Fifth Sunday of Lent
The prelude of the Passion
Now there were some Greeks among those who had come up to worship at the feast. They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and asked him, “Sir, we would like to see Jesus.” Philip went and told Andrew; then Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus. Jesus answered them, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Amen, amen, I say to you, 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. Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will preserve it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there also will my servant be. The Father will honor whoever serves me. “I am troubled now. Yet what should I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? But it was for this purpose that I came to this hour. Father, glorify your name.” Then a voice came from heaven, “I have glorified it and will glorify it again.” The crowd there heard it and said it was thunder; but others said, “An angel has spoken to him.” Jesus answered and said, “This voice did not come for my sake but for yours. Now is the time of judgment on this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out. And when I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw everyone to myself.” He said this indicating the kind of death he would die. Jn 12,20-33
Jesus of Nazareth’s fame had anticipated his triumphal entry into Jerusalem, and in fact, in today’s passage, some Greeks approach Philip the day after his arrival in town and ask him: “Sir, we would like to see Jesus”. It is not mere curiosity, but the desire to know that Master, whose miracles and whose ideas had brought new life in the somewhat stale religion of the Jewish world. Jesus, however, having already entered the atmosphere of the Passion, replies them with a sentence that postpones the opportunity to be known at the time of the cross: “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified”. It is the most important moment in history, the hour of liberation of mankind from the power of Satan and reconciliation between heaven and earth. It is, nevertheless, also the moment when Jesus has to pay the price of the great plan of salvation, which is taking place: “I am troubled now. Yet what should I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? But it was for this purpose that I came to this hour. Father, glorify your name”. In this conversation between the Father and the Son, Jesus universalizes the time of the Passion and extends it to every disciple who has chosen to live as his follower: “Amen, amen, I say to you, 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”. It is the love the one who accepts the sacrifice in everyday life or up to death, so that others may live: it is the mother who lets herself be crushed by the train, but throws her child down the slope so that it is saved; it is the father – I used to know one, My father-in-law Mario – who gives up for years the pleasure of a glass of wine at the table in order to pay his daughter’s university fees and the woman who accepts with joy her death because the child she is giving birth to may come light. To all these people who silently agree to die or to live a life of poverty – sometimes actually – so that others may live a happy and dignified life, the Father, who cannot be beaten by anybody in terms of generosity, answers from the sky: “I have glorified it and will glorify it again”. This glorification becomes evident because those who give their life, in any way, dwells in joy.