Sermon: 5th Sunday in Lent
Hebrews 5:-10;
Psalm 51:1-12; and John 12:20-33; NRSV
Welcome to this 5th Sunday in Lent as we move rapidly towards Holy Week and Easter. I have spoken previously of the Sundays in Lent as touchstones on this journey, a journey in which we are called to “… repent, and believe in the good news.”[1] Each Sunday has been an invitation to reflect on this in different ways, to acknowledge the brokenness of our humanity while engaging with the unlimited nature of God’s love so evident in Jesus’ embrace of the call on his own life, which leads him to Jerusalem and the cross.
In today’s Gospel John has somewhat stolen the march on us, as Jesus is already in Jerusalem, having been welcomed by the crowds with palm branches and those rousing words, “Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord— the King of Israel!”[2] and we find Jesus already at the Temple preparing for the Passover. Today’s Gospel narrative importantly begins by reminding us of the cosmopolitan nature of those present in Jerusalem and also preparing for the Passover: some Greeks find Philip and ask to see Jesus;[3] and it is this request that acts as a catalyst causing Jesus’ declaration that “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified,”[4] an hour that Jesus up to this point in John’s Gospel has regularly indicated has not yet come. We discover that the Greeks’ desire to see Jesus has substantial implications for any who would follow Jesus and serve the purposes of the kingdom, that it involves a very deep level of commitment and a willingness to put one’s life on the line. Yet this is balanced with the promise of God’s presence in Jesus and an acknowledgement that such commitment is highly cherished by God.
Last week I asked the question, “What do we believe?” but we also need to ask, “What do we experience?” Trust is generally inherent in belief in terms of our faith, yet our ability to trust (or not trust) is most often determined by our experience. If we are to offer ourselves in service to the degree that Jesus’ words in today’s Gospel indicate, our levels of trust in God’s willingness to cherish our offered vulnerability become key to us embracing the journey we are called to. How do we know, how do we truly trust that God is present, especially when we know there are times we feel God to be absent despite the affirmation of Scripture and the testimony of Godly people down the ages that even when God appears absent God is in fact present? Too often in my own thinking I see presence and absence as polarities and ignore the possibility that presence and absence may exist on a continuum. Pádraig Ó Tuama helpfully speaks of the presence of the presence and the presence of the absence, and says, “At times in our spiritual life we feel alone, but are not afraid; at other times we are surrounded but are still undone. There is no conflict between these. We move back and forth, sometimes in the presence of consolation, other times in the presence of absence.”[5] Somewhat paradoxically Pádraig is reminding us that God is always present, that the continuum itself is presence, so that God is even present in absence (as tough as that may be to get our minds around).
On our Lenten journey I tend to see Palm Sunday as the point at which we shift from preparation to immersion in the events of Holy Week, but in John’s Gospel the fulcrum is this interaction in the Temple, probably in the court of the Gentiles, an important affirmation that what God is up to in and through Jesus is purposed for all humanity and not just for one group or nation. You and I are drawn into this story, invited to participate. As we grapple with our own issues of trust, with our often faltering awareness God’s presence, John shares an image of Jesus troubled in soul yet confident in his unity with the Father, able to embrace both this moment of awareness and the reality of the tussle with “the ruler of this world”[6] that lies ahead of him. Again in Pádraig Ó Tuama’s words, “[Jesus] is aware of being loved; he is troubled but not undone; he has assurance of the way forward; and he sees glory on the other side of despair. There are times in our lives, when, in the face of difficulties, we have a deep assuredness, and this assuredness keeps us steady.”[7]
Today, in the narrative from John’s Gospel, we are offered this assuredness. Let us trust God to be present with us even in the presence of absence as we face the challenges of life and relationship in these continuedly uncertain and extraordinary times.
what we do not know
Amen.[8]
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