Homily – Fifth Sunday of Lent

Today, we are celebrating the Fifth Sunday of Lent, which is very much the last Sunday of the Lenten journey.  Next Sunday is Palm Sunday and immediately followed by Holy Week.

Let us spend some time reminding ourselves again about the gospel readings and their messages of the Lenten journey in 2021.  We began this spiritual journey with the first Sunday Gospel that introduced to us the 40 days and 40 nights of Jesus in the desert, where Jesus was tempted and struggled with the devil.

On the second Sunday, the gospel directed our intention into the amazing event of the Transfiguration, where Jesus shared the glorious moment of heaven and invited us to set our minds and hearts for the kingdom of God.

On the third Sunday, the Gospel of John told us of Jesus at the Jerusalem temple where he got angry with the people who turned the temple from the place where you encounter God in to a marketplace.  However, on a deeper level, Jesus reminded us about his own body as the temple that would be broken for humanity and bring humanity together.

Last Sunday on the fourth Sunday of Lent, the Gospel used the Old Testament story about Moses lifting up the serpent in the desert and predicting the death of Jesus on the Cross.  Last Sunday’s Gospel invited us to look up at the cross where the people could see the Son of God as the instrument of God’s love and mercy to the whole world. 

On this Sunday, John’s Gospel strongly reminds us that the hour has come.  This Gospel is quite opposite to the wedding feast in Cana where Jesus said that his hour had not yet come. 

When the gospel says that “Now the hour has come; for the Son of Man to be glorified” (John 12:23), what does it really mean?  What kind of hour does John mean in his gospel?  The answer is the hour of his passion and death.

That is the hour of glory for Jesus in John’s Gospel, his passion and death!  Why?  Because if a grain falls on the ground and dies it yields a rich harvest (John 12:24).  The hour of glory for Jesus is his passion and death, because through his passion and death he will draw all people to himself.  John uses the metaphor of the natural law of a single grain of wheat by dying, so it is able to bear hundreds or thousands more grains of wheat.  This metaphor is Jesus as the grain of wheat that should fall to the ground and die in being able to bear a rich harvest.

Many people would have seen death as an interruption in their life and mission.  But Jesus saw death as a fulfilment of his life and mission.  His mission from the Father is that through his very own death, humanity will be saved.   

As we stand at the threshold of Holy Week, the Church reminds us that we are called to be like a grain of wheat which should be buried in the ground and bear much fruit.  What are our grains of wheat?  They can be our talents, our cares, our times or our faith that we can share and enrich the people in whom we meet and encounter in our lives.

Let our Lenten journey this year inspire many more people who are seeking to know about the Church and the message of the Gospel.

Fr Trac Nguyen

 

Homily

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