INTRODUCTION TO THE SCRIPTURE
Year B - Fifth Sunday In Lent
JEREMIAH 31:31-34. Jeremiah's ministry from about 627 to 580 BC covered one of the most critical periods of Israel's history, just before the exile in Babylon. He warned of the catastrophe about to befall the nation because they had failed to live as God intended. His words were not entirely without hope. He looked forward to a "new covenant" - a relationship of the heart, not on stone tablets like the Law of Moses. People would do intuitively what God requires of them. No one would need instruction or an intermediary because everyone would "know the Lord."
PSALM 51:1-12. In the same spirit of repentance and renewal, this psalm pleads for forgiveness and voices the longing of a faithful soul for a new relationship with God.
HEBREWS 5:5-10. Hebrews is not a letter, but a theological essay written to encourage Jewish Christians enduring persecution, perhaps even rejection by their own families. It attempts to answer whether it was worth holding on to their faith in Christ. The writer assures the faithful that Jesus understands what they are going through. He also suffered at the hands of his contemporaries. Through suffering in obedience to God, he opened the way to God for all. The image of Jesus as the high priest comes from the custom of the Jewish high priest offering a sacrifice on the Day of Atonement which renewed Israel's covenant with God.
JOHN 12:20-33. A group of Greeks came seeking Jesus. John has Jesus predict his own death and resurrection, and makes a deeper analysis of what this means. Through his sacrifice, like a seed planted to grow and bring forth much fruit, a new relationship with God would be established. His crucifixion would draw the whole world into this new relationship with God.
A MORE COMPLETE ANALYSIS.
JEREMIAH 31:31-34. Jeremiah was a member of a priestly family from the village of Anathoth, a short distance north of Jerusalem. His prophetic ministry from about 627 to 580 BCE covered one of the most critical periods of Israel's history, just before the exile in Babylon. There are also five chapters of the book (40-44) which describe activities of the prophet after the fall of Jerusalem in 586 BCE. Two significant events marked the history of period: the break up of the great Assyrian empire and the rise of the Babylonian power; and the resurgence of religious nationalism in Judah during the reign of King Josiah, culminating in 621 BCE with the centralizing of worship in the temple in Jerusalem. After the death of Josiah in the battle of Megiddo (609 BCE), a succession of weak monarchs with anti-Babylonian policies brought about the surrender of Jerusalem in 597 BCE and the exile of the leaders of Judean society. A further anti-Babylonian revolt ended in the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple in 587/586 BCE.
Jeremiah warned of the catastrophe about to befall the nation because they had failed to live as God intended. His words were not entirely without hope. They look beyond the national disaster to a new spiritual revival. This theme can be found especially in chapters 30-32, frequently referred to a "the book of consolation." The lectionary reading consists of a prose exposition of that hope amid a collection of poetic oracles, some of which reflect the oracles of both the earlier prophet Hosea (31:1-6) and the Jeremiah's contemporary, Second Isaiah (31:10-14).
In this passage Jeremiah looked forward to a "new covenant" - a relationship of the heart, not on stone tablets like the Law of Moses. People would do intuitively what Yahweh requires of them. No one would need instruction or an intermediary because everyone would "know the Lord." According to Jeremiah, the heart of the covenant forged in Sinai was an intimate, personal relationship with Yahweh, as close as that of husband and wife (vs. 32). For Jeremiah, the destruction of the temple symbolized the apostasy which ended the Sinai covenant. A new relationship had become necessary, a covenant written "on their hearts."
As with all ancient peoples, the heart was the seat of all psychic life, the centre of the emotions, the intellect, and especially, the will and moral life. Thus, for the Hebrews it became the point of contact with God. This "innermost spring of human personality is directly open to God and subject to his influence," wrote R.C Dentan, professor of Old Testament at General Seminary, New York, in his article on the heart in The Interpreter's Bible Dictionary, (vol. 2, 550). But the heart is also prone to evil and isolation from God. Both Old and New Testaments present us with numerous passages of both response and rejection of spiritual realities by the human heart. The phrase "hardening of the heart" describes the drifting away from God so evident in the moral and spiritual decline of any age.
