5th Sunday of Lent B - Homily 6

Homily 6 - 2021

Last Sunday the author of John’s Gospel told us that “God loved the world so much that he sent his only son so that everyone who believes in him might have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world but so that through him the world might be saved”.

He did not tell us how the Son would do that, and at what price to the Son.

Today’s Gospel passage, again from the Gospel of John, gave us a hint at the“how”. It would be through Jesus’ death: “Unless a grain of wheat fall on the ground and dies, it remains only a single grain.” More explicitly, but still cryptically, the Gospel went on to have Jesus add, “When I am lifted up from the earth, I shall draw all … to myself”. The Gospel then clarified that somewhat by adding, “By these words he indicated the kind of death he would die”, and indicated the personal cost it would mean, “Now my soul is troubled… Father, save me from this hour.”

Today’s Second Reading from the Epistle to the Hebrews indicated a little more clearly the price involved for Jesus, “Christ offered up prayer and entreaty, aloud and in silent tears, to the one who had the power to save him out of death.”

Did the “Father save [him] from this hour”? Did the Father “save him out of death”? The clear answer at first seems “No!”. Jesus died cruelly. The Epistle to the Hebrews seemed to see Jesus’ death as the Father’s Will, to which Jesus “submitted … humbly”. But, confusingly, the Epistle also said that the Father “heard” Jesus’ prayer to be “saved out of death”. How do we make sense of an apparent contradiction?

The Epistle said of Jesus: “He learnt to obey through suffering”; in fact, that Jesus became “perfect” through his suffering. The confusion lies in the word “obey”. As we understand the word, it can convey the sense of acting dutifully but unwillingly, of doing what we might otherwise not do. In the Greek language of the Epistle, however, “obey” can mean “listen closely to the heart of the other, to see the values informing the will of the other”. Perfect agreement would go so far as to accept the guiding values of the other and freely choose to act from those same values.

In this case, God knew that the world would be saved only by people deciding freely and consistently to love others. God sent Jesus to show us love in action, to love us consistently, to teach us what love involves, and to motivate all of us people of the world freely and consistently to love. In this, Jesus totally agreed with God. He was prepared to go to death by crucifixion rather than to deny anyone’s human freedom. As human, he felt pain. He didn’t want the pain; but he could not be other than totally true to his inner self whatever the pain. To have been otherwise would have been a total compromise of his personal integrity. In this, he and his Father were one. Sadly, in a sin-scarred world, people will be brutal — Jesus went into death. But death was not the end. It was that dead Jesus who was saved “out of death” on “the third day” by the Father. “His prayer was heard”.

To the extent that we come to learn the heart of Jesus, to make his values our own, we too will face suffering. It comes inevitably in a sin-scarred world. But God will save us “out of death”, too. Jesus will become “for all who obey him the source of eternal salvation”.