Fifth Sunday in Lent St George’s East Ivanhoe.
What are the many difficult tasks, painful questions or issues that you have faced over your lifetime? How have you reconciled or solved them? I have discovered over many years of ministry that most people including myself have had to address at least one, if not many issues that have challenged their faith, their family, their work colleagues or friends. It may be a failed relationship, the death of a loved one, a work related matter or a tragic event of some sort.
When needing to address the break up of one of my children’s marriage I discovered and listened to how others, many parishioners, coped and were able to move forward. At the time I was surprised also about what I learnt about myself, the need to take time, the need to stand back and not give advice, to let the couple deal with the many issues involved. I needed to share, as a father, unconditional love, forgiveness, understanding and hope for the future.
The fifth Sunday in Lent represents for many the difficult task of facing the questions I have just outlined posed by human frailty, purpose and destiny. Jeremiah the reluctant prophet in the earlier part of today’s Old Testament reading is bewildered with the nature of human disobedience from God’s covenant and a new covenant as we just read. Then our Gospel has Jesus recognizing and struggling with the events about to unfold.
The questions of life and purpose confront us all at different times in our life, and as a priest I have become more aware of the fact that many of us silently and without any sense of resolution carry matters with us throughout our life’s journey. Some resort to medications to help us cope, others perhaps turn to drink, still others seek help from professionals or friends. Some simply seek to ignore confronting issues and questions as mere humbug or self indulgence or are flippant in responding. The texts for reflection and learning this week point us to the anxiety and doubts Jesus expresses as he moves towards his destiny. “Now my soul is troubled. And what should I say? Father save me from this hour? No, it is for this reason that I have come. “
Jeremiah who was probably one of the most challenged and buffeted people in the Old Testament expressed insights during a traumatic life of faithful but perplexed and confusion. He lived during one of the most upsetting times in Israel’s history – the destruction of Jerusalem and the devastating period when the Babylonians carried the people into exile. He struggled to provide the unbelieving people of Israel with the truth of what they needed to do if they were to survive. He named the “elephant in the room” as we say, the unsaid, ignored or sidelined. When he saw the people’s disobedience and predicted the coming of trauma and the failures to solve the issues confronting them, most refused to believe and locked him up. Jeremiah wrestles with God and the people of Israel. I suspect that like Jeremiah there are times we wrestle with God, when ignored or even ridiculed by those who reject or ignore faith, or when we are wresting with doubt or questions, or personal tragedy or challenge. For Jeremiah the new covenant referred today in our OT lesson will not be written on stone but in our hearts.
This brings me to the Gospel for today. Jesus wrestles with his identity, and purpose. His soul is in turmoil. In John this passage is the immediate prelude to the last supper and his passion. In John there is no agony in the garden before Jesus is arrested. Jesus remains in control, from the beginning when he permits the guards to take him into custody, until the end, when he calls out he ready to die. “It is complete”. The big questions, why am I here? What is my purpose? Who am I? They are all part of the journey to the cross reminding us that his is “glorification on the cross” was not a time of praise and adulation. It is important for John to show that the cost for Jesus was real. The picture of a semi naked tortured young man begins to appear and it has the hallmark of a “R” rated classification. This is no sentimental story, but rather one of excruciating pain and rejection. In the same way for us today, like Jesus we are on the cusp as a church of rejection and abandonment, but the cross suggests otherwise. The world of smart cars, celebrities, self interest and power wants none of the real Jesus. Many if any interest at all would rather have a quick fix Jesus and a compliant church full of good works but free of challenging and awkward questions. This is a reminder that we must reconcile ourselves with past mistakes, stay vigilant, committed and vocal despite our failures, criticism and rejection.
We read today Jesus is the grain of wheat that falls to the ground and dies and produced much fruit. He is speaking about the grace that we will receive through his passion and death. His path to glory is to be through humiliation, life through death, good through evil. Nothing is so paradoxical in history as the crucifixion of Jesus. John’s Jesus speaks of his glory to be revealed.
The cross reveals the worst. It reveals what evil we are capable of doing to each other-battering, abusing, using, hurting, and killing human life. All these acts remind us of the cruelty we see still day by day and little sign that it may ever stop.
There is perhaps much in your life as in mine that has not been successful, a failure and a threat to our faith and to those answers to the big questions of life. The great paradox however is that the great paradox of your life and mine finds meaning, purpose and fulfillment in the momentous paradox of the cross of Christ’s suffering, passion and death.
In my own case the struggles and pains I felt at the time of my son’s separation were spoken to by God when I passed over to him my burden and challenges saying to him I have done all I can do.
The cross remains a model of discipleship for Christians. As the death of Jesus bore much fruit so our lives as followers are called to do like wise. It is in this way that we address the big questions of life and find answers.
“…some Greeks……come to see Philip…..and said to him…we want to see Jesus.
Very well here he is.