FIFTH SUNDAY OF LENT, YEAR B

Jeremiah 31:31-34
Psalm 51:3-4.12-15
Hebrews 5:7-9
John 12:20-33

THE CHRISTIAN PARADOX

This is the Sunday that precedes Palm Sunday that ushers us into the Holy Week. We are told in the gospel that some Greeks wanted to see Jesus. But nothing is explicitly said if their request was granted. Nevertheless, Jesus indicates the way any person wanting to see him can do so: raising one’s eyes towards the cross. It is on the cross that we can recognize the Son of God. The hour of his crucifixion becomes the hour of his revelation, glorification and exaltation.

He therefore compares his death with a grain of wheat that falls into the ground. There is no harvest that is not preceded by the sowing of a seed. The seed that is buried in the ground goes through degradation before germination. If we wish to ne great and spiritually fruitful, we must be humble and accept humiliation.

It was by accepting the humiliating death on the cross with all its associated pains and torture that Jesus became the source of eternal salvation for us. He himself learnt to obey through suffering, tears and earnest prayer. We too can only bear fruits if we accept to suffer little.
It was by dying on the cross that Jesus fulfilled the promise of God as presented to us in the first reading. The blood he shed on Calvary became the blood of the new and eternal covenant.

If we wish to meet Jesus, we must go to Calvary. If we wish to have life, we must let our ego and old ways of life die in us. If we wish to be great, we must become little. If we wish to be transformed, we must first allow ourselves to be deformed.