John’s gospel points to Bethany as the place where Jesus and his followers stayed when they came to Jerusalem. He ate with Martha, Mary and Lazarus there. Today Bethany is part of East Jerusalem, a contentious area in our times.

My community, the Passionists, have the Church of St. Martha and a retreat house in Bethany. Olive trees still grace the land, as they did in Jesus’ time. Ancient caves are found here. They probably provided shelter for pilgrims to the feasts. Could Jesus have stayed in a cave like this? Bethany evokes memories of the time Jesus was here. 

The traditional tomb of Lazarus, whom Jesus raised from the dead,  is a short distance from St. Martha’s, although an Israeli security wall blocks access to it now.

 

From Bethany Jesus and the others would walk a couple of miles to the temple. His claims there unsettled the city’s leaders, so he would return to the safety of Bethany, among friends. Judas knew the place. On Holy Thursday he gave Jesus up as he prayed in Gethsemane, the Garden of Olives, just over the hill from Bethany.

Luke’s narrative of the Passion mentions a crowd of people followed Jesus on the way to his death “including many women who mourned and lamented him. ” 

Women from Galilee followed him to Jerusalem. They were there when he died and was buried.. Mary, his mother was one of them. Martha and Mary from Bethany would have been there too. Mary, the mother of Jesus, and the other women from Galilee must have stayed in Bethany. They must have returned there after his death and burial.

Would Lazarus give them some comfort and hope?

March 30 Monday of Holy Week Is 42:1-7/Jn 12:1-11

31 Tuesday of Holy Week Is 49:1-6/Jn 13:21-33, 36-38 

April 1 Wednesday of Holy Week Is 50:4-9a/Mt 26:14-25 

2 Holy Thursday Ex 12:1-8, 11-14/1 Cor 11:23-26/Jn 13:1-15 

3.Good Friday Is 52:13—53:12/Heb 4:14-16; 5:7-9/Jn 18:1—19:42 

4. Sat Holy Saturday

5. ster Vigil: Gn 1:1—2:2 or 1:1, 26-31a/Gn 22:1-18 or 22:1-2, 9a, 10-13, 15-18/ Ex 14:15—15:1/Is 54:5-14/Is 55:1-11/Bar 3:9-15, 32—4:4/Ez 36:16-17a, 18-28/ Rom 6:3-11/Mt 28:1-10 

6. EASTER SUNDAY 11 Acts 10:34a, 37-43/Col 3:1-4 or 1 Cor 5:6b-8/Jn 20:1-9 

The gospels for Holy Week are mostly from the Gospel of John. They take us first to Bethany where Jesus must have spent his days in Jerusalem among “the Jews” who were “his own”, loyal friends who supported and cared for him. We are in Bethany.

Monday of Holy Week we’re at a meal in Bethany, where Martha, Mary and Lazarus,  celebrate God’s blessings with Jesus and his disciples. It’s a thanksgiving meal: Lazarus was raised from the dead. By dying Jesus brings life to the world.

Tuesday and Wednesday, Again we are at a meal in Bethany with disciples who will abandon Jesus. One of them, Judas, will betray him. We are reminded how frail disciples can be. But Jesus does not abandon them, nor will he abandon us and our world.

On Thursday, at table with his disciples Jesus does not wash his hands of them, he washes their feet as a servant would do. A sign of such great love. Then– Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians recalls– Jesus took bread and wine and gave them to his disciples as his body and blood.  

                                                                                                                                                             On Good Friday the readings from Isaiah recall the Suffering Servant who gives his life for others, and Psalm 22 recalling his suffering. The Gospel of John tells the story of Jesus’ Passion today. He sees Jesus as a conquering  King even as he suffers and dies. For a commentary on the Passion Narrative of John by Fr. Donald Senior see here. 

On Holy Saturday evening, readings from Genesis and other readings from the Old and New Testament speak of Jesus and his mission to save the world. On Easter various gospel accounts announce his resurrection. He has risen! The waters of baptism are a sign that we shall live and rise too.

Morning and Evening Prayer for Week 2  here.

Stations of the Cross for Adults here.

Praying with Children here.

For this week’s homily, please watch the video below.

Readings

We’re entering Holy Week today.

