5th Sunday of Lent
March 22, 2015
4 PM Liturgy
J.A. Loftus, S.J.
In the “old days,” when I was a young man (and some of you
were obviously young men and women too!), this would have been
the day on which all the crosses and images in the church were
draped in violet. It was the two-week warning sign that the
celebration of the Passion of the Lord was immanent.
Most churches don’t do that anymore (although in the US we
still have permission to do so.) The gesture was meant as just one
more visual stimulus that something very important was laying
just ahead. And even without the dramatic draping, the readings
for this Sunday liturgy move us directly to the same end. The
greatest liturgical celebration of the year is slowly dawning.
The great prophet Jeremiah sounds the trumpet. “The days
are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with
the house of Israel.” A new covenant, a new testament! This is the
only reference to a New Testament in the entire Old Testament
(that’s just a piece of scripture trivia for you to take home). And
this time, the Lord says, my covenant will not be written on stone
tablets, I will place my law within them and write it upon their
hearts. Thus says the Lord.
Jeremiah continues, “All from the least to the greatest shall
know me…for I will remember their sin no more.”
For the prophet Jeremiah, the “days were coming.” For the
author of the Letter to the Hebrews, the days had come. “In the
days when Christ Jesus was in the flesh…he became the source of
eternal salvation for all who obey him.” It is accomplished. And
that phrase, you might remember, is the last thing Jesus says as he
is glorified on the cross in John’s gospel. Consumatum est. It is
accomplished!
Today’s reading from John’s gospel contains two of the most
explicit Passion and Resurrection predictions anywhere in that
book. And you will also remember, no doubt, that for St. John the
crucifixion and resurrection are one and the same. Jesus is
glorified on the cross. We hear the prediction today.
“The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Amen,
amen, I say to you, unless the grain of wheat falls to the ground and
dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies, it produces
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much fruit.” And later in the passage, “And when I am lifted up
from the earth, I will draw everyone to myself.”
This is the peak of the human drama for Jesus. And while
Matthew, Mark and Luke have a separate Gethsemane scene, John
places his Gethsemane scene I the middle of this speech to Philip
and the Greek visitors. This is a very personal drama for Jesus. He
says, “I am troubled now. Yet what should I say? Father, save me
from this hour? But it was for this purpose that I came to this hour.
Father, glorify your name.”
But this is also much more than a personal drama for Jesus in
John’s gospel. It is a cosmic drama. The whole word hangs in the
balance. John has Jesus say, “Now is the time of judgment on this
world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out.” And then
when I am lifted up, I will drawn everyone to myself. Rene Girard,
the noted anthropologist and theologian, titled one of his books: I
see Satan Fall Like Lightening (Cf. Luke 10: 18). The drama is not
just personal for Jesus. It is the eternal battle from the beginning
of time finally settled. Death shall be no more. Jeremiah was right.
I, myself, am written in their hearts. For I live and die as one of
them. “Father, glorify your name.”
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The violet drapes and the words of scripture today take us to
the same place. The greatest story ever told in human history is to
be recreated before our very eyes beginning in just two weeks.
Mary Oliver has a poem with a tantalizing title and a
provocatrive opening stanza. It’s called “Where does the Temple
begin / Where does it end?” She writes: “There are things you
can’t reach. But you can reach out to them, and all day long. The
wind, the bird flying away. The idea of God.”
Mary Oliver is right. We will never reach the idea of God. But
we now can reach Jesus. He was here. He was with us. He was one
of us. And he still is. The world we now live in, this very world we
call our own, only exists because of the shadow of that cross. And
we only have life in the shadow of that cross. That’s reality. The
rest is fiction.
God answers Jesus’ request in today’s gospel. God says, “I will
glorify my name.” And God says again to us, “And I will glorify my
name again today—in you.”
“There are some things you can’t reach. But you can reachout to them. And all day long.” Welcome to the final days of Lent.
Peace!
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