Fifth Sunday in Lent A José Galarreta S.J. THEMES AND CONTEXTS

Fifth Sunday in Lent A

José Galarreta S.J.

THEMES AND CONTEXTS

THE TEXT OF EZECHIEL

Ezechiel is a priest, a companion of the prophet Jeremiah, who announces to the people the punishment of God for its unfaithfulness. When Jerusalem is conquered and destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar (598)Ezekiel is deported to Babylonia. He lives as an exile in Babylonia, and prophesies there, proclaiming to the people its “resurrection”, that is, the return from exile.

We must remember  that these images are all the more surprising when we keep in mind that the people of Israel did not still believe in life after death and so the images of resurrection were extremely powerful for them. Moreover in the text the spirit is mentioned which is infused in the bodies so that they will be alive. It is  clearly  parallel to the creation of the human being in the second chapter of Genesis, when God breathes his own breath into the nostrils of  man and thus  man became a living being.

THE TEXT OF THE LETTER TO THE ROMANS

It is a classic text of Paul, in which the opposition between “the flesh” and “the spirit” is underlined. The flesh is life without God, the Spirit is what gives true life to the human being without which it would be nothing more than flesh and its end would be corruption. The body is taken as a synonym of the flesh, of man without a spirit. And the resurrection of Jesus is shown as a model of our own resurrection. It is God who gives life, material organic life, but added to it, the life of the Spirit.

THE TEXT OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL

Above all the general context into which this text is inserted is the nearness of the Passion. For this event, Jesus comes to Jerusalem, from which he prudently kept at a distance. The sign would provoke the crisis. Some would believe in him. Others would definitively decide his death. Immediately after the text we have read, John continues to narrate the events in this way:

“But some of the Jews went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done. Then the chief priests and the Pharisees called a meeting of the Sanhedrin. What are we accomplishing? They asked. Here is this man performing many miraculous signs. If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him and then the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation. Then one of them named Caiaphas who was high priest that year spoke up. You know nothing at all. You do not realize that it is better for you that one die for the people than that the whole nation perish...So, from that day on, they plotted to take his life.(Jn 11: 45 ss.)

It is therefore a text that is written in the same context as that of the previous Sunday ( the healing of the man born blind.) There, Jesus-Light is rejected by the darkness. Here Jesus-Life is going to be condemned to death.

The most human aspects of Jesus are also shown in such a realistic and detailed manner that we suspect we have before us a witness who was present at the event: a family whose members are his intimate friends (the following text is the supper in their house when Mary anoints his feet), the pain of the death and the affliction of the friends. Jesus is moved to tears.

And there appears a beautiful prayer of Jesus: “Father (abba) I know you always hear me.”  Soon he will  pray to his Father from his abandonment. And the Father will also hear him. But let us take the important themes.

1.     “LIFE” IN SCRIPTURE

This is one of the words that appears most  frequently in Scripture, more than 800 times. Fundamentally it appears in five meanings:

·        In its normal meaning, the life of man, the living being...

·        In the meaning of “giving a life for...”

·        As “the future life”, the one after death.

·        As one of provisional value, which can be  preferred to, or prevent the Kingdom. (“whoever loves his life will lose it”)

·        True life, the gift of God, as a synonym for “grace”, the “kingdom”... (“I have come that they may have life and have it abundantly” – “This is eternal life, that they know You and the one you sent, Jesus Christ.” “I am the Bread of Life, he who eats of this bread will have eternal life.” –“this brother of yours was dead and has come back to life.”)

2.     THE SIGNS

The fourth Gospel has got us accustomed to treat reality as a sign of “THE OTHER REALITY”, and to a literary genre which consists of narrating what happened as a medium of catechesis so the meaning is much more important than what happened.

In the previous Sundays we have found a number of very meaningful signs: water (the Samaritan woman)light (the man born blind). In this fifth Sunday of Lent the sign is Life.

The evangelist uses this life as a sign, as he did with water and with light. God is not water, God is not light: but these realities help us understand what God is for us. Thus, life on earth helps us to understand something more about God.

It is an important sign, and deeper than the previous ones. This life, what we call life, biological life, human life, is used by Jesus as a sign of the TRUE DEFINITIVE REALITY IN GOD. It’s as if we were to say: “ if what you see is for you foundational goodness, the most valuable you have...this is what the reality of the human being with God is like, but in its fullness. And not precisely as a future reality, but actual: a better life, fuller, here and now.

3.     RESURRECTIONS AS A SIGN

In the whole OT and much more intensely in the NT healing is a sign of the presence of Salvation, of Health. Sickness is a sign of the power of evil. The  presence of God does not tolerate evil, in any of its manifestations and heals it. The healing of a sickness is a good, but above all, it is a sign of the presence of salvation.

In the same way, and in a fuller measure, death is understood rather than the normal condition of man, as the greatest evil, and as a sign of the death of the spirit, of definitive sin, of the definitive absence of God. Resurrection, the return to life, is an attack on evil, death, and is above all a sign of the fullness of salvation, of the definitive life giving power, God the Savior.

