NewCreation

Homily for the Fifth Sunday of Lent, Year B

Welcome, my sisters and brothers, to this homily for the fifth Sunday in Lent. Today we've jumped a good deal of St. John's Gospel from where we were last Sunday. Last Sunday we were at the first Passover celebration by Jesus in the Temple. When he'd come to the Temple he'd thrown over the money changers and the sellers of beasts, and then shortly after he'd had a long conversation with Nicodemus, which was what we looked at last Sunday. Well, since then there's been a second Passover in which he did not go up to Jerusalem. Instead, he fed the five thousand and taught people about the meaning of the bread from heaven instead of manna, pointed to something different that he was about to do. And this is now the third Passover — the third Passover, referred to as of the Jews. And what's he doing here? Well, he's starting to do something slightly odd. He's come into Jerusalem for this festival with his disciples and with the procession which we now associate with Palm Sunday. And he appears to be bringing back the Feast of Atonement and Tabernacles from the calendar of the first Temple, so as to match on this particular year with the Feast of Passover of the calendar of the second Temple. In other words, he's bringing two things together to show what he's going to be fulfilling. So that's part of the sign that he's working out, and part of what he's going to explain as we go ahead. So here he is, back in the Temple, the third and final Passover. And among those who went up to worship at the festival were some Greeks. They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee. Okay, well, they are Greeks. That probably means diaspora Jews from Greek-speaking countries. They might simply have been Greeks, but we've got no reason to know that. And they come to Philip, who curiously is, along with Andrew, one of Jesus's disciples who has a Greek name, and so could be presumed perhaps to speak Greek. So it was logical that they would go and speak to Philip or Andrew. Philip does indeed go and talk to Andrew. So the Greek-speaking guys in this team are being approached, and Philip goes and tells Jesus that these Greeks have arrived. Now, interestingly, Jesus reacts to this as to a sign. This is one of the things which I find fascinating about this Gospel. It's as though Jesus knows that his hour is going to come — he doesn't know exactly when it is, but he knows that he's going to know when it's to be, because signs are going to be fulfilled. And this appears to be the sign that's being fulfilled. We ask ourselves, well, what's the sign that's being fulfilled? Why should some Greeks turning up be the fulfillment? It appears that this is to do with Isaiah 49, where one of the prophecies of the servant who is going to make the great sacrifice, the great atonement, talks about how they're going to come to him: people from the north and from the northwest, and from a place called Sinim, which appears to be in the south of Egypt. In other words, there was a particular moment when the gathering in of the diaspora – the diaspora just means the scattering, so the reverse of the scattering is the gathering in – that the gathering in would begin around the figure of the servant, and that when that happens, that's the time when the great sacrifice is to be made and when the great bringing together of all people is to start. So it appears that from this arrival of the Greeks, Jesus learns something. He goes, "Okay, as I thought, this is it." So he then says, "The hour has come" – before, he said on previous occasions, "The hour is not yet," or "The hour has not yet come" – "the hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified." Then he gives us his image of the grain falling to earth. This is what's going to happen. "Very truly I tell you, 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." He's starting to explain the sense of his forthcoming death and glorification, which are to be the same thing. John's Gospel is rigorously the same thing. And he then explains what this is going to be like. "Those who lose their life" – sorry – "those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life." I'm going to suggest a very slight variation on translation there, just to bring out the sense of what's going on: those who hold at naught their life in this age, or in this cultural package, will keep it for the age that is coming in, the age of the life of God. "And whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also." He's actually talking about what life is going to be like when he is lifted up – both when he's dead and when he's resurrected, when God's name is glorified, and people start to become aware that this is how you serve God. He's talking about what it's going to be like to live in the Church. It's going to look like being able to give yourself away out of love, so as to be able to receive who you are from God. This is going to be the dynamic. That's the dynamic of the seed being thrown into the ground so that it yields much fruit, and this is the dynamic into which we will be involved as we do what he does. Us finding ourselves doing it is in fact him doing it. He will be present doing it, and that's why: "Where I am, there will my servant be also, whoever serves me." the Father will honor. Time and time again he's doing this. Basically he's saying you are going to be me. I'm going to become who I am through you becoming who you are. That's how his gift works. Then we move into the final chunk of today's Gospel, a big and very dense