Pastor’s Corner for the Fifth Sunday of Lent, Year A, by Rev. William Billy Davies
Lent is nearing its end, and our focus now shifts to Easter and the Passion of our Lord. Weeks of penance, sacrifice, and much self-reflection have hopefully led us to some of the changes God desires for us. It’s a good time to reflect on our progress and what this Lent meant for us. Maybe even how this Lent changed us. Were we able to stick to the penance and sacrifices we made during this time? Have they yielded the fruits we hoped and prayed for? Hopefully, you did better than me.
I struggled.
It seemed this Lent as though so many things intruded on the time and space I had wanted to make sacred to rebuild and strengthen myself. As I think back over my Lent, I had fallen at the first hurdle of Satan’s temptations to Jesus on the First Sunday of Lent. Jesus was tempted to think only of himself and how He could take the shortcut to all He wanted. As my Lent became more filled with personal trials and sadness – the death of a special friend, the critical illness of another while she struggled with her husband’s infidelity, increased load shedding, two and a half weeks without running water and increasing business worries, I felt like Peter on the Second Sunday wanting to build some tents on a mountain, hidden in the clouds and escape. It seemed that the whole of humankind was like the Third Sunday Samaritan woman – thirsting for something from Jesus to restore me.
Have you experienced this or similar to this before?
Like the blind man, it’s the darkness of the tomb we have allowed ourselves to sink into. Blinded by the bindings around our eyes, immobilized by the bindings around our limbs and faithless by the bindings around our hearts.
The prophet Ezekiel describes the return home of the people of Israel in terms of resurrection and spiritual renewal. St Paul reminds us that it is the Spirit who, at Easter, raised Jesus from the dead. That same Spirit lives in us. By raising Lazarus from the dead and calling us from the tomb, Jesus shows He is Lord of Life and death.
Today we must be filled with hope. Lent is nearing an end. God calls us again to change. Jesus is calling us out of the tomb to resurrection and renewal.
Rev. William (Billy) Davies