Fifth Sunday of Lent

Fifth Sunday of Lent

“I will place my law within them
and write it upon their hearts;
I will be their God,
and they shall be my people.”
(Jeremiah 31:33)

The Fifth Sunday of Lent we hear from the prophet Jeremiah that the days are coming when God promises to make a new covenant with His people Israel.  The old law was broken time after time; to remedy this God would give a new power to the old law.  The old law was external to man, obeyed out of duty.  This new covenant would be written on the hearts of man rather than on stone tablets.  Written on man’s hearts, as an “inner force,” that would shape man’s character from within. And with this new covenant God would show his mercy by forgiving “their evildoing and remember their sin no more.”  (Jeremiah 31:34)

On occasion, Jesus says, “my hour” or “time has not yet come,” (John 2:4; 7:6, 8, 30; 8:20) yet now, as we prepare to enter Passion Week, the hour has come. The new covenant that God promised in the reading from Jeremiah will be made present in Jesus’ Passion, His suffering, death and resurrection.  “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.  Amen, amen, I say to you, 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.” (John 12:23-24)  

In the Gospel from John “Our Lord compares himself to a grain of wheat; his death, to a grain sown and decomposed in the ground; his resurrection, to the blade which springs up from the dead grain; which grain, thus dying, brings forth an abundance of fruit.” (Clarke’s Bible Commentary)

Jesus’ time has come and where He has gone we can follow, if we let him lead us.  “Whoever loves his life loses it and whoever hates his life in this world will preserve it for eternal life.” (John 12:25)  To follow Jesus means turning away from sin, hating the part of our lives which is sin and selfishness.  “Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there also will my servant be.  The Father will honor whoever serves me.”  (John 12:26)  Following Jesus means trusting in the Father’s will for our lives and the law He has written on our hearts.

“Have mercy on me,
O God, in your goodness;
in the greatness of your compassion
wipe out my offense.
Thoroughly wash me from my guilt
and of my sin cleanse me. 

 

 

Be Merciful, O Lord for I have sinned.
For I acknowledge my offense,
and my sin is before me always:
Against you only  have I sinned,
and done what is evil in your sight.

A clean heart create for me, O God,

and a steadfast spirit renew within me.
Cast me not out from your presence,
and your Holy Spirit take not from me.

Give me back the joy of your salvation
and a willing spirit sustain in me.
  O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth
shall proclaim your praise.“ 
 (Psalm 51)

For devotional items related to your Lenten Journey
please visit Lynn's Timeless Treasures
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Art
Christ Carrying the Cross - El Greco
Jesus Crucifixion  - van Eyck
Resurrection - Peter Paul Rubens

Fifth Sunday of Lent

Raising of Lazarus

John 11:1-45

April 10, 2011
April 6, 2014

“I am the resurrection and the life,
says the Lord; whoever believes
in me will never die.
Do you believe this?” ( John 11:25-26)

Today, the fifth Sunday of Lent we hear the last recorded miracle of John’s Gospel, the raising of Lazarus. Lazarus, the brother of Martha and Mary, was a dear friend of Jesus. So it seemed odd to his followers when Jesus did not go immediately to Bethany upon hearing of Lazarus’ grave illness.

After two days Jesus and his disciples left for Bethany. When they arrived, “Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days.” This is significant, because the Jewish people believed that the soul remained in the body for three days after death, so to say someone had been dead for four days meant that they were “not just merely dead but really most sincerely dead.”

Jesus performs this miracle in the presence of a great crowd. Though he could have cured Lazarus from his illness before he died, he did not in order that God might be glorified and that the crowds “may believe.” The raising of Lazarus also points to Jesus’ resurrection as well as ours.

Death may be a natural part of our human life, but from the beginning it was not the intention of God for us to experience. In fact the only thing God asked Adam and Eve not to eat was from the “tree of knowledge of good and evil…for from the moment you eat from it you are surely doomed to die.” (Genesis 2:17) Death entered the world through Satan’s pride in himself and envy of God, not through the plan of God. Jesus saw death as an enemy to which he came to overcome and to which he did, thankfully for us, in his passion death and resurrection.

