When You Lift Up the Son of Man

Homily for Tuesday of the Fifth Week in Lent

The debate Jesus carries on with the Pharisees and others in these chapters of St. John’s Gospel seems to be a drone of words, words, words. In fact, the Lord is revealing something essential: He is the ambassador of a new world. Whereas the world we all have gotten used to is dominated by sin, Jesus belongs to what is above, meaning, a world under God’s sovereignty, what Jesus calls the Kingdom of God. As the Pharisees and we persist in staying with this world below, we are stuck in our sins, and in death.

Here is the strange clue that Jesus offers today: the very act of this world exercising its worst consequence on Jesus, death in the form of his crucifixion, becomes the sign of God’s achievement of dethroning sin as master. Jesus says, “When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will realize that I AM. Death and suffering were hurled at Jesus, and he did not flinch. Rather, he went straight into and through death to the Resurrection. This death-resurrection dynamic is the essence of our baptism.

Lent is an opportune time for all of us to conform to this life of the “world above” – God’s kingdom here on earth. We need to be attentive, listening, and obedient to grace. Then we will know what living is truly like.