chunk on which we could spend hours and hours, which ends with this little verse: "He said this to indicate the kind of death he was to die." And a huge amount is going on there, because actually what he's saying about the death he was to die is very striking. It starts with: "Now my soul is troubled." This is a line which we get in Matthew and in Mark as well, but in the garden of Gethsemane. In fact, the whole scene which we're about to have here is shown, is revealed in the garden of Gethsemane in both Matthew, Mark and Luke. First, the troubling of the soul. This was on the eve of the feast of atonement: the great high priest troubled his soul, weeping, lamenting, grieving for the sins of the people of Israel. That would be on the eve of the feast of atonement itself, but here you have Jesus giving the formal expression to this troubling of the soul, the grieving. Remember, in Luke's Gospel he talks about "I am grieved even unto death," which is the quote from Jonah – "I am grieved even unto death" – which was the text for the feast of the atonement. "What should I say? Father, save me from this hour? No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name." That's the equivalent of Luke's: "Father, if you will, take this cup away from me, but not my will but your will be done." It's quite literally John's version of the same sentiment. "Father, glorify your name." May everyone see who you are in what I am doing. Now here we have this very interesting point, and again this is back to Gethsemane. "Then a voice came from heaven: 'I have glorified it and I will glorify it again.'" Otherwise the voice of the angel, showing that the Lord God is making himself known in what's going to happen, and is going to make it further known. This voice from heaven is very odd. The crowd standing there heard it and said that it was thunder; others said an angel has spoken to him. Jesus answered: "This voice has come for your sake, not for mine." The only other time in John when a voice comes, it's at Jesus's baptism, and it's to John, not to Jesus – it informs John. Here the angelic voice is informing the others. But it's interesting, because in Luke the angel appears while he's troubling himself, to comfort him prior to his performing the rite of atonement, which is going to be a terrible and ghastly thing, a violent thing for him to undergo. And this is fulfilling a prophecy from the Book of Deuteronomy, a Book of Deuteronomy which only survives for us in its Greek form, because the Hebrew text has been changed since the time of Christ. This is, if you remember in St. Luke's Gospel, you have an angel turning up to comfort him and then Jesus having the sweat of blood. But here's the verse from Deuteronomy which was clearly a very controversial verse at the time: "Rejoice ye heavens with him, and let all the angels of God worship him. Rejoice ye Gentiles with his people, and let all the angels strengthen him, for he will avenge or requite or atone for the blood of his sons, and he will render vengeance or requital and recompense justice to his enemies, and will reward them that hate him, and the Lord shall purge or purify or cleanse his people's land." That's Deuteronomy 32:43 in the Greek version, and that's what's behind the Gethsemane scene, and it's what's behind this scene. The angel appearing — Jesus says here not to comfort him, but to comfort the people, to let them know what's going to happen. And what he is announcing is that he's about to perform the great sacrifice of the atonement. So then Jesus says: "Now is the judgment of this world, now is the crisis, now is the judgment, the turning point, the discernment point of the world. Now the ruler of this world will be driven out." And this again appears to be what happens in Leviticus at the rite of atonement. The one standing in for the prince of the angels is cast out, is driven out — the driving out of Azazel, the goat standing in for Azazel. So he's saying that here this is the pivotal point of creation, the crisis, the judgment, the turning point. This is what's going to happen. I'm going to go to my death, I'm going to offer my death, and it's going to be the turning point for the whole of creation. After it, the one who orders this cosmos, this cultural world as we know it, will have been driven out. "And I, when I'm lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself." In other words, whereas before people being together has been made possible by all forms of hatred and scapegoating, throwing people out, now I will be able to draw all people to myself — Gentiles, Jews, all people. There will no longer be any false ins and outs, goodness over against others. This is part of what the great sacrifice that I'm to accomplish will achieve. So, if you like, this third Passover — Jesus once again at the very end of his public ministry in John's Gospel. He has very little to say after this in public. It's not like in Matthew, Mark, Luke, where he now gives several parables in the Temple over the next few days before he's arrested. This is the end of his public ministry in John, where he announces and explains by what kind of death he is about to die. Now he will go into private and discuss things only with his disciples, preparing them intimately for what is to happen, allowing them to become insiders into what he's about. And that of course is what our Lenten journey is — allowing our Lord to turn us into insiders into what he is doing for us and what he's empowering us to do for others. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.