2024-Mar-17: Fifth Sunday in Lent

Jeremiah 31:31-34

The book of Jeremiah was written in a specific place and context, offering hope to the exiled Judeans that the covenant with their God would continue in a new fashion, mended after the disaster of 587 BCE. Jeremiah 31:31-34 is part of a collection of hopeful words addressed to exiled Judeans in Babylon and is sometimes called the “Book of Consolation”

According to the book of Jeremiah, his call occurred in the “thirteenth year” of King Josiah’s reign (Jeremiah 1:1), approximately 627 BCE, and he was active through the fall of Jerusalem to Babylon in 587 BCE, remaining in the land until after the assassination of Gedaliah (Jeremiah 41), at which point he is forced into exile in Egypt and the book ends without recounting the prophet’s ultimate fate. In other words, according to the book, the prophet lived through one of the most turbulent and catastrophic moments in ancient Israel’s history centuries before the author of Hebrews wrote anything.

Here, Jeremiah promises a new covenant between God and the people. The offer of a renewed covenant is itself a manifestation of God’s forgiveness.   God would relent of anger (30:24) and return the people to their home (31:8). God’s love and faithfulness will be manifest (31:3). The people will experience prosperity (31:5) and joy (31:13). 

However, this particular passage promises even more - a new covenant where he restores the hearts of his people not just their circumstance. There is a continuity in the law; but it will be written upon the heart, no longer a written Torah, and new in much of its content to fit the new accommodation of Jews and Gentiles alike.

Psalm 51

Psalm 51 is one of the seven penitential Psalms (6, 32, 38, 51, 102, 130, 143) and one of only two (38 and 51) that focus explicitly on confessing the psalmist's own sin.

The Hebrew text begins by attributing this psalm to David when the prophet Nathan confronts him about the affair with Bathsheba. David's illicit affair with Bathsheba did not just break one or two commandments; he obliterated the Ten Commandments, as he engaged in coveting, stealing, adultery, false witness, and murder. In doing so he sinned grievously against God. Every time we sin, we sin against God.

Psalm 51:1-17 can be dissected into four sections: verses 1-6 which address God’s character and human frailty, verses 7-12 which plead forgiveness and restoration, verses 13-15 which look expectantly toward reconciliation, and verses 16-17 which offer closing thoughts on sin, sacrifice, and repentance.

Hebrews 5:7-9

The author of Hebrews connects Jesus’ experiences with our own, reminding us that the testing of the cross connects to our own. In Greco-Roman morality prevalent at the time, it was commonly understood that moral character was learned and formed through adversity. Here Jesus learns obedience through his suffering even though he is God’s Son, he is not immune from either suffering or pain. As a result, he becomes a model for all of us who also learn through suffering. His example demonstrates that the ability to endure difficult situations results in ultimate salvation. 

Hebrews 5:7-9 expands on Jesus’ dual identities as Son of God and High Priest. Part of Jesus’ priestly service involved offering up prayers and supplications while identifying fully with humanity. Jesus is made complete by his death and exaltation to heavenly glory by his resurrection, so that he now serves as high priest forever at God’s right hand.

John 12:20-33

Jesus has come to Jerusalem for Passover again, but for the last time (12:12). He has just visited at the home of his friend Lazarus and his sisters on his way to Jerusalem. The growing crowds and acclaim follow him from his last sign, the raising of Lazarus from the dead (12:17).

John 12:20-36 is Jesus’ final public teaching in the Gospel, and it is delivered to a group of both Jews and Gentiles. Jews and Gentiles come to Jerusalem not to pray at the Temple for the Passover but to meet the Messiah - in true Johannine fashion Jesus is the new Jerusalem that God had promised in his covenant. 

This is one of the three times that God the Father acknowledges Jesus as his Son

1) At his Baptism in the River Jordan (Matthew 3:17; also, Mark 1:11; Luke 3:22) : "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased”
2) At the Transfiguration on the Mount  (Matthew 17:5): "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; listen to him.” 
3) In today's passage just before his passion and death (John 12:28): “Father, glorify thy name. Then came there a voice from heaven, saying, I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again.”

In John's Gospel, the word “hate” means “reject”; it usually refers to the values of the world; which are antithetical to those of Jesus and by extension, to his disciples (see also John 7:7; 15:18-19, 23-25). So when Jesus says, “Those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life” (John 12:25b), he is encouraging others to follow his lead in hating (or rejecting) this world’s definition of a self-centred life of isolated existence. He will not — and his followers should not — grasp and hold on to the seductive worldly values and thereby fail to bear much fruit.

When Jesus is lifted up from the earth to draw all people to himself, that lifting up is simultaneously all three events: crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension.  As the result of his crucifixion (being lifted up on a cross), resurrection (being lifted up from death) and ascension (being lifted up from the earth to return to the Father), people will see that Jesus and the Father were always one. if you have seen one, you have seen and know the other (see also John 14:7-10). Furthermore, the glory of each is the love that they share, the same love that Jesus shares as he washes the disciples’ feet, the same love that he shows as he lays down his life for his friends (see also John 15:13) and as, lifted up, he draws all people to himself (John 12:32).

This is the last public sermon and Jesus must prepare his disciples for his twice departure, his death and his ascension.