Homily, March 17, 2024
From the Pastor
The word of the Lord given to Jeremiah to prophesy to the people marks a profound change in the movement of our salvation. The people are in a period of restoration after exile and God wants to establish a living covenant with his people. Realizing the infidelity of the people, God moves his covenant with them away from the Law and into the heart.
‘I will place my Law within them and write it on their hearts; I will be their God and they will be my people.’ The Law is an external form of faith. It calls for an exterior obedience to remain faithful to the tenants of the Law. Law is an early form of moral development. The motivation to keep the Law is to avoid punishment and the fear of displeasing God. The Law was a necessary and essential step in the formation of God’s people. The people loved the Law and honored it as an expression of their love for God. But human beings are weak, and the Law is broken causing a perceived separation from God.
The critical move from head to heart changes everything. No longer an exterior relationship with God, now God is known in the heart. It is a clear movement away from life with God through the Law to one of relationship with the Spirit of God. It creates the development of personal conscience through obedience of the heart. When things move to the heart faith gets real. It can take a while to get there, but faith and love in the heart cannot lie. It is either embraced or simply toyed with. Heartfelt honesty will either accept the surrender of surface and passing things or cling to the status quo of exterior living.
In the fifth week of Lent things quickly turn to the heart of the season. Several of the major themes of John’s gospel come to the fore. Triggered by the desire of some Greeks to see Jesus, the scene is set for the coming of the Cross. Jesus makes it clear, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.” Jesus knows his fate and is ready to embrace it. Jesus says, “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.” Jesus is that grain of wheat, becoming the model we are invited to follow.
‘Hour’ means the hour of the Cross and the death of Jesus. ‘To be glorified’ means that in his death Jesus receives the glory of his Father for making the love of the Father known to the world. The death of Jesus makes known the pure love for the Father through the obedient surrender of the Son. The love of the Father and the Son is one in a singular desire to redeem the world. Jesus is a pure gift of love from the Father for the sake of our redemption. The Holy Spirit is the constant flow of this love for the world.
What does that look like for us who follow Jesus? “Whoever loves his life will lose it, and whoever hates his life in this world will preserve it for eternal life.” What does this mean? Are we to hate ourselves in this world? No, not at all. To truly know ourselves is to know God, and to know God is to truly come to know ourselves in love. Before we can die to ourselves in Christ, we must know who we are in the love through which we are created and redeemed.
Dying to himself was not easy for Jesus. He deeply loved his life in the body and had a personal love for all persons. It was difficult for Jesus to surrender his life to the Father for the sake of our salvation. Although we often think of obedience as a suffering that limits us, true obedience is an act of love. Pure love was the deepest desire that gave Jesus the courage to accept his Cross for the sake of our union with God. The death of Jesus bears great fruit.
This is the fullness of the prophecy that came through the Prophet Jeremiah. The exterior action of the Law would never reveal the depth and purity of God’s desire to be one with us in love. Our love for God must be from the heart with willing gratitude and desire to honor and imitate the gift Jesus has given us. The Law can keep us too much in control. A person can rightly keep the Ten Commandments and remain unaware of the power and truth of God’s love for us in Christ.
The challenge is to live from the heart; to direct our lives in the desire and motives of love. This kind of love can only lead to dying to the self, putting aside personal wants, preferences, and ego to surrender our love to the needs of others. We become the grain of wheat that dies to the self I have made to become the Christ-self who lives in me. Not easy, but a heart of love knows the way through the action of the Holy Spirit.
Obedient surrender is neither a popular nor understood reality in our world. Yet, it is what every single human being most deeply needs and wants. If we live selfish lives, we lose the awareness of God. If we live with love from the heart in the model of Jesus, eternal life will be ours. Jesus showed the way. Ours is to follow in love. Imitation is the greatest form of flattery. Do not seek to flatter, just love freely and the evidence will be clear.
Father John Esper
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