5th Sunday of Lent Year B. By Tobe Eze

1.       Appearance can be deceiving, go for the reality. Tobe Eze.

2.       In everyday, try to drop one bad thing in your life and pick one good thing. It helps in building oneself. Tobe Eze.

5th Sunday of Lent Year B.

FIRST READING
Jeremiah 31:31—34

SECOND READING

Hebrews 5:7—9

GOSPEL
John 12:20—33

THEME: COVENANT BUILT ON LOVE.

When I am lifted up, I will draw all me to myself. Are you among those he will draw to himself?

We want to see Jesus. Are you among who want to see Jesus?

We are meant to understand that love is always accompanied by suffering. God's love for his people from the old made him to make different covenants with his people Israel in the old. He the Lord has offered love showed through sacrifice to humanity but human has not sacrificed any, so he decided to make another bold step of involving man in his covenant with man. Igbos believe that onye choro igbu anu ga eme ka anu. He who wants to kill animal should behave like one. For his love for us, he sent his only beloved Son to come and take our nature so that we participate in the sacrifice. Continue Reading.............

In the first reading, God said he will make a new covenant with his people, it is no longer a covenant that only him will be fully involved rather, he will write the covenant in the hearts of all so that it will live in us forever and no one will wait for another to tell or remind him/her of the covenant. If it will be written in our hearts, it means there are many things involved and that leads me to the second reading.

Son though he was, he learned obedience from what he suffered; and when he was made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him. The covenant demands suffering. He took flesh like us in order to show us the example of the type of covenant he promised us. This suffering of a thing as a matter of fact started in the old in Genesis (3) when man ate the fruit of the tree he was asked not to eat. Suffering from that time till the time of Jesus was for only material things but after Christ, both spiritual and temporal benefits are now attached to suffering because Christ has become the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him.

In the Gospel, some Greeks met Philip telling him that they want to see Jesus. When the news got to Jesus, he did not give them the answer Philip and others wanted to hear rather he talked about his own time. The time of his death. If a grain does not fall and dies, it will not yield more fruit. He died to give salvation

to all.

If our pride do not die, we will not yield the fruit of humility. If our wickedness do not die, we will not yield fruit of righteousness, love and every other virtues that come from Christ. We are to die from committing sin and bear fruit of living a holy life in Christ. Righteousness exults a nation, but sin is a reproach to many nations (Proverbs 14:34). We should always work for that which will exult our nation rather than going to the things that reproach our nation.

Dying from committing sin gives birth to living in love and love covers many things. Love that we have to practice is the type of according to my own self, “love demands sacrifice even when you know you will gain nothing from the sacrifice but just because others will gain “. It is never a must that we get paid for the love we show to others. If we are paid, it is not a sin but we should not place it first in life. Is there any love that is greater than this that one lays his life for his friends (John 15:13)? We have to lay our lives for others not literally but in what we do to them and what we are to them. Our covenant with God and others should be built on love and this love should come from the heart. God has built his covenant with us on love, we have to reciprocate it through our own commitment to that love. THANKS AND HAPPY SUNDAY.