John’s Easter story is closer to our real experience than many of the other Resurrection stories. Here we have no angels announcing ‘He is raised’; no Jesus present to change sadness into joy. Resurrection is more subtle in this Gospel. Mary and Peter miss the signs. They remain locked in grief still carrying the painful burden of Golgotha. It is the disciple named ‘beloved’ who first experiences resurrection in his openness to believe in God’s power to raise Jesus. Easter calls for faith. Those who know the loss and pain of death know too well the hard, long search to find signs of life. We don’t experience a sudden glorious moment of life returned. Like the anonymous disciple, we often stay some time within the tomb before finding grace to turn and enter into life. Such grace is found in simple signs of a love that does endure. Perhaps this is why ‘the beloved’ disciple first reaches Easter faith.
In this final Lenten Sunday we look again at the significance of Christ in our lives. We recognise him as our saviour, but we look more closely in order to discover just what kind of saviour he is. He has taken the form of a slave; he has been glorified with a name above all other names; he continues to suffer with us. We have not been saved through military might, but through the self-offering humility of Jesus. Though he was really in the form of God, Jesus came in the form of a slave. We have a saviour who was crushed for our iniquities, nailed to a cross as a convicted criminal, and there endured the sense of abandonment. In the face of this, we must ask a fundamental question: Why does God love us with such abandon? Our Saviour was lifted up and exalted precisely because he emptied himself of his divine prerogatives. He became one of us in order to show us how we are to live. Unlike conquerors who triumph by putting down their opponents, Jesus was raised up because he himself was first willing to be put down. Our Saviour first offered himself for us and continues to offer himself to us as an example to follow. As he was willing to empty himself for our sake, so we are told to empty ourselves for the sake of others. The Passion narrative leaves us up in the air. It leaves us in a better position than the disciples because we know the end of the story! Jesus’ disciples were downcast by what they felt was the defeat of Jesus, however we know that out of this darkness, light and hope will emerge!
Lent ends on a note of wonder. In the face of all the mighty works that God has already performed for the people, God promises something even more magnificent. The first reading proclaims that something new is about to appear. In the gospel, this new thing unfolds before our eyes. Here we see Jesus neither rejecting the law nor changing it. Instead, he shows that the law, as good as it might be, serves something higher. He shows that the mercy and compassion of God exceed the authority of the law. Once again we see that the readings of Lent are less concerned with mortification and penance than they are with divine graciousness and our response of joy and thanksgiving. Life with Christ transforms us from people who are caught in sin to women and men who have been forgiven. Life in Christ is the new thing that God has fashioned for us. God is the one who creates something new; we are the ones who are re-created.
The goodness of God is strikingly portrayed in the radically new image of father. This is a God who allows us to follow our own dreams, who is partial to no one, who faithfully and patiently waits for us to return, who gently corrects our misperceptions. God longs to be reconciled with us even more than we long to be reconciled with God. The challenges placed before us set out some of the conditions required if we are to be a new creation. We are called to a profound and total reconciliation, first with God and then with each other. Christ was identified with sin so that we might be identified with God’s righteousness. Reconciliation requires that we be open to giving and receiving forgiveness. It requires that we both remember and forget. We must always remember the causes of alienation, so that we not succumb to them again. However, we must forget the resentment that we felt so that we not allow it to influence our lives.
The Lenten theme of repentance (metanoia) is the central teaching of today’s Gospel. Living Christian faith does make demands that go beyond an hour on Sunday. In all the choices we make, about what we buy, how we live and how we vote, we are to be guided by Gospel principles of ‘love of God and neighbour.’ Are we living a rigorous Christianity that stands for principles of social justice, respect for all, tolerance towards others with a special regard for those most vulnerable in our society? What are our values really? How much do Gospel values impinge on the choices we make. These questions may help deepen our Lenten time of metanoia. Lent is a metanoia time giving us a chance to have a change of heart and to live from the choices of our hearts. We are at the half-way point of the Lenten journey. This week take some time to reflect on your choices and the direction in which you want your life to go. Choose while the choice is still possible.
