I will be their God and they shall be my people

My senior staff know that I sometimes get frustrated when they come to tell me that so-and-so has rung, wanting to know if I will approve x, y or z. In my frustration, I usually winge, 'Why can’t they just ask me directly; they’ve got my number.'

Clearly, from the opening words of today’s gospel, Jesus was considerably more patient than I can be in a similar scenario. Someone – in Jesus’ case a group of Greek pilgrims – wanted to meet with him. Rather than go directly to him, they make the approach via an intermediary – they went to speak with someone else on Jesus’ leadership team, someone who had a Greek name, Philip, to see if they could get an introduction.

We know Jesus’ reaction – it was both welcoming, and enigmatic. The welcoming comes via his acceptance that the arrival of the Greeks is the trigger for the fulfilment of his mission. The Greeks represent the rest of the world, beyond the narrow parameters of the Israelites. Other nations were now coming to Jesus to seek a share in his life and participation in his Kingdom. For his part, Jesus receives and welcomes the Greeks as a sign that his hour had come to fulfil the promise made by God in today’s first reading: all nations come to share in the Covenant with God, because all people will have that covenant written directly into their hearts. God promised, I will be their God and they shall be my people, and now Jesus could bring this about, by means of those unsuspecting Greek pilgrims.

The enigmatic part of Jesus’ reaction to the request of the Greeks is how he saw this promise being fulfilled. As he said, Unless a wheat grain falls on the ground and dies, it remains only a single grain; but if it dies, it yields a rich harvest. Here we have one of those utterances from Jesus that can sound so puzzling. We are tempted to ask, where did that come from? Yet, its meaning is nothing new. Jesus had always said that his own path to our salvation would be one of suffering. So said the writer of the Letter to the Hebrews, from our second reading today: Although he was Son, [Jesus] learnt to obey through suffering; but having been made perfect, he became for all who obey him the source of eternal salvation.

What might we learn from this way of Jesus? We learn that he indeed shared fully in our deeply human aversion to pain and suffering. As he said, Father, save me from this hour, echoing what he would say on the night before he died, Father, take this cup away from me. The dread of dying for the sake of others – and for us – was carried in the heaviest of ways by Jesus. Yet, it was the path he knew he had to take, and he did so humbly and freely: Father, glorify your name [in me]; or, in the garden of Gethsemane, your will be done.

All this expresses for us the very human fear that Jesus carried, along with his unshakable commitment to his task and his loving confidence in his Father’s care. Always, and for everyone who would want to come to Jesus, this path that he took – of glorious suffering – should shock us to the core. Jesus is certain of his task – death for our sake – yet in utter dread of it. In obedience to his Father, and to spare us from the wrath of God, Jesus will take on the full force of our sinful and corrupt humanity. He will be the grain that needs to die, so that we might live and yield a rich harvest.

Let us not miss what Jesus has spared us from. When I am lifted up from the earth, I shall draw all people to myself. His suffering; our salvation.

Image: Jesus Christ (Mosaic, Basilica dei Santi Cosma e Damiano, Rome)