The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified, Jesus says in
today’s Gospel[1].
The
Hour has finally come for him, we can say that Jesus has been waiting for this
Hour from the moment He became incarnate in the womb of His Mother. Just a few
days after His birth, one of the Magi gave the baby Jesus a gift of Myrrh, a
burial spice, perhaps a prophecy perhaps a gift to use when the Hour came… Forty
days after his birth, at His Presentation in the Temple, an elderly man named
Simeon took him in his arms, and told his Mother One day the Hour will come for this child, an Hour which will pierce
your heart like a sword, and shortly after His baptism in the Jordan at age
30, in a wedding party at Cana the wine runs out and Jesus says My Hour has not yet come… Now, three
years after the wedding at Cana, the Hour has come for the Son of Man to be
glorified.
Jesus
in those three years has accomplished much: he has preached with authority as
no other human before him has, He has converted and forgiven hardened sinners,
healed countless sick, expelled demons from the possessed, even cured a man
born blind and raised a man from the dead, but all of that, all of the first 33
years of Jesus’ life are but a tiny grain of wheat compared to the abundant
fruit which will now flower forth in the Hour of Jesus’ Passion, Death, Burial
and Resurrection.
The
Hour has come, and Jesus asks us, Could
you not watch one Hour with me? My brother, my sister: Jesus invites us
these next two weeks of Passiontide to enter into this Hour with Him – to hide
out with Him in silent prayer and meditation on His suffering and death to save
us from our sins. Jesus invites us especially to enter into the liturgies of
Holy Week: Palm Sunday, Holy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday and Easter
Sunday.
Yes:
the season of Lent is drawing to its conclusion: the hour has come, and we may
think that the hour referred to in John’s Gospel is the hour of Jesus’ death.
It is, but at the same time the evangelist gives us another meaning. He claims
that the hour of Jesus’ death is really the hour of his glorification. He
further insists that Jesus is glorified, not as a martyr, but as the source of new life for us. We hear this so often that we
might fail to realize the reality of this. Jesus’ death brings us new life.
So,
the question again arise in front of our eyes and ears: Could you not watch one Hour with me? May our answer be “Yes Jesus,
give us the grace to accompany you during your Hour, the Hour when you will be
glorified” ■
[1] Sunday 25th March, 2012, Fifth
Sunday of Lent. Readings: Jeremiah 31:31-34. Create a clean heart in me, O
God—Ps 50(51):3-4, 12-15. Hebrews 5:7-9. John 12:20-33.
