SUNDAY, MARCH 21, 2021

SUNDAY, MARCH 21, 2021

Fifth Sunday of Lent

First Reading: Jeremiah 31:31-34

Responsorial Psalm: Psalms 51:3-4, 12-15

Second Reading: Hebrews 5:7-9

Gospel: John 12:20-33

The readings today focus us on the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus. The first reading from the prophet Jeremiah is clear that the relationship of God and His people was broken. There is a need for a new covenant that will last forever. He shows us a God who loves us, who is always seeking us out, a God who is always willing to start a new covenant with us, a God who wants to forgive our sins. He says, “I will forgive their evil doing and remember their sins no more.”

The second reading comes from the Letter to the Hebrews. This letter is used more and more as we approach Good Friday and Easter Sunday. It speaks clearly of the sufferings of the Lord Jesus, “Son though He was, He learned obedience through what He suffered, and being made perfect, He became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey Him.” To be a follower of jesus is to imitate Jesus. Following Jesus, our obedience must become a dying to ourselves, a daily martyrdom. This brings us to the Gospel.

We are now reading from the 12th chapter of John’s Gospel. Chapter 12 begins John’s account of the final week in the earthly life of Jesus. This final week begins with Jesus travelling to Jerusalem for the celebration of the Passover. Some gentiles came looking for Jesus.They are Greeks attracted to Israel’s God and have come to participate in the feast of Passover. They approach Philip perhaps because his name is Greek. Perhaps he understood a bit of Greek too. They said, “we would like to see Jesus.” Philip passes their request to Andrew (another disciple with a Greek name).

Consider for a moment the request the Greeks were making – we would like to see Jesus. What exactly were they hoping for when they asked to see Jesus? Do they want to see Him out of mere curiosity? They were definitely hoping to do more than merely seeing Jesus. If I say to you, “I will like to see you.” I am asking for an appointment to meet with you. I want more than just looking at you. That is one way of using the word, ‘see.’ If you say something and I respond, ‘I see,’ this is about a moment of perception or understanding, to begin to see something in a new way.This is close to how John uses the word in his Gospel. The Greek word he uses is “idine.” It does not refer to the physical condition of seeing. It actually translates “to believe in” and is used in contexts that deal with revelation of God in and through Jesus Christ.

Recall that in chapter 1 of John’s Gospel, Andrew and an unnamed disciple were with John the Baptist when he points out Jesus as the Lamb of God, they followed Jesus. Jesus turned and seeing them, He asked them, “what are you looking for? They asked, “Rabbi, where are you staying? He said to them, “come and see.” Andrew later found his brother Simon and said to him, “we have found the Messiah.” He brought Simon to Jesus. Seeing Jesus, Andrew believed in Jesus and brought his brother to Jesus. The following day, Jesus found Philip and calls him. Immediately he meets his brother Nathaniel, he says to him, ‘we have found Him about whom Moses in the law and the prophets wrote. Jesus Son of Joseph from Nazareth.’ When Nathaniel replied in disbelief, Philip said to him, “come and see.” To see Jesus is to believe in Jesus and to become a disciple. This is the vocation of every one of us. In the Gospel of John, Philip and Andrew were the first to receive the invitation to discipleship directly from Jesus. Their presence when the first set of gentiles will be seeing Jesus establishes a connection between the call of the first Jewish disciples and the arrival of the first gentile disciples.

When Philip and Andrew approach Jesus and tell Him some gentiles want to see Him. Responding Jesus declares, “the hour has come.” What does He mean, “the hour has come?” To understand the magnitude of this declaration, we need to keep in mind that for the first eleven chapters of John’s Gospel, Jesus has consistently said, “my hour has not yet come” or “my hour is coming.” When Mary His mother invited Him to solve the wine problem at Cana, he responded, “my hour has not yet come.” In chapters seven and eight, when the authorities wanted to arrest Jesus, John tells us, they could not lay hands on Him because His hour has not come. Now in chapter twelve, at this solemn juncture, He declares the hour has come. The moment the Greeks start looking for Him, He says, His hour has come. It is the hour is the hour of His passion and death, it is the hour of the redemption of the world.

Why does Jesus have to say His hour has come the moment the Greeks start looking for Him? Every first century Jew knew from the Old Testament that one of the signs of the age of salvation, one of the signs of the Messiah would be the conversion of gentiles. The gentiles will start looking to worship the one God of Israel. The Book of Zachariah talks about the gentiles grabbing the coat of the Jew and asking them, “bring us to Jerusalem, bring us to your God. Isaiah chapter 2 and Micah chapter 2 talk about the fact that not only will the word of God go forth from Zion, but the nations will come streaming to Jerusalem to worship the God of Israel.

Recognizing this sign, Jesus immediately points to His glorification. In the Old Testament, the glorification of God would be a way of speaking about worshiping the Lord, to give glory to the Lord. But Jesus uses this term glorify to refer to His passion and death so that His passion and death is in a real sense, the ultimate act of praise and worship to God the Father. That is what He is going to do on the cross. To draw us into this mystery, he gives us a parable about a seed grain that falls into the ground and dies. He says, “unless a grain of wheat falls in the earth and dies, it remains alone, but if dies, it bears much fruit. Even more explicitly, He says, whoever loves his life will lose it and whoever hates his life will save it for eternal life. Hate here is not to despair but to love less. It is a Jewish way of speaking. Remember in Luke’s Gospel Jesus said, ‘whoever does not hate his father and mother is not worthy of me.’ The point is that whoever will cling to his life will lose it. Jesus is going to be the supreme example of this because He is not going to cling to His life. He is going to willingly lay it down on the cross. It is only when we are willing to lose our lives that we can give fitting worship to God that will bring Him glory.

Love of the self is at the heart of sin and the refusal to die for Christ. To be a Christian is to be a victim. It is not possible to be a true Christian and at the same time to strive to lead a comfortable life. Those who love their lives will lose it. We must die to ourselves. Perfect worship of God Pure love of God and neighbor, is only possible for the one who has died to himself or herself.

Happy Sunday to you!!!

Fr. Chidi Onwuka msscc