Readings: Jer. 31:31-34;
Heb. 5:7-9; Jn. 12:20-33
The Death of a
Grain of Wheat
1. When I was young, I was very curious about things. During planting season one year, I told my mom that I wanted to plant peanuts. I got my seed and off to the garden and started planting. I wanted to see the seed grow so bad that I kept digging it up. Needless to say, I did not allow the seed to die in order to grow. My mom told me to stop digging the seed up but to keep watering the seed and give it time to grow. The lesson: if the seed does not die – germinate - it will not grow and bear fruit. This is the message of the gospel reading of today. “Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies, it produces much fruit. Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will preserve it for eternal life.” This is the paradox of life that speaks to every situation we encounter on earth. Something must be given for something else.
2. The first reading is about the new covenant that God entered into with the children of Israel. “The days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant I made with their fathers the day I took them by the hand to lead them forth from the land of Egypt; for they broke my covenant.” (Jer. 31:31-32). Because that covenant was broken due to sin, God initiated a new way of dealing with his people. According to the letter to the Hebrews, “When he speaks of a “new” covenant, he declares the first one obsolete. And what had become obsolete and has grown old is close to disappearing.” (Heb. 9:13). The new covenant will need no middleman or an intermediary like Moses, it will be based on individual and personal relationship with God. “I will place my law within them and write it upon their hearts; I will be their God, and they shall be my people. No longer will they have need to teach their friends and kinsmen how to know the Lord. All, from least to greatest, shall know me, says the Lord, for I will forgive their evildoing and remember their sin no more.” (Jer. 31:34). This new covenant is marked by God’s forgiveness and man’s obedience to the will of God. The letter to Hebrews states that even the “Son of God learned obedience from what he suffered; and when he was made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him.” (Heb. 5:9).
3. During Lent we acknowledge our need for God by dying to ourselves so as to live a new life of grace. We must be the grain of wheat that must let go of its life so as to bear bountiful fruit to feed the hungry of the world. Forgiveness is the new law written in our hearts. God’s forgiveness is the new thing that God is doing in the world. Hence, Isaiah tells us “See, I am doing something new! Now it springs forth, do you not perceive it.” (Is. 43:19). This is reechoed in Hebrews, “For I will forgive their evildoing and remember their sins no more.” (Heb.8:12). We die to ourselves each time we forgive hurts done to us even as we bear fruit that will endure.
4. We feel differently when we experience forgiveness either from God through the sacrament of reconciliation or personal friendly forgiveness. This is a liberating, exhilarating and transforming feeling. It is the grain of wheat in us dying to give life to the world. God the Father died in sending his Son into the world. The Son became the grain of wheat when he gave his life on the cross and was lifted up so that we may look at him and live. “And when I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw everyone to myself.” (Jn. 12:32). At our baptism, we died to sin, like the grain of wheat, and rose up to share eternal life of grace with God. When we go to confession, we pray with the Psalmist, “A clean heart create for me, O God, and a steadfast spirit renew within me.” (Ps.51:12-13). We die to our pride, confess our sins and receive God’s forgiveness. We become a new creation and begin to inject goodness, kindness and forgiveness to our world.
5. So dear friends, like the Greeks who went to see Jesus in the Gospel, let us seek the company of Jesus during the remaining part of this Lenten season. May we not be afraid to die to ourselves. This means letting go of the past and embracing the here and now. We must die to ourselves if we are to live for Christ. What is holding you back? Past hurts, strangulating relationship, broken heart or relationship, lack of motivation, failed marriage or death in the family? Could it be sickness of parents and loved ones? Are you stuck in the past and find it difficult to let go and let God? We will not experience a new life with Christ if we do not die to ourselves. Yes, it may be hard to move on. But who said it will be easy? It was not easy for Christ. Look at Him in the garden of Gethsemane. “He was in such agony and he prayed so fervently that his sweat became like drops of blood falling on the ground.” (Lk. 22:44). Yet He died to himself so that we may have life in him. “For our sake God made him to be sin who did not know sin, so that we might become the righteousness of God in him.” (2 Cor. 5:21). May God give us the grace to die to ourselves so that we may live for God and others. Amen.
Rev. Augustine
Etemma Inwang, MSP
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