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April 2, 2006 Fifth Sunday in Lent (B) Terrance Callan Jer 31:31-34 X Heb 5:7-9 X John 12:20-33 Suffering and death are part of every human life, but we do not easily accept them. Instead we avoid them as much as possible and even try to forget that they are part of our experience. The death and resurrection of Jesus encourage us to embrace our suffering and death in order to find life in them, and make it possible for us to do so. The reading from the book of the prophet Jeremiah contains God’s promise of a new covenant to be made with the Jewish people. This new covenant would not be like the covenant God made with the people after leading them out of Egypt to freedom. The people broke that covenant and suffered the consequences, especially the conquest of Judah by the Babylonians. They did so in part because the covenant was something outside themselves, a relationship requiring effort to be maintained. But the new covenant will be a more intimate relationship with God in which God’s law is written on their hearts, and all the people know God in themselves. We Christians believe that God kept this promise of a new covenant in Jesus. The covenant established through Jesus was new in many ways. It involved a new intimacy between God and people as Jeremiah foresaw. This intimate relationship was not confined to the Jewish people, but included Gentiles as equal partners with the Jews. And this covenant was new because it was established through the suffering and death of Jesus. This was a completely unexpected aspect of the new covenant. Both the reading from the letter to the Hebrews and the reading from gospel according to John offer explanations of it. The reading from Hebrews says that Jesus “learned obedience from what he suffered; and when he was made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him.” Jesus’ suffering is here pictured as that of a child who is educated through discipline (see Hebrews 12:4-11). Even though Jesus lacked the failings that in other human beings must be corrected by discipline, he shared the human condition to the extent that he had to learn obedience through suffering. The reading from the gospel of John uses another image to account for Jesus’ suffering and death. Jesus says, “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.” Just as a seed must “die” in order to accomplish its purpose, i.e., the growth of a new plant and the production of many new seeds, so Jesus had to die in order to draw all people to himself. Jesus had to die in order to become the true vine, of which we are the branches, living and bearing fruit in him (see John 15:1-11). The new covenant was established by the suffering and death of Jesus. And the intimate relationship with God that we have through Jesus also includes this element of suffering and death. Like Jesus, we are children of God who must learn obedience through suffering. For us as for Jesus “Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will preserve it for eternal life.” Let us try to accept the surprising presence and power of God in the suffering and death of Jesus and in our own suffering and death.
©Terrance Callan |
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