DAILY READINGS AND REFLECTION
Saturday (4 April 2020) | 5th Week in Lent
First reading
Ezekiel 37:21-28 – I will bring them home and make them one nation
THE Lord says this: ‘I am going to take the sons of Israel from the nations where they have gone. I shall gather them together from everywhere and bring them home to their own soil.
‘I shall make them into one nation in my own land and on the mountains of Israel, and one king is to be king of them all; they will no longer form two nations, nor be two separate kingdoms.
‘They will no longer defile themselves with their idols and their filthy practices and all their sins. I shall rescue them from all the betrayals they have been guilty of; I shall cleanse them; they shall be my people and I will be their God.
‘My servant David will reign over them, one shepherd for all; they will follow my observances, respect my laws and practise them. They will live in the land that I gave my servant Jacob, the land in which your ancestors lived.
‘They will live in it, they, their children, their children’s children, for ever. David my servant is to be their prince for ever. I shall make a covenant of peace with them, an eternal covenant with them.
‘I shall resettle them and increase them; I shall settle my sanctuary among them for ever. I shall make my home above them; I will be their God, they shall be my people. And the nations will learn that I am the Lord, the sanctifier of Israel, when my sanctuary is with them for ever.’
Gospel
John 11:45-56 – Jesus was to die to gather together the scattered children of God
MANY of the Jews who had come to visit Mary and had seen what Jesus did believed in him, but some of them went to tell the Pharisees what Jesus had done.
Then the chief priests and Pharisees called a meeting. ‘Here is this man working all these signs’ they said ‘and what action are we taking? If we let him go on in this way everybody will believe in him, and the Romans will come and destroy the Holy Place and our nation.’
One of them, Caiaphas, the high priest that year, said, ‘You do not seem to have grasped the situation at all; you fail to see that it is better for one man to die for the people, than for the whole nation to be destroyed.’
He did not speak in his own person, it was as high priest that he made this prophecy that Jesus was to die for the nation – and not for the nation only, but to gather together in unity the scattered children of God. From that day they were determined to kill him.
So Jesus no longer went about openly among the Jews, but left the district for a town called Ephraim, in the country bordering on the desert, and stayed there with his disciples.
The Jewish Passover drew near, and many of the country people who had gone up to Jerusalem to purify themselves looked out for Jesus, saying to one another as they stood about in the Temple, ‘What do you think? Will he come to the festival or not?’
REFLECTION
TOMORROW is Palm Sunday of the Passion of the Lord, which begins Holy Week in which we will celebrate the Paschal Mystery of the Lord’s Passion, Death and Resurrection – the heart, the centre of gravity of the Church’s Year.
Appropriately, the gospel today takes us chronologically to a most significant meeting of the leaders of the Jewish people in Jerusalem just about a fortnight before Jesus would enter the City for the last time to die.
Jealousy and power had led to politics, politics to a council of war at that critical meeting of the chief priests and Pharisees.
Outbreaking news of Jesus raising a dead man to life had created waves recently. Bethany the home of Lazarus was just two miles from Jerusalem. As the news of the stunning miracle spread, droves were being won over to believe in Jesus. The Jewish leaders had to act, urgently. At that meeting they were determined to kill Jesus.
Jealousy and power had led to politics, politics to a council of war at that critical meeting of the chief priests and Pharisees. The Romans had always been wary about Jewish extremism and security in Palestine.
There had always been strong pockets of armed and fanatical resistance against Roman rule. Exaggerated or not, the meeting decided that the whole Jewish nation was now at risk of total destruction if the Roman authority saw the real threat of a massively popular revolt led by an extremely charismatic semi-god and would ruthlessly suppress it.
At length, Caiaphas, High Priest and supreme religious leader of the Jews, stood up at the meeting, and disdaining any opposition, pronounced: ‘You do not seem to have grasped the situation at all; you fail to see that it is better for one man to die for the people, than for the whole nation to be destroyed.’
St. John immediately comments that Caiaphas ‘did not speak in his own person, it was as high priest that he made this prophecy that Jesus was to die for the nation – and not for the nation only, but to gather together in unity the scattered children of God’.
By Caiaphas and his jealous group of political manipulators, the prophecy of Ezekiel in the first reading is brought to fulfilment. God will send a new King David not just to bring together the divided kingdoms of Israel and Judah but will gather together all the nations under His rule.
God will be their God and all peoples shall be His people. God comes to bless us even in tragedies and betrayals. People call it “blessing in disguise”. But to those who believe and know the faithfulness of God, there is no disguise; it’s sheer blessing.
Apart from Caiaphas and his cohort, there was yet another suspense in Jerusalem among the huge crowds of people gathered from the country to celebrate the year’s greatest feast of Passover which was fast approaching. The increasing numbers heightened the expectancy and the suspense concerning this unusual state of affairs around Jesus.
Would He come to Jerusalem? Would He come to risk His life? Will there be a mighty blow-up to this explosive situation? Will there be a meltdown?
Of course, we know Caiaphas and the leaders and all the people needed not speculate. Jesus came and entered Jerusalem; an entry began triumphantly but ended up most tragically within days.
Will Jesus be brave enough to enter the city of our heart tomorrow, and give His life for you and I, to gather us all into His One Kingdom? We all know the answer. He is only waiting for our response in gratitude and thanksgiving best expressed by following Him right up to Calvary.
Prayer:
Dear Lord Jesus, you bravely entered Jerusalem to die for me an undeserving sinner. You have even given me so much time to prepare myself in Lent to welcome and accompany you all the way to Your Death and Resurrection this year.
Give me the undeserved grace to be brave like you especially if I have neglected to prepare myself this Lent. I know your utter generosity. You never turn away but pay the full wage even to those who turn up at the eleventh hour.
Have mercy on me Jesus! Welcome me to join You in your saving Paschal Mystery. Amen.
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