HOMILY FOR THE FIFTH SUNDAY OF LENT, YEAR B Jeremiah 31:31-34/ Psalm 51/ Hebrews 5:7-9/ John 12:20-33.

THEME: obedience of faith and life


All three Readings are linked by offering us, each in its own way, the underlying theological explanation of the Paschal mystery of Jesus´ suffering, death and resurrection. It is no historical accident, but the key element of God´s great plan of salvation. By this sacrifice God will create in his people a new heart, free from sin and ready to embrace his law ("a willing spirit", Psalm) not as something foreign and imposed, but as the law of the heart itself (First Reading and Psalm). Obedience to God´s plan, expressed in his law or otherwise, is a source of suffering for man – even for Christ - but it is simultaneously the source of our salvation, which follows the paradoxical law of life springing from death (Second Reading and Gospel). Like Christ, the one who freely gives up his "life" in obedience to God´s will recovers it in all its fullness.




The first reading is from Jeremiah and is again written while the Jews were in captivity in Babylon. The prophet Jeremiah felt that the Jews had broken the covenant with God that was made by Moses on Mount Sinai and that was why they were in captivity. He was looking forward to a new covenant that God would establish where God would write his law, not on tablets of stone but in the hearts of His people.




I am overwhelmed at the humility of God to condescend so low to establish His covenant with sinful humanity. Covenants or contracts are entered into usually between equals, but in our case, it is between God (Superior) and man (Inferior). This tells us that it not the desire of God that anyone should perish but that all may be saved. It is, therefore, always God’s initiative to reconcile sinful man to himself because he knows that we have never been faithful to the covenant. Jesus becomes the concrete expression of what the prophet Jeremiah prophesied.
The Gospel reading of today can only make meaning when we place it within the wider context of Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem (cf John 12:12-19). Jesus´ words for some who wanted to see him appear astonishing: "unless a grain of wheat dies…” In reality, he is repeating the message he has constantly tried to transmit to the people: if you are looking for a triumphant Messiah, you will not find him, because the real Messiah is a man who must suffer and die in lacerating obedience to the will of the Father.




If there were any doubt about the value of obedience, the life and death of Christ could be said to be designed just to dissipate our doubts. Whatever about others, any Christian for whom obedience is a non-value is either hopelessly superficial, or stupidly proud (perhaps all of us have to admit to both). St Paul´s implication, as the Fathers of the Church understood it, is that since Christ saved us by his obedience not only did he become "the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him" (Second Reading) but that all who obey like him become with him a source of salvation for others.




The grain of wheat that wants to "save itself" remains completely sterile. Only the grain –and the person- that is willing to come undone, and rot in the ground to produce a shoot of new wheat, will be fruitful. Suffering in and of itself has no value. It is human to flee from it. But from the moment God used the suffering of Jesus in his passion and on the cross to redeem us from sin, suffering united to Christ is of incalculable value: what it achieves –salvation- is so far out of proportion to "how much it hurts" that the person who believes sees it as much more of a good than an evil.




St. Paul in the second reading sets the tone for a fruitful relationship with God. For him we owe God a double "obedience": of faith and of life. The second is really an application of the first. Both can be a struggle; Jesus himself was only able to obey after "loud cries and tears". By "the obedience of faith", "man completely submits his intellect and his will to God" and what he reveals (Catechism 143). What is it you have difficulty accepting? Well, Jesus had difficulty accepting that his Father actually wanted him to give up his life in such a horrendous form. Try some serious conversation with him during these next two weeks; offer him one thing in which you are going to "submit your mind and your will to God". Make a change in your life that expresses that. Ask him for the strength to do it.




Like the Greeks who spoke to Philip, we too "would like to see Jesus". But how can we if we only want to know a Christ without the cross? Of course, it is not just his cross we have a problem with: we realize it implies our cross and our own readiness to "lose our life" (Gospel). "Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified", St. Paul said, "a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God" (1Corinthians 1:22-24; 2:1-2). You could wonder if, when he wrote that bit about the "stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles", he thought of saying something about a lot of us Christians too. Would not sound as good, I suppose. At any rate, between now and Easter, we all need to reflect on the real gospel, and develop a completely new attitude towards the cross.




Finally as we begin Holy Week next Sunday, let us not only be fascinated by what we experience but like the Greeks, we also need to see Jesus, love and serve him in all those whose cross is particularly heavy and painful today.