often in the course of human experiences – those of past centuries as well as current times – this truth has proved itself out . This is summed up in a well-known phrase by Tertullian, a Christian writer in the first century: “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.”

Often, people become of real use to God by burying their own goals and desires. Think about the saints.  They are the ones who put aside personal safety and security for the sake of others. They abandon gain and the advancement of personal need to meet the needs of others.  They give themselves away to God and to others.

In today’s gospel, Jesus lets us see an initial view of him as the prototype – the perfect example – of the kind of risk-filled living that love of God requires.  Only by spending our lives, he says, can we keep our true lives. Jesus   calls us to see him – to see his vision – a new view of life, a life of meaning and of glory.

  In the encounter in today’s gospel, Jesus taught that only dying to self can bring forth the kind of redeemed life God has in store for us; only by spending life can we retain it. Only in this context can we do what the Greeks hoped to do – see Jesus for what he is for the world.   Only in this way can we see him for what he really is – the living image of God.

As we move  toward Holy Week, we come as the Greeks before the Lord – asking to see Jesus – to discover what he is all about. As we witness the ultimate example that he provides, we can follow him into a life of true meaning and become transformed by what we see.