Most of the gospel readings in these last weeks of Lent, Holy Week and the Easter season are from John’s gospel. More than the other evangelists John dwell on the last days of Jesus, his death and resurrection. Only John tells us of his visit to Bethany where he miraculously raised Lazarus from the tomb. Only John reports his long discourses with the Jews during the Jewish feasts and with his apostles at the Last Supper. Only John tells us about the appearances of Jesus to Mary Magdalen and the other apostles after he rises from the dead. Only John tells us about the meeting of Jewish leaders plotting his death, which we read today. 

We read John’s gospel of the Passion of the Lord on Good Friday. There too only John tells us of Jesus’ conversation with Pilate, about blood and water flowing out from his side, about Mary and John standing beneath his cross. 

John does not limit himself to the bare historical facts of the story of Jesus. He doesn’t try to shock us as some do. John goes beyond the facts and the raw details of crucifixion and death. 

Today’s gospel is a good example of what he does. The Jewish leaders meet because they’re afraid of what the Romans will do if Jesus stirs up trouble. They decide the best move for the nation and for themselves is to do away with him.

 The chief priests and the Pharisees
convened the Sanhedrin and said,
“What are we going to do?
This man is performing many signs.
If we leave him alone, all will believe in him,
and the Romans will come
and take away both our land and our nation.”
But one of them, Caiaphas,
who was high priest that year, said to them,
“You know nothing,
nor do you consider that it is better for you
that one man should die instead of the people,
so that the whole nation may not perish.”
He did not say this on his own,
but since he was high priest for that year,
he prophesied that Jesus was going to die for the nation,
and not only for the nation,
but also to gather into one the dispersed children of God.
So from that day on they planned to kill him. (John 11:45-56)

Another plan is at work, God’s plan, John indicates.  God will bring the dispersed children of God into one. The Divine Shepherd gathers all the nations into one, the Prophet Ezekiel says in our first reading for today. ”I will make them one nation upon the land, in the mountains of Israel, and there shall be one prince for them all. Never again shall they be two nations, and never again shall they be divided into two kingdoms.” (Ezekiel 37,22)

Politics , political decisions and a violent execution dominates the meeting of the Sanhedrin. Politics, political decisions and violence seem to dominate our world today. We only see so far, but we don’t see far enough. We have to listen to God’s word more.

God’s plan is bigger than politics, but it’s hard to see. The passion and resurrection of Jesus is God’s great sign, but it’s not easy to read. Is that why we read the Gospel of John in our liturgy these days. Seeing God’s plan appearing in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, perhaps we will see it more in our lives and our world today.

May God open our eyes to see.

Morning and Evening Prayer here

Children’s Prayers http://www.ourchildrenpray.com

 Some commentators on John’s Gospel that we read from the end of Lent into the Easter season put quotation marks around “the Jews” to indicate a need to interpret this term properly. Who are “the Jews” John speaks of in his gospel? The term describes different groups of Jews in Jesus’ time. 

First,  Jesus himself was a Jew who loved his people and their traditions. His mother Mary and Joseph were Jews. Most of his followers were Jews, and so they belong in John’s category  “the Jews”. 

“The Jews” Jesus argues with in our readings from John’s Gospel are the Pharisees and their allies, the scribes. They’re often described in the gospels as hostile to Jesus, but not all of them are. 

The Pharisees were members of a lay movement that arose in Judaism a few centuries before the time of  Jesus. Reacting against Jewish leaders they saw as corrupt collaborators with foreign invaders like the Greeks and the Romans, the Pharisees started a religious revival based on the Mosaic law and traditions.  They were popular among the people.

The Pharisees and scribes strongly kept the law and Jewish interpretation of tradition, however. In John’s Gospel, Jesus goes beyond Moses and the prophets. “Jesus said to them, “Amen, amen, I say to you, before Abraham came to be, I AM.” (John 8:29) That was blasphemy to the Pharisees. 

They are “the Jews” opposing Jesus  John describes in our readings this week.

Besides the Pharisees and scribes, there were the Sadducees, the Jewish ruling class holding  political power in Jerusalem and allied to the Romans. They mostly opposed Jesus. They controlled the temple, the center of Jewish worship in Jerusalem,  and when Jesus taught in the temple and performed miraculous works in the Holy City, they saw a threat to political stability and possible revolution..

Then, there were the Herodians–– followers of Herod Antipas, the politically sensitive ruler of parts of Palestine. They also took steps to eliminate Jesus. 

Lke the Pharisees and scribes, some of these Jewish leaders, like Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea, saw Jesus in another light. 