4.     Resurrections and the Resurrection of Jesus.

In the first place, they are different. Even the original Greek generally uses  different words (anastasis–egeirein). Lazarus “returns to the same life” as he had before. Jesus “goes to true life and lets himself be seen.” The life to which Lazarus returns is temporal life. The life of the Risen Jesus is definitive Life. This “return to life” of Lazarus is, above all, a sign of the power of Jesus to give definitive Life.

REFLECTION

Light, water, life... Images of God, in Lent, the time for penance, the time for the purple color, the time in which the “Gloria” is not recited. Who has deformed the picture of Lent, the picture of God,  so much and why have they done it? Let us recall the itinerary we have followed in these five Sundays.

·        The First Sunday:  We are sinners, blind and slaves: Jesus the conqueror of temptation.

·        The Second Sunday: the Transfiguration, the Hidden life.

·        The Third Sunday: God is water in the desert.

·        Fourth Sunday: God is light in the darkness.

·        Fifth Sunday: God is Life.

And we, on our own, despite the Word and the Liturgy, continue to be bent on saying: “we are sinners, that is, guilty, deserving of punishment. We do penance to gain forgiveness of the judge.” Following this trend, we end up saying that the severe, judge, bent on punishing, will relent only  when he sees the blood of Jesus, shed in payment of our sins. Who has invented this God?

God’s way of educating his people throughout the whole of Scripture, is an invitation to come to know him. The most primitive image of God in Scripture is that of “the Master, legislating judge, to whom one must submit under pain of punishment. But this is only the pre-history of the faith. From the first chapter of Genesis, Israel asserts that it knows that God is Light. In Exodus, Israel understands that God is the Liberator, and not only because he draws the people out of political slavery of Egypt, but also because he gives them the Law, which is the way to escape from sin, and he accompanies them in the desert. And already in Deuteronomy the relation with God of the human being almost finds its full expression:

You must love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, will all your soul and with all your strength.

And the whole teaching of the prophets is directed to the understanding that God is a mother, that his relationship with the people is that of a lover. And the whole line of progress of the knowledge of God culminates in a spectacular manner in Jesus. The fear of God has remained in prehistory. The love of God moves us, the love of light, the desire for Water, faith in Life. We know that sin is death and darkness and desert, and hence we celebrate with joy the fact that God is Life, Water and Light. The Lord invites us to live, the Lord illumines and gives meaning to everything, the Lord has us journey without hunger and thirst, the Lord takes away hunger and thirst for whatever harms us. Just as Jesus on the mount of temptation, does not seem to be attracted to apparent good things  the Enemy offers him because he has the Light, and those good things do not attract him. As if Eve in paradise were to laugh at the serpent and answer him: “Shut up, you fool. Are you wiser than God, my Father?

We live in the Promised Land, flowing with milk and honey. In reality, the Promised Land is a harsh wilderness packed with innumerable enemies: it does not matter, it is full of light, of water and of life, and we prefer to live here than in the placid slavery of Egypt where we stuffed ourselves with goose fat and leeks, but we were not free and we did not know God. Our lives are not different from those of all the rest: it is full of difficulties, of sicknesses, of troubles; it moves inevitably to old age and death: it does not matter. It is full of light and of water of the Word; it is like an egg in which Life is incubated, like a repugnant caterpillar or a locked in chrysalis that only await the season to come out as a beautiful butterfly.

For five Sundays we have received the most beautiful catechesis on our human condition: slaves of our darkness, blind seekers of little unsatisfactory pleasures, we depend on God to be able to live, not to lose our way, to be truly human, that is, Sons, heirs, able to contemplate face to face the Face of the Lord. Wonderful message! From this perspective we are on the right path to celebrate Holy Week and Easter. We are going to see how Jesus, the first born of all of us, triumphs over death and attains the definitive Transfiguration. We are going to see in our destiny, the definitive victory over sin and death, made visible in him and is offered to all as a gift of the Love of God.

FOR OUR PRAYER

1.     Recite the words of the Gospel. In this Gospel there are many phrases which have become famous as “ejaculatory “ prayers. It is a good exercise in prayer to recite them while pausing between words or phrases:

·        “Lord, he whom you love is sick.”

·        “Let us also go to die with him.”

·        “Lord if you were here , my brother would not have died.”

·        “The Master is here, and calls you.”

·        “See how he loved him.”

·        “Father, I give you thanks for having heard me.”

·        “I know you always hear me.”

2.     Is my life a way to resurrection, or is it a path to death?

Light - the light of Jesus. Are there sectors in my life, branches of my tree, that are dead, that are not for eternal life? Present them with a simple heart before God. Perhaps we have no intention of changing them. Recognize this before the Lord. Pray to him to water them with the water of life, so they regain life and bear fruit.

3.     Dream. “Eye has not seen nor ear heard, nor can human intelligence imagine what God has prepared for those who love him.” Dream of Life, beyond all resignation or mental narrow mindedness. We are children of God. Dream of Life in God, desire it, awaken a real ambition of the heirs of God, ask God for us not to settle for anything less.

4.     Pray for Life in the world, so that human beings will not settle for less than being sons of God.