Reflecting on the Gospel message of the resurrection of Lazarus, Pope Benedict XVI wrote in his Message for Lent 2011: “On the fifth Sunday, when the resurrection of Lazarus is proclaimed, we are faced with the ultimate mystery of our existence: “I am the resurrection and the life… Do you believe this?” (John 11: 25-26). For the Christian community, it is the moment to place with sincerity – together with Martha – all of our hopes in Jesus of Nazareth: “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, the one who was to come into this world” (John 11: 27).

Communion with Christ in this life prepares us to overcome the barrier of death, so that we may live eternally with him. Faith in the resurrection of the dead and hope in eternal life open our eyes to the ultimate meaning of our existence: God created men and women for resurrection and life, and this truth gives an authentic and definitive meaning to human history, to the personal and social lives of men and women, to culture, politics and the economy. Without the light of faith, the entire universe finishes - shut within a tomb devoid of any future, any hope.”

In today’s gospel, Lazarus is raised from the dead, but he will not escape eventual physical death. This miracle illustrates that when one comes to know and be in communion with Jesus, one is already in some way raised from death, with eternal life beginning here on earth before physical death as Jesus carefully unwraps the “burial bands” of sin that bind one's life and leads one on their journey home to him and eternal life.

Jesus is “the resurrection and the life; whoever believes [in him], even if he dies, will live, and everyone who lives and believes will never die. Do you believe this?”

For items related to the Catholic Faith
please visit Lynn's Timeless Treasures

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Art
Raising of Lazarus  - Fra Angelico
Raising of Lazarus - Palma Vecchio
Raising of Lazarus - Caravaggio
Raising of Lazarus -  Rembrandt van Rijn

Fifth Sunday of Lent -The Day Misery and Mercy Meet

The Fifth Sunday Of Lent
 The Day Misery and Mercy met Face to Face
John 8:1-11

3/21/10
3/17/13
3/13/16

In today’s Gospel, The Adulterous Woman, the main objective of the Pharisees is, trap two people, “kill two birds with one stone”; one Jesus, the other a woman caught in adultery. The question, “Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery. Now in the law Moses commanded us to stone such. What do you say about her?” (John 8:3-4) The dilemma, if Jesus freed her he would be contradicting the Mosaic Law, if he condemned her he would undermine his own message of compassion. Planning to “test” Jesus and catch him in a contradiction, “that they might have some charge to bring against him,” the Rabbis await Jesus’ answer. A response most certainly not expected.

                              

Turning the tables back on the Pharisees, Jesus responds, “let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.” (John 8:7) Forced to publicly admit their hypocrisy of self-righteousness, by being reduced to silence, “they went away, one by one, beginning with the eldest, and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him.” (John 8:9)

This woman had clearly sinned, her sin, my sins, are obvious and undeniable. When I have sinned, how do I react when I face Jesus, the one who is truly righteous? Like the scribes and Pharisees with self-righteousness or as the woman who stays to listen in humility to Christ’s sentence?


The woman remains alone with Jesus who then asks, “Has no one condemned you?” She answers, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus responds, “Neither do I condemn you.” (John 8:10-11)

Jesus is sinless, truly righteous, the only one worthy to impart judgment, but “we should never act in such a way in view of God’s mercy that we forget about his justice; nor should we attend to his justice forgetting about his mercy.” (Fray Luis de Granada, Life of Jesus, 13)

As the Gospel ends, Jesus sends the woman away with this recommendation: “go, and do not sin again.” (John 8:10-11) Saint Augustine says of this moment between Jesus and the adulterous woman that the Lord condemned the sin not the sinner and misery and mercy met face to face.

How merciful and just you are oh Lord.

We are made for you

and nothing less will satisfy us.

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Art
Christ and the Woman Taken in Adultery, by Vasiliy Polenov