Jeremiah's hope for a covenant written on the heart has an eschatological element in that he sees it as a future rather than an immediate event. It will also come about, not by human initiative, but by God's grace and with divine forgiveness for the apostasy and sin of the past.
PSALM 51:1-12. In the same spirit of repentance and renewal, this psalm pleads for forgiveness and voices the longing of a faithful soul for a new relationship with God.
The superscript of the psalm relates it to King David when Nathan condemned him for his adulterous assault on Bathsheba. While this is an attractive viewpoint, it is also totally imaginary. At best, it is a poetic attribution made long after the story of the sin of Israel's greatest romantic hero had become common currency. It is now believed to be the product of a Levitical compiler or editor of the Psalter in the post-exilic period. One scholarly viewpoint regards vs. 4 as evidence that it was not a Davidic composition because Bathsheba, Uriah and Joab were also sinned against by David's duplicitous actions.
The powerful message of this penitential psalm is by no means diminished by this exegesis. The psalmist pours out his guilt and shame in most memorable words. His sense of sin is much more profound than is found in many psalms of lament which express complaints against enemies and plead for deliverance from afflictions. Here is someone who has been animated by the teachings of the great prophets who denied the worth of animal sacrifices and emphasized a spiritual reaction to personal affliction. One of the most profound moral insights is the consciousness that sin is not
only against one's fellow human beings, but against God. We have here a somewhat truncated attitude which does not recognize the injury to the former relationship, but focuses almost exclusively on the latter. He desperately wants to get right with God, rather than restore whatever human relationships his sin may have broken.
Many people find vs. 5 a problem. Careful analysis, however, does not cast it as a
condemnation of one's parentage. The penitent, not the mother, is shamed and disgraced by whatever actions lie behind this vivid expression of sin. A similar attitude is found in Ps. 58:3 and in the later Jewish concept of evil inclination in the apocryphal book of Ecclesiasticus 15:11-15.
On the other hand, the psalm contains a highly developed spiritual sense of what sin does to our relationship to God. The plea for a clean heart and a new and right spirit (vs. 10) has few equals in either testament. So also the prayer not to be cast out of God's presence or deprived of the spirit of holiness implores the continuation of the state of grace in which life must be steadfastly lived. Finally, the plea for restoration of a willing spirit (vs. 12) brings the moral implications of grace to the fore almost as clearly as do the Gospels and the Pauline epistles.
HEBREWS 5:5-10. This is not really a letter in the usual sense, but more of a theological sermon or essay written to encourage Jewish Christians under some unstated threat, perhaps persecution, or rejection by their own families and community. It attempts to answer whether or not it was worth holding on to their faith in Christ.
Scholarly debate as to who wrote this essay and to whom it was written persists as vigorously today as a century or more ago. No one can be precise in answering those questions, only uncertain and speculative at best. The content of the document, however, defines the theological relation between the old covenant and the new, drawing upon the Greek version of the Hebrew scriptures rather than any particular historical setting. On the basis of who the author and the recipients believed Jesus to be, they can strengthen their faith and make their witness in the face of whatever threat may endanger them.
The image of Jesus as the high priest in this passage comes from the custom of the Jewish high priest offering a sacrifice on the Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, which renewed Israel's covenant with God. In the mind of the author, this is certainly the role which Jesus Christ fulfilled, not for Jews alone, but once and for all. The quotation in vs. 5 comes from Psalm 2:7 which the apostolic tradition regarded as a messianic reference. In vss. 6 and 10, the more obscure references to Melchizedek draw on Psalm 110:4 and a story in Genesis 14:17-20. In the latter perciope, Abram in his wanderings in Canaan and conflicts with neighboring kingdoms received the blessing of Melchizedek, the king and high priest of Salem (later Jerusalem). This referred to the apostolic tradition that Jesus, as the Messiah/Christ was both king of kings and God's high priest. In such a role, he could be Lord for both Gentiles and Greeks.
