March 17, 2024
Fifth Sunday of Lent (Year B)
The readings for this Fifth Sunday of Lent contain a theme which is key for understanding our observance of Lent and, more so, vital to our understanding of God’s plan of salvation.
At the very beginning of God’s revelation to us in the Bible we find God making a pact with Adam and Eve (Gen. 3:1-25). They are promised an existence of blessings and joy with the only restriction being they do not eat of the Tree of Knowledge. Of course, we all know how that story goes. In their desire to be like God to have the knowledge of good and evil, they fall to the temptation of the serpent, breaking their covenant with God and bringing sin, toil, and death into the world.
In His infinite mercy, however, God turns to one man, Abraham, and makes a covenant with him with a three-fold promise of land, a nation, and abundant blessings. Abraham and his descendants will become the way in which the gifts originally given to Adam and Eve would again come to all people.
In the First Reading we find one of the concluding steps in this evolution of God’s plan in the covenant promised through the prophet Jeremiah (Jer. 31:31-34). God says that this covenant will not be like the one established with the descendants of Abraham which was repeatedly broken. Rather, it will be extended beyond the nation of Israel and its laws as a personal relationship written on the heart of every individual. The universality of this covenant as part of God’s plan is apparent when God says, “All, from least to greatest, shall know me.” (Jer. 31:34b).
When we turn to the Gospel from John (Jn. 12:20-33), we find a lot of things happening which signal that God’s plan of salvation for all of humanity is coming to completion. First of all, we are told that “some Greeks” who are visiting Jerusalem for the Passover Feast have sought out Philip and his brother Andrew asking to see Jesus. These “Greeks” represent Gentiles, or non-Jews, who have been observing some of the traditions of Judaism and now are curious about Jesus. The names of disciples they approach are also symbolic as “Philip” and “Andrew” are Greek. Thus these two disciples represent the way in which the salvation achieved by Jesus will be brought to the Gentile people.
When Philip and Andrew go tell Jesus about the Gentiles seeking him, he seems to give them a strange answer. Instead of saying something like, “OK I would like to meet them” or “Bring them to me,” Jesus says, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Amen, amen, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies, it produces much fruit.” (Jn. 12:23-24).
This elusive response and the use of the phrase “The hour” is a common motif in John’s Gospel. Jesus uses it on many occasions to indicate that the time for him to complete his mission will occur at his crucifixion and resurrection. Here he symbolically describes it as a grain of wheat which dies when it falls to the ground, but then produces much fruit after it takes root and blooms. Notice that in this particular passage Jesus reveals that his “hour” has arrived when the Gentiles from other regions of the country have come to seek him out.
Jesus then makes another statement which implies that the salvation he brings will be extended to all people. He does not say as elsewhere that he has come only for the “lost sheep of Israel” (Mt. 15:24). Rather he suggests that all will be welcomed into God’s Kingdom. He says, “Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there also will my servant be. The Father will honor whoever serves me.” (Jn. 12:26).
As the Gospel concludes, the indication by Jesus that the time of redemption for all people has arrived becomes more obvious. Referring to the time that he will agonize in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus says that he is troubled, but he will not ask the Father to spare him from his hour of suffering because this is the ultimate purpose of his mission. This is the final moment of God’s plan. Jesus describes it: “Now is the time of judgment on this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out. And when I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw everyone to myself.” (Jn. 12:31-32).
By this Jesus means that the time of reversal of the fall of Adam and Eve under the temptation of the serpent has arrived. The “ruler of this world,” the evil which has been hampering humanity with sinfulness, will finally be defeated. And by the crucifixion and resurrection, when Jesus is lifted on the cross and then ascended, all of humanity will be drawn to him as the completion of God’s plan of salvation. The author of the letter to the Hebrews in the Second Reading explicitly describes it: “When he was made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him.” (Heb. 5:9).
When we observe Lent it means many things. It is a time for those preparing to enter the Church as catechumens and candidates to learn about the faith and prepare themselves to receive the Sacraments of Initiation. It is a time when we remember the forty years the Israelites wandered in the wilderness after the exodus from Egypt as an act of deliverance on the part of God. It is a time of repentance, fasting and abstinence to reflect upon the forty days that Jesus spent in the desert getting ready for his mission. And it is an opportunity to consider his suffering and sacrifice for the sake of our sins.
But most of all it is a preparation to celebrate all that we have been created for since the time of Adam and Eve – a participation in the life of Jesus and reception of grace and forgiveness as a completion of God’s plan of salvation.