The Second Sunday of Lent celebrates the epiphanies of God, the ways in which God’s divine presence is revealed. The glory of God is revealed in the transfigured Jesus, the one who discussed his suffering and death with Moses and Elijah. Lent is a time for us to enter into this suffering, not merely though reflection, prayer and penance, but concretely, by sharing in the suffering of the body of Christ. We see this suffering all around us. God is revealed through women and men who live lives of Christian commitment. In those whose integrity strengthens us, in those whose religious sentiments inspire us, in those whose endurance gives us confidence. God is revealed in those who get involved in bettering the lives of others. God is revealed in very ordinary ways, if we but open our eyes to see.
Lent is a time when we are reminded that there is nothing we can do to win our salvation. It is a pure gift from God. Like Jesus in the wilderness, we are to allow God’s plan to unfold in and through us. Lent is a time for us to enter actively into the mysteries of the death and resurrection of Jesus, and there to marvel at what God has done for us. The temptations of Jesus are the same temptations that we face when we are inclined to think that somehow we are in control. While the goals of the temptations may be admirable – feed the hungry, bring the world under the control of good, trust in God’s power to protect us – we often choose to accomplish them in ways that are less than admirable. We try to perform the extraordinary so that what we do reflects favourably on us. We put God to the test rather than live peacefully with God’s plan as it unfolds within and around us. In his responses to the tempter, we see Jesus constantly deferring to the power of God. In a real sense, these temptations are a reminder that the fundamental temptation is to deny our human limitations and refuse to let God be God for us.
Get the heart – the fundamental attitude – right, Jesus seems to be saying in the Gospel, and all else will follow. The opening commands not to judge and not to condemn are already bound up with this. They raise the issue of just how difficult it is for people to have the kind of understanding that would really allow them to make judgments of others. The illustrations of one blind person leading another and of attempting to remove the speck in a neighbour’s eye when one has a log in one’s own are, again, as is so often the case with Jesus’ image and illustrations, exaggerated and humorous. It is so hard to know what is in one’s own heart – to recognise the ‘plank’ that may be there, inhibiting right vision and right judgment. Yet, even with such impediment, we are still so confident that we can see and set about rooting out the failings of others. If God, who really does see the heart, acts with such generosity, understanding and compassion, then that – not judgment and condemnation – should surely be the model for human interaction.
Through baptism we have been fashioned after the image of the second Adam, Christ the risen Lord. Being like Christ, we become godlike, empowered with his saving power, transformed with him into new beings. It is now in our power, which is really the power of the resurrection, to be merciful as God is merciful. In the risen Lord we experience a mystical transformation. From now on, all of our actions can flow from this new reality. Transformed by the power of the resurrection, we are capable of unprecedented good works. We can live without retaliation; we can render good for evil. We can be prodigal in our generosity toward others; we can relinquish any rights of proprietorship that we might enjoy. We can live with others without unfairly judging them. We can be like God, boundless in our forgiveness.
Followers of Jesus do not find their joy in money, power, or other material goods; but rather they find it in the gifts they receive every day from God: life, creation, brothers and sisters, and so on. We cannot be authentic followers of Christ if we adore riches to the neglect of the poor. In fact, true disciples of Jesus are content to share even the goods they possess, because they live according to the logic of God. The Beatitudes, may sound strange, almost incomprehensible to those who are not disciples. But as challenging as they are, they ultimately define the identity of the disciple of Jesus. For Christians, they are non-negotiable. What the Beatitudes do remind us is that disciples allow themselves to be challenged, aware that it is not God who must enter into our mindset, but we into his. Disciples, in the end, are those who let themselves be led by Jesus, who open their heart to Jesus, who listen to him and follow his path. Such a path involves openness to the joys of the present, wherever we may find them. It also involves a readiness and willingness to become Christ’s blessing to others.