The significant message of this reading, however, is in vss. 7-9. It emphasizes both Jesus' own human nature and his divine mission as the Son of God. It also summarizes the Passion narrative of the Gospels by recalling the story of Jesus' at prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane in particular, his suffering and death on the cross. The author assumed that his audience would make the connection immediately. He is also saying, "This showed how he obediently submitted himself to the will of God, and so became the means of our salvation." Jesus is thus both the perfect priest
and the perfect sacrifice. What is more, as Christ, the Son of God, he now reigns in glory.
The passage precedes a lengthy exhortation to give attention to this difficult doctrine (5:11-6:20) because it is the foundation for their life in the world in very trying circumstances. As such it provides a very appropriate complement to the gospel reading.
JOHN 12:20-33. A group of Greeks came seeking Jesus. John then recorded how Jesus predicted his own death and resurrection, and made a deeper analysis of what this meant: It is God's way of giving eternal life to all who believe. Through his sacrifice, like a seed planted to grow and bring forth much fruit, a new relationship with God would be established. His crucifixion would become God's way of drawing the whole world into this new relationship.
It would not have been unusual for Greeks (i.e. Gentiles) to seek out Jesus in Galilee, but this meeting occurred in Jerusalem "at the festival," one of the Jewish high holy days. We are not told why they asked to see Jesus, but many Gentiles were attracted to Judaism for its rigorous moral standards in an amoral civilization. As Paul later discovered, it was the covenant symbol of circumcision which made Gentiles hold back from a total commitment to the Jewish tradition. Writing in the 90s CE, many decades after Paul's successful Gentile mission, John appears to use this pericope as a means of including them in the Christian community based on faith in the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus, the Christ/Messiah for all of humanity, not for Jews alone.
Throughout his gospel narrative, John has Jesus use the word "glorify" in reference not only to his death but also to his resurrection. Perhaps by the end of the 1st century early Christian art had already begun to portray the crucifixion in more attractive ways than it must have been experienced. Or perhaps knowledge of the resurrection had already caused the dark horror of that scene to have diminished before the brightness of faith in the risen Lord. The tradition of the seed that dies to give new life (vs. 24) obviously had been a strong apostolic tradition because Paul had
also used it in his letter to the Corinthians, as had Jesus in his parable of the seed and sower. Here John tied it to Jesus' teaching about service also found in the other gospels.
More difficult to understand, however, are the subsequent words John attributed to Jesus. One commentary gives this pericope the title of "The Agony and the Voice." (W.F. Howard. The Interpreter's Bible, vol. 8, 664). Howard also notes that this passage in John replaces the synoptic narrative of the agony in Gethsemane, but closely resembles Mark 14:33-35. The voice of reassurance (vs. 28) is similar to the voice in Mark 9:7 at the Transfiguration. Three different interpretations are given to the voice: by some of the disbelievers in the crowd who thought they had heard thunder. Others said it was an angel, possibly recalling two stories from Genesis 21:17 and 22:11 when God spoke to Hagar and Abraham in crucial situations.. The final word, however, came from Jesus. The hour of crisis had come when people must decide between walking in the light or the darkness (vss.35-36). Unfortunately, for some reason the reading
excludes this interpretation.
This whole passage focuses on the meaning and cost of discipleship. Without ever naming the crucifixion, it holds up the cross as the symbol of the sacrifice that discipleship entails. More than likely John wrote for a Gentile audience, so he used commonly recognizable metaphors such as a fruitful seed of wheat and contrasting light and darkness to explain in a positive manner, just what any Christian might expect in making such a commitment at the end of the 1st century. In common
with the other gospels, he wove into this pericope elements of the apostolic tradition of the words Jesus himself had used. John also tied these to his theme of the mighty works of Jesus glorifying God. The effect is to lift the whole experience of discipleship from the ordinary mundane level of suffering and sacrifice to the sanctified holiness of accomplishing God's eternal purpose.
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