Some of the followers of Jesus, “Jews”, will abandon him this week. 

In Holy Week , the Jewish leaders like the priests Annas and Caiphas, anxious about the future of Jerusalem and their nation take action against Jesus, along with some Pharisees.  They approach Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor who has the power to put him to death. 

There is another group John sees as “the Jews” we should not forget. They are the inhabitants of Jerusalem and pilgrims come up to Jerusalem for the feast or others living in the city. They wait and see.  We should not forget them. We hear their voices as we celebrate the mystery of the Passion of Jesus in Holy Week.,

Readings

I’m glad I went to my bible to discover a little more about God’s call to Abraham in our lectionary today – Genesis 17, 3-9 – because I found out that Abraham was 99 when God made promises to him. He’s 99 and God promises to make him the father of many nations, even have a child. 

Abraham and his wife Sarah laugh at the thought, not for joy, but because it’s so nonsensical. They’re at life’s end, not it’s beginning. Something more to do? A child at their age? 

How can anyone think big thoughts and great dreams at life’s end? Even if we discounted actuarial studies, there are dire warnings about our environment, nuclear wars and so many other things. .Many, not just 99 year-olders, see things ending not beginning. Dark days ahead.

The story of Abraham and Sarah tells us not to believe life and dreams end. I like Jessica Power’s poem about Abraham.

“I love Abraham, that old weather-beaten

unwavering nomad; when God called to him

no tender hand wedged time into his stay.

His faith erupted him into a way

far-off and strange. How many miles are there

from Ur to Haran? Where does Canaan lie,

or slow mysterious Egypt sit and wait?

How could he think his ancient thigh would bear

nations, or how consent that Isaac die,

with never an outcry nor an anguished prayer?

I think, alas, how I manipulate

dates and decisions, pull apart the dark

dally with doubts here and with counsel there,

take out old maps and stare.

Was there a call after all, my fears remark.

I cry out: Abraham, old nomad you,

are you my father? Come to me in pity.

Mine is a far and lonely journey, too.”

Who says the scriptures are dull and have nothing to say? 

Good God, keep us safe and in good health

but also keep our dreams alive .

So many lose hope in times like these,

Keep hope alive in us,

hope that doesn’t depend on life here and now

but hope that comes from your promises,

Through Jesus Christ. Amen. 

Our readings from St. John’s Gospel these last weeks of Lent picture Jesus teaching and working wonders in Jerusalem during the Jewish feasts. We’re coming to the Passover feast when he died and rose again. John’s Gospel emphasizes the divine nature of Jesus.

The ancient feast of the Annunciation of the Lord, March 25th, seems to interrupt the lenten story, but does it?

The feast of the Annunciation of the Lord reminds us that Jesus Christ was human as well as divine. God willed his Son become flesh in Mary’s womb and live a human life and die a human death. This feast celebrates the mystery of the Incarnation of the Son of God.

The Letter to the Hebrews on this feast says that in coming into the world Jesus Christ said “ a body you prepared for me…behold, I come to do your will, O God.’

For nine months, the Word of God, was silent and unknown in the womb of Mary. For almost thirty years, the Word of God was known as Jesus of Nazareth, the carpenter’s son. For most of his life, subject to Mary and Joseph, Jesus belonged to an ordinary Jewish community, with all that went with it. He lived a human life. He shared ordinary human experiences, simple or complicated as they are. The Son of God was human all his life.

The Feast of the Annunciation originated in the early church in Jerusalem. That church was influenced by the rich symbolism of Jewish tradition. March 25, for example, the date chosen for this feast, is the time of the spring equinox, when light begins to conquer darkness. The Jews associated March 25 with their Exodus from Egypt, when they were released from the powers of darkness and brought into a land of light. March 25 was when God created the world and Adam and Eve. It was a time of their fall and their banishment from the garden.The Christian church in Jersalem saw March 25th in the same perspective.

The day Mary accepted the invitation of the angel was the day Word was made flesh for the recreation of the world. A new Adam became flesh in her womb. Nine months from March 25, December 25th, she gave birth to her Son. Influenced by that same way of thinking some Christians then believed that Jesus died on this date and descended to the nether world where, as the New Adam, he brought life to the dead.

We tend today to think about time in a linear way, but the Feast of the Annunciation of the Lord reminds us there are other ways of thinking about time. The rich symbolism of this feast sees the whole of God’s plan unfolding in this great day of the year.

A beautiful way to think.