Our readings this week continue our journey towards the Cross. The Cross is important because it is first and foremost a demonstration of God’s love for humanity. God loves us enough to die for us, to wipe away our sin, and to restore our relationship, with Him and each other. It is central to who and what we are as Christians, people transformed by the love of God.
In our first reading this week, from the prophet Jeremiah, we see something truly amazing. Through the prophet, God promises to make a new covenant with His people. Israel broke the first covenant through disobedience and sin, and yet God offers a fresh start, a clean slate, a new beginning. God promises that:
‘But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people.’ (Jer 31:33)
Rather than being something external, something done to comply with the letter of the Law, this new covenant will be written on our hearts through faith, and lived out in our lives. It is a promise which finds its fulfilment in Jesus Christ, who teaches love of God and love of neighbour. This He lives out in His life, and He encourages us to follow His example. It is a hopeful message, as God promises:
“For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.” (Jer 31:34)
The Law of Love, which God makes real in Jesus Christ has genuine transformative power, because it is rooted in forgiveness and healing, something which only God can provide. Our loving Father does this on the Cross, where He gives His Son to die for us, to heal our wounds, and to offer eternal salvation to all who believe in Him.
In our Gospel today we have reached the events just before the Passover. Passover is the central feast of Israel, commemorating the journey from slavery in Egypt to the Promised Land. There are some Greeks, who may or may not be Jewish converts, that approach Philip, who has a Greek name. He, along with Simon Peter and Andrew, was first a disciple of John the Baptist, before following Jesus. These Greeks ask Philip a simple question:
“Sir, we wish to see Jesus.”(Jn 12:21)
This is the longing of the human heart, a desire to see Jesus, to have an encounter with the divine. Philip tells Andrew, and they both go to see Jesus, who says this in reply:
“The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. If anyone serves me, he must follow me; and where I am, there will my servant be also. If anyone serves me, the Father will honour him.” (Jn 12:23-26)
Jesus’ reply should strike us as strange. He doesn’t say, ‘Of course, bring them here’, or ‘I’d be delighted to meet them’. Instead He starts talking about His forthcoming Death. This is glory. It is not the human idea of glory, but quite the opposite – dying the death of common criminal. This doesn’t make sense, in human terms, and it isn’t supposed to. As it says in the prophet Isaiah (55:8), ‘For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.’ The point is that we need to do things, God’s way, and not ours. Christ is the grain of wheat who dies, and who yields a rich harvest, in the Church, saving the souls of countless billions of people over the last two thousand years.
Jesus calls us to follow Him, and not to care for life in this world — Heaven is our home, it is what we prepare for here on earth. If we want to share in Christ’s glory, then we need to follow the same path of suffering love which takes Him to His Cross, and will take us to ours. As sales pitches go it isn’t going to win plaudits from any Advertising Agency! That’s the point. It is honest, and it is the truth, plain and unvarnished. This truth changes the world, and sets us free (cf. Jn 8:32). We are free because He hung on a wooden cross and died and rose again for us. That is God’s glory — dying for love of us, to set us free, free to live for Him, and with Him, forever.
Our responsibility as Christians is that people might see Jesus in all we do, say and think. We need to be living, breathing, walking advertisements for the Good News of Jesus Christ here and now. We can use this time of Lent to consider significant aspects of our lives. Being under lockdown has made us realise what is important, what really matters. It is vital that we live in such a way that people might see Jesus in who and what we are, and what we do.
How do we do this? We do it through the Grace of God, and by trying, by co-operating with that Grace. We do it by making a conscious effort to live out our faith together, as a Christian community. We do it by being filled with love, and filled with grace, in the knowledge of the forgiving power of Christ’s blood which was shed for us. We cannot save ourselves, only Christ can do that. Salvation is not just an individual matter. Christ came to change the world. This He doe, one soul at a time, through the Church, and the sacraments of Baptism and the Eucharist,. These outward and visible signs of inward and spiritual grace, are the free gift of God to his people.
We will often fail to practise what we preach, and people may call us hypocrites, but the point is that we keep on trying. God will not abandon us. He dies for us, bearing the burden of our sins, so that we might become like Him. That is why Jesus was born for us, lived, died, and rose again for us.
As Christians we live no longer for ourselves, but for the God who loves us. We can offer the world around us an alternative to the way of selfishness and sin. We need to trust Jesus’ words, and fashion our lives after His example. Together, nourished by Word and Sacrament, and carrying our own cross, we trust in His grace and proclaim His truth. We do this so that the world may believe and follow God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. To whom be ascribed, as is most right and just, all might, majesty, glory, dominion, and power, now and forever. Amen.
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