Saturday of the Fifth Week of Lent

Title

God Exalts through Death

Outline

Neither national life nor church life is presently ideal

We live in a deeply divided nation in which the president is not president to many people

We live in a divided Church, in which there are thousands of “kingdoms” and in which even in the Catholic church there are those on both the right and the left for which the Pope is not the leader

Yet Ezekiel shares the ideal:

A people gathered together, unified

A single king to whom all give allegiance - David my servant

A single nation (and the church is a kingdom)

No idols among them, not wealth, not power, not honor, not pleasure - “I will be their God, and they will be my people.”

All living under the one covenant

The solution is the exaltation of the Davidic king through death

Jesus has raised a dead man, and while many committed to him, others reported on him

The Sadducees and Pharisees, the Sanhedrin, see this action and popularity as a problem

All will commit to him

The Romans will feel threatened and that will be curtains for both land and nation, or for the Temple and nation - certainly for their position

Then Caiaphas (high priest that year) speaks: it is better that one man die than that the nation perish

He is justifying a (in his eyes) justifiable judicial murder

But the beloved disciple sees him as prophesying: Jesus’ death will prevent the whole nation from perishing

And more than that: “also to gather into one the dispersed children of God” - including even those Romans whom Caiaphas fears

Jesus withdraws, for in John he is in total control of his arrest, trial, and death. He will be exalted through death - in his time, in his way

Now there is an obvious lesson for us and a not quite as obvious lesson

The obvious lesson is that Jesus died to gather us into his kingdom and that through that he, and we, were glorified

He has created a single kingdom for the world with a single king, himself

The less obvious lesson is that when people think on a this-world level they will kill and destroy, but even in that they will work God’s redemption.

They will divide the church, they will reject Jesus’ vicar, but God will work his will and he will have his reformers who show allegiance even to Popes who were less than stellar

They will serve their gods and even kill to retain their power and honor, but Jesus raises the dead and will establish his rule even as the structures they tried to protect crash around them (John is written after AD 70)

Our job is to be among those who gather, who acknowledge the one king, who are ready to die with him rather than give up our loyalty.

Then we will be those who inherit the kingdom and enter into the glory of Jesus, who climbed the ladder of the cross to the glory of his Father

Readings

Catholic Daily Readings 3-27-2021: Saturday of the Fifth Week of Lent

FIRST READING

Ezekiel 37:21–28

21 Say to them: Thus says the Lord GOD: I will soon take the Israelites from among the nations to which they have gone and gather them from all around to bring them back to their land. 22 I will make them one nation in the land, upon the mountains of Israel, and there shall be one king for them all. They shall never again be two nations, never again be divided into two kingdoms.

23 No longer shall they defile themselves with their idols, their abominations, and all their transgressions. I will deliver them from all their apostasy through which they sinned. I will cleanse them so that they will be my people, and I will be their God. 24 David my servant shall be king over them; they shall all have one shepherd. They shall walk in my ordinances, observe my statutes, and keep them. 25 They shall live on the land I gave to Jacob my servant, the land where their ancestors lived; they shall live on it always, they, their children, and their children’s children, with David my servant as their prince forever. 26 I will make a covenant of peace with them; it shall be an everlasting covenant with them. I will multiply them and put my sanctuary among them forever. 27 My dwelling shall be with them; I will be their God, and they will be my people. 28 Then the nations shall know that I, the LORD, make Israel holy, by putting my sanctuary among them forever.

RESPONSE

Jeremiah 31:10d

10 Hear the word of the LORD, you nations,

proclaim it on distant coasts, and say:

The One who scattered Israel, now gathers them;

he guards them as a shepherd his flock.

PSALM

Jeremiah 31:10–13

10 Hear the word of the LORD, you nations,

proclaim it on distant coasts, and say:

The One who scattered Israel, now gathers them;

he guards them as a shepherd his flock.

11 The LORD shall ransom Jacob,

he shall redeem him from a hand too strong for him.

12 Shouting, they shall mount the heights of Zion,

they shall come streaming to the LORD’s blessings:

The grain, the wine, and the oil,

flocks of sheep and cattle;

They themselves shall be like watered gardens,

never again neglected.

13 Then young women shall make merry and dance,

young men and old as well.

I will turn their mourning into joy,

I will show them compassion and have them rejoice after their sorrows.

GOSPEL ACCLAMATION

Ezekiel 18:31

31 Cast away from you all the crimes you have committed, and make for yourselves a new heart and a new spirit. Why should you die, house of Israel?

GOSPEL

John 11:45–56

45 Now many of the Jews who had come to Mary and seen what he had done began to believe in him. 46 But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done. 47 So the chief priests and the Pharisees convened the Sanhedrin and said, “What are we going to do? This man is performing many signs. 48 If we leave him alone, all will believe in him, and the Romans will come and take away both our land and our nation.” 49 But one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, “You know nothing, 50 nor do you consider that it is better for you that one man should die instead of the people, so that the whole nation may not perish.” 51 He did not say this on his own, but since he was high priest for that year, he prophesied that Jesus was going to die for the nation, 52 and not only for the nation, but also to gather into one the dispersed children of God. 53 So from that day on they planned to kill him.

54 So Jesus no longer walked about in public among the Jews, but he left for the region near the desert, to a town called Ephraim, and there he remained with his disciples.

55 Now the Passover of the Jews was near, and many went up from the country to Jerusalem before Passover to purify themselves. 56 They looked for Jesus and said to one another as they were in the temple area, “What do you think? That he will not come to the feast?”

Notes