My dearest brothers and sisters, may the Lord give you peace on this beautiful and grace-filled fifth and final Sunday of Lent. The readings for this Sunday re-establish our gaze on Jesus, who is the hope of every future good we can ever desire. All readings will challenge us to forget the things of the past which may have happened for a reason but are no longer necessary for the vision we have in mind.
In the first reading, the prophet Isaiah speaks on behalf of the Lord, “…who opens a way in the sea and a path in the mighty waters, who leads out chariots and horsemen, a powerful army, till they lie prostrate together, never to rise, snuffed out and quenched like a wick: Remember not the events of the past, the things of long ago consider not; see, I am doing something new!”
In other words, the Egyptian chariots and horsemen that were led into the sea only to be quenched like a wick and snuffed out, are made to be a symbol of all those things from Israel’s past which had held them bound and which impeded them from moving on to their final destination – the Land which God promised their ancestors and forefathers. And so too God wishes to bind the power of sin in our lives, and bury it in our past, so as to have us live the present and look ahead with hope. It’s the Lord’s initiative and we are glad and for this reason we proclaim through the responsorial psalm (126), that; “The Lord has done great things for us; we are filled with joy.”
In the second reading, Saint Paul goes even further. He states that, after his conversion, he began to “…consider everything as a loss because of the supreme good of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.” In other words, not just the sins from his former life, but even the material goods he had accumulated and more importantly, his mental schemas, his ways of looking at the world… everything was a relic of his past and former way of living. He goes on to say that for Christ’s sake he, “… accepted the loss of all things” and considered them, “…so much rubbish” that he could, “… gain Christ and be found in him.” The reason Saint Paul makes, what to his contemporaries would have been, this shocking pronouncement, is his life-altering encounter with the risen Lord. The resurrection of Christ, Easter, changed everything for Saul. So much so that he would cease being Saul, and become a new man – Paul. This is clear in what he goes on to say became the focus of his energies – “… to know him (Christ) and the power of his resurrection.” What may Paul have meant by “the power of his resurrection?” Is he talking about the goosebumps it left on him when it happened, or is he talking about the life-changing effects that accompany it? Upon the latter is where he is placing his emphasis – the Resurrection of Christ changes us. It changes everything.
I, for example, would never have renounced a wife and a family, had I not believed firmly that my God came to this world, died for us, and rose again as he himself foretold. Never would I want this life for anybody, had that not really taken place. Here too, Paul makes it simple: “If Christ be not risen from the dead, then our faith is in vain and we are to be the most pitied of all men on the face of the earth.” How very true. How very profoundly those words ring true to people who have dedicated their lives to sharing the gospel. It is for this reason that Jesus even transcends the law of Moses. In showing mercy to the woman caught in the act of adultery, he is protecting her dignity as God’s child. It’s not that the sin of adultery no longer matters in the Lord’s eyes. It’s that now, after having made things new, adultery is not merely the physical act, but also what we crave in our hearts. The novelty is how Jesus saw things through the perspective of love. As we go on with this day, let us be grateful that he has made all things new for us as well, giving us the grace to leave our former ways behind so as to bask in the good and holy freedom of his truth and grace. Amen.
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