5th SUNDAY OF LENT

ILIZWI REFLECTIONS
Sunday 17 March 2024***
5th SUNDAY OF LENT
Jeremiah 31:31-34
Psalm 51:3-4, 12-13, 14-15
Hebrews 5:7-9
John 12:20-33

DYING TO ONESELF
“The hour has now come” – John 12:23

Dear friends, as we enter the final lap of our Lenten Season, the invitation to repentance and renewal grows even louder. The hour of our salvation, the hour of the New Covenant, has come.

The gospel today repeats the word “hour” 3 times.

“The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified…. And what should I say — ‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour” (John 12:23,27).

For us, an hour simply means 60 minutes. However, in the gospel of John, it has a deeper penetrating meaning.

At the beginning of the gospel, at the wedding at Cana Jesus says, the “hour has not yet come” (2:4) and repeats this several times; see 7:6.8.30; 8:20). At the Last Supper he says, “The hour has come” (13:1; 17:1).

The “hour” is therefore that divinely constituted moment of the culmination of Jesus’ ministry, the climatic and pivotal moment of his Death and Resurrection, which is also called his “glorification” (12:23; 17:1).

To describe this hour, Jesus uses the image of the grain of wheat which must first die if it is to bear more fruit. Jesus’ “hour” entails him obediently embracing death.

It was a difficult decision, as expressed by the 2nd reading that Jesus offered prayers with loud crying and teas (v.7), the prayer in the garden of Gethsemane.

The gospel today began interestingly when the Greeks went to Philip and said, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus” (12:21), Jesus responded by saying, “The hour has come”. Like these Greeks, you came for Mass today seeking Jesus, and he is saying to you, “Your hour has come”!

That hour you have always been waiting for, praying for, has finally come. And like a grain of wheat, it begins with your dying to yourself.

I see life as a series of small deaths. For one to remain true to his/her authentic and best self, it is inevitable to daily experience some form of death, some form of loss. It is the hour to consciously die to something, let go, of that which is thwarting your growth, development, and success.

It could be an addiction, bitterness, anger, a harmful relationship, a dead career, fear, or the past … It is by dying to this that you will become more of yourself, more fruitful.

The question is: What is God calling you to die for at this hour?

My dear friend, this is the hour God wants to make a new covenant with you, to write his law upon your heart and become your God and you His child (Jer 31:31,33). This is the hour God wants to decisively intervene and change the trajectory of your life situation. Let not the hour pass you by!

Have a blessed Sunday
Do not remain a “grain”.

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