Fifth Sunday in Lent Year B 17th March 2024
Lectionary Readings:
Jeremiah 31 v31-34; Psalm 51 v1,2; Hebrews 5 v5-10; John 12 v20-33.
‘Freedom from bondage’ and ‘Daring to think differently’.
John, writing at the end of the first century, was mindful of the everyday persecution suffered by Christian communities spread across the eastern half of the Roman Empire. Followers of Jesus were under pressure to conform to an alien Roman culture, which included Emperor worship. Followers with a Jewish heritage were also under pressure to revert to ‘traditional’ Jewish religion.
John reminds his readers that Jesus suffered and died at the hands of the same people. People who denied that Jesus was the Messiah, and who sought to suppress his good news of God’s plan to rescue all of us from ‘bondage’.
When Jesus began his public ministry, at a synagogue in Nazareth, he quoted the prophet Isaiah in saying that he had “come to bring good news to the poor, to announce freedom for prisoners, give sight to the blind, and to free everyone who suffers”. (Luke 4 v18)
Jesus also said that he “came to give scripture its full meaning”. (Matthew 5 v17).
Jesus’ interpretation of the phrase ‘freedom for prisoners’ includes those who are bound by spiritual blindness, and those addicted to harmful ways of living, such as the pursuit of wealth and power.
Jesus wants us to be free of anything that prevents us from reaching our full potential as human beings, made in the image of God.
In his ‘Sermon on the Mount’ Jesus turned ‘the values of this world’ upside down and taught that God wants his children to ‘think differently’. (Matthew 5).
Followers of Jesus are challenged to think differently, to believe in God’s plan of reconciliation between earth and heaven. Of a world in which God’s kingdom values hold sway. A world ruled by love and compassion. A world in which everyone is equally valued. A world without violence and destruction. A world in which true justice is practised and mercy is shown to those who genuinely repent of wrong doing. We are to consider ourselves ‘children of God’, and partners with Jesus in the business of embedding ‘kingdom values’ in our families and communities.
Jeremiah speaks of a time to come when God will make a new covenant with the faithful. God says
“I will write my laws on their hearts and minds. I will be their God, and they will be my people. No longer will they have to teach one another to obey me.”. (Jeremiah 33 v 33, 34)
The Psalmist is seeking God’s forgiveness and asks for an obedient spirit.
“Create pure thoughts in me and make me faithful again, Don’t chase me away from you or take your spirit from me. Make me happy as you did when you saved me, make me want to obey!”
(Psalm 51 v10-12)
God answers the psalmist’s prayer and our similar prayers today, via his Spirit, at work within us.
As Christians, we seek to be in our ‘right mind’. To live, as God intended us to, guided by his holy spirit, free from ‘bondage’ of any kind; in harmony with him, with one another and all creation.
Bible quotations are taken from the Contemporary English Version.