Readings: Jer. 31:31-34; Heb. 5:7-9; Jn. 12:20-33
Dying You destroyed our Death.
1. When I was young, I was curious about things. During the planting season one year, I told my mom that I wanted to plant peanuts. I got my seed, went to the garden, and started farming. I wanted to see the seed grow so bad that I kept digging it up. I did not allow the seed to die to grow. My mom told me to stop digging the seed up but to keep watering it and give it time to grow. The lesson is that if the seed does not die or germinate, it will not grow and bear fruit. That is the message of today’s gospel. “Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies, it produces much fruit. Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will preserve it for eternal life.” That is the paradox of life that speaks to every situation we encounter. Something must be given for something else to happen.
2. The first reading is about God’s new covenant with the children of Israel. “The days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant I made with their fathers the day I took them by the hand to lead them forth from the land of Egypt, for they broke my covenant.” (Jer. 31:31-32). Because that covenant was broken due to sin, God initiated a new way of dealing with his people. According to the letter to the Hebrews, “When he speaks of a “new” covenant, he declares the first one obsolete.” (Heb. 9:13). The new covenant will need no mediator or an intermediary like Moses. I will be based on an individual and personal relationship with God. “I will place my law within them and write it upon their hearts; I will be their God, and they shall be my people. No longer will they need to teach their friends and kinsmen how to know the Lord. All, from least to greatest, shall know me, says the Lord, for I will forgive their evildoing and remember their sin no more.” (Jer. 31:34). The new covenant is marked by God’s forgiveness and man’s obedience to God. The letter to Hebrews states that even the “Son of God learned obedience from what he suffered; and when he was made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him.” (Heb. 5:9).
3. During Lent, we acknowledge our need for God by dying to ourselves to live a new life of grace. We must be the grain of wheat that must let go of its life to bear bountiful fruit to feed the hungry. Forgiveness is the new law written in our hearts. God’s forgiveness is the new thing God is doing in the world. Hence, Isaiah tells us, “See, I am doing something new! Now it springs forth, do you not perceive it.” (Is. 43:19). This is reechoed in Hebrews, “For I will forgive their evildoing and remember their sins no more.” (Heb.8:12). We die to ourselves each time we forgive hurts done to us even as we bear fruit that will endure.
4. We are elated when we experience God’s forgiveness through the sacrament of reconciliation and grateful when forgiven by friends. The feeling is liberating and transformative. It is the grain of wheat in us dying to give life to the world. God the Father died in sending his Son into the world. The Son became the grain of wheat when he gave his life on the cross so that we may look at him and live. “And when I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw everyone to myself.” (Jn. 12:32). At baptism, we died to sin, like the grain of wheat, and rose with Jesus to share eternal life of grace with God. In the confessional, we pray with the Psalmist, “A clean heart create for me, O God and a steadfast spirit renew within me.” (Ps.51:12-13). We die to our pride, confess our sins, and receive God’s forgiveness. We become a new creation and inject goodness, kindness, and forgiveness into our world.
5. So dear friends, like the Greeks who went to see Jesus in the Gospel, let us seek the company of Jesus during the remaining part of this Lenten season. Let us not be afraid to give our lives to God. This means letting go of the past and embracing the here and now. By dying to ourselves we come to life in Christ. So, what is holding you back? Past hurts, strangulating relationships, broken hearts or relationships, lack of motivation, failed marriage, or Death in the family? Could it be the sickness of parents and loved ones? Are you stuck in the past and find it difficult to let go and let God? We will not experience a new life with Christ if we do not die to ourselves. Yes, it may be hard to move on. But no one said it would be easy. It was not easy for Christ. Look at Him in the garden of Gethsemane. “He was in such agony, and he prayed so fervently that his sweat became like drops of blood falling on the ground.” (Lk. 22:44). Yet He died to himself so that we may have life in him. “For our sake God made him to be sin who did not know sin so that we might become the righteousness of God in him.” (2 Cor. 5:21).
Rev. Augustine Etemma Inwang, MSP
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