Fifth Sunday of Lent 2024
Today the prophet Jeremiah, who is famous in all the world for his predictions of doom, not just for faithless Israel prior to its destruction by Babylon, has a cheery prediction. Actually, the Holy Spirit is allowing him kind of a glimpse into heaven after the general Resurrection from the dead. How do we know that? First, it’s a time governed by a new covenant, not the old one made on the mountain after the Exodus, with the two tablets and ten commandments. No, that had been broken time after time, ruining God’s relationship with His people, leading to their exile. This is not written on stone tablets, but right into the hearts of the people. They know God intimately, and keep His covenant without being forced to do so. Their sins are all forgiven and forgotten.
So where are the bad guys? We are not told that. But we know that the true and enduring covenant, the one we have begun to live under by our faith and charity, is the one ratified in the blood of the Lamb, Jesus Christ, Son of God, both human and divine. So Jeremiah is giving us all a look into the kingdom we will be living in after He gathers the Church together as pictured in the Book of Revelations. Since in just two weeks we will celebrate the Passover of Christ, which led to His own Resurrection, we can anticipate with fervent hope that wonderful day when we all have the opportunity to be with Him forever.
Therefore, Jesus Christ is the hinge of history. Before the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, there was only hope, based on the prophets, and repentance. After Jesus, there is every good thing. He offered up His prayers and supplications with loud cries and copious tears, both before and during His singular suffering. He was heard by the Father, yes, but was victorious only when He was acting in accord with His Father’s will. He learned obedience through His suffering, and by that suffering He became perfect, complete, the epitome of being human, as He was the epitome of godliness. By that means, He earned eternal salvation for the rest of us; all we need to do is cooperate with His suffering. Yes, that means our suffering has meaning, but only when we suffer in union with our Lord.
Let’s look for a moment at the most memorable statement John gives us from the lips of Jesus: “unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. He who loves his life loses it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.” A grain of wheat is good only for two things. We can take a bunch of grains from the mature plant, grind them up into flour after putting the husks into the compost, and make flour. Then we can add leavening agents and flavoring and bake the flour into bread or cakes or muffins and eat it. That way it has limited utility.
Or, if it looks strong, we can take that wheat seed and plant it. Most of the time, it sprouts and can poke through the soil to gather sunlight and moisture and minerals to become a fully-grown wheat plant. BUT it must first die to its “grain-of-wheatness.” Then only can it become the full-grown plant, giving us thirty or sixty or a hundredfold more grains, which themselves can be used to either purpose, feed or multiply.
Jesus laid down His life, but in taking the new resurrected life up from that disaster, He became a life-giving spirit. Through His sacraments, He intends to bring all of us, Jew and Gentile alike, to share that divinity. As we begin this last full week of Lent, let’s all renew our baptismal promises to turn our backs on all evil, all negative thoughts and words and actions, and, inspired by the Holy Spirit, approach our Paschal celebration, Easter, with works of charity in our wake.
