A grain of wheat

Fifth Sunday in Lent; 17 March 2024; Lent 4B (RCL); Jeremiah 31:31-34; Psalm 51:1-13; Hebrews 5:5-10; John 12:20-33.

I believe this is one of the central passages of John’s Gospel, and key to interpreting the whole. John loves the device I call parenthesis. He opens the device with a parenthesis (like Jesus addressing the plural you telling us that we will see visions of angels ascending and descending on the Son of Man) and then keeps us in suspense until he closes it (with Mary’s vision of angels in the empty tomb). Here, John open the parenthesis with the mention of “certain Greeks,” and then leaves us in suspense, and never closes it.

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Now is the hour

Fifth Sunday in Lent; 21 March 2021; Lent 5B (RCL); Jeremiah 31:31-34; Psalm 51:1-13; Hebrews 5:5-10; John 12:20-33.

This is a strange little passage in John’s Gospel, and for that and other reasons, I think it is the heart of the Gospel, the hinge on which John’s Gospel turns. Certain Greeks (what were Greeks doing at the Passover Festival in Jerusalem, anyway?) make known to Philip (a good Greek name) that they wish to see Jesus. Philip goes to Andrew (another good Greek name — also Philip and Andrew are the two disciples named in the story of the multiplication of the loaves and fishes), and the two of them go to Jesus to tell him there are some Greeks who want to see him. Jesus replies, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.” Huh? What has one to do with the other?

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Bearing fruit

18 March 2018
Fifth Sunday of Lent
Lent 5B (RCL)

Jeremiah 31:31-34
Psalm 51:1-13
Hebrews 5:5-10
John 12:20-33

Throughout Lent this year, we have been reading instances of God’s covenant with God’s people, beginning with the covenant with Abraham. We arrive at Jeremiah’s vision of a new covenant, when restores the fortunes of the people. This one will be written on the heart. In Deuteronomy (chapter 6), Moses tells the people to write the words of the Shema (Hear, O Israel) on their doorposts, to wear them as frontlets, to teach them to their children and to speak of them both indoors and out. The new covenant will need no such instruction, as all will already know it. Continue reading “Bearing fruit”