Fifth Sunday in Lent
Preaching
Lectionary Preaching Workbook
Series III
More than any other Sunday in Lent, the fifth Sunday has lost its theological and liturgical identity. Prior to the liturgical revisions which followed Vatican II, the Fifth Sunday in Lent was known as Judica (from the first verse of the Introit, Psalm 43) and marked the - beginning of the two weeks Passiontide, that concentrated on the passion, suffering, and death of the Lord Jesus. Theologically, the emphasis was on the mystery of the cross, which was proclaimed in the readings and celebrated in the liturgical activities of the third period of Lent. Concentration upon the reality and meaning of the death of Jesus was intensified, so that this week became a preparation for Holy Week and the sacred Triduum of Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday.
All of that has been changed now. The Sunday of the Passion now occurs on the Sixth Sunday in Lent, reducing the period for observing the Passion of the Lord to one week. The Fifth Sunday in Lent, therefore, is simply another Sunday in Lent. It retains the theological character of every Sunday - that is, it is a celebration of the death and resurrection of the Lord. It gets its themes from Lent itself, but also from the lessons appointed for the day. In Cycle/Series B, the attention of the church is brought to bear upon the obedience of Christ to the will of the Father (which cost him his life), and also upon the power of the cross to drawpeople to the Savior in whom they will experience the forgiveness of their sins.
The Prayer of the Day
The classic collect has been replaced (rather than reworded) by the various churches so that it will be more in line with the worship of the people on this day. The Episcopal Church has rewritten an older collect that fits the "new" Sunday and the times we live in:
Almighty God, you alone can bring into order the unruly wills and affections of sinners: Grant your people grace to love what you command and desire what you promise; that among the swift and varied changes of the world, our hearts may surely there be fixed where true joys are to be found; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen
The Psalm of the Day
Psalm 51:1-2, 10-13 (R); 51, or 51:11-16 (E); 51:11-16 (L) - The use of this Psalm in Series/Cycle B places worshipers in the context of Ash Wednesday once again. Many of the Ash Wednesday liturgies include the singing - or recitation - of Psalm 51 in a service of public confession. It is truly a penitential psalm, purportedly the work of David when he fully realizes the gravity of the sins he has committed against Bathsheba and Uriah. But it accommodates the spiritual condition of every human being who becomes aware of his/her unworthiness before God (which is the reason why it is part of nearly every service of confession):
Have mercy upon me, O God, according to your loving kindness; in your great compassion, blot out my sin.... Wash me [a baptismal motif] through and through from my wickedness, and cleanse me from my sin.... For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me.
The last half of the psalm - without the verses that lead up to the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem (18-20) which are omitted in most of the lectionaries and missals - concentrates on a plea for forgiveness: "Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities." But it goes beyond a plea for total pardon, asking - in the spirit of Lent and Easter - that God engage in an act of recreation, so that a totally new creature might emerge from this penitential experience: "Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me."
These two verses were the offertory most often sung in the Common Service of the Lutheran Church. They begin the last half of the service, the Eucharist, or Holy Communion. Many Lutheran congregations continue to sing this offertory. It is unfortunate that the following verses, especially verse 14, have been omitted - "I shall teach your ways to the wicked, and sinners shall return to you.... Open my lips, O Lord, and my mouth shall proclaim your praise." The latter verse (16) is retained as the opening word of Morning Prayer by Lutherans, but Morning Prayer is not widely used in parishes. This psalm makes it clear that penitent pilgrims, attempting to keep Lent and who have their eyes fixed on the cross, must recognize the sinlessness of Christ over their own sinfulness, and plead with God for forgiveness and new life.
The Psalm Prayer (LBW)
Almighty and merciful Father, you freely forgave those who, as David of old, acknowledge and confess their sins. Create in uspure hearts, and wash away all our sins in the blood of your dear Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
The readings:
Jeremiah 31:31-34
This reading was originally appointed for the First Sunday of Advent in various older lectionaries. It is more appropriate on the Fifth Sunday of Lent, when the cross event is about to be scrutinized and celebrated by the faithful, because it talks about a new covenant that God will make with his people. Jeremiah was telling this to the exiles in Babylon, a covenant that will be engraved on the hearts of his people, rather than upon stone tablets as in the past. The reading, which declares, "I will be their God, and they shall be my people," predicts that all people will "know the Lord," and God's promise to "forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more." The church has - almost from the beginning of the Christian era - interpreted this reading as finding its fulfillment in the passion and death of Jesus Christ. God did make that new covenant with his people - at and on the cross of Christ. The cross accomplishes what God intended, and it will last forever.
Hebrew 5:7-9 (R, L, C); 5:(1-4), 5-10 (E)
This little snippet of an epistle is part of the author's argument that Jesus is a high priest after the order of Melchizedek. He did not seek the priestly function on his own, but God himself had said of Jesus, "This is my beloved Son; listen to him." The prayers and cries, to which the writer of Hebrews refers, are undoubtedly those which Jesus uttered in Gethsemane when he asked God to - if possible - remove the cup he had to drink. He knew that God's will had to be done, and although God heard his prayer in the garden, he did not deliver him from death on a cross. He did, however, raise him up and complete the redemption that Jesus had come to do through his resurrection. It is in this - Jesus' perfect obedience, even unto death - that the author sees the perfection of Jesus Christ completed by the Father.
John 12:20-33
It almost seems as though Jesus summarily dismissed the request of the Greeks, who had said to Philip, "We would see Jesus." Jesus responds when the request is relayed to him with an announcement about his impending death. First, the time appointed by God is at hand; he will die very soon. Second, he informs the disciples that it is necessary for him to die in order to accomplish God's purpose of delivering all people - Jews and Gentiles - from their sins. And third, he makes it perfectly clear that he can only be "seen" - that is perceived as the Savior - only after he is crucified and resurrected from the dead. In the middle of Jesus' explanation, when he says, "Father, glorify thy name," God speaks and declares, "I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again." Jesus believed that the disciples needed to hear this, and that they had to know not only that he would die, but also that he would die by crucifixion. So in the statement Jesus made to the disciples, it is clear that it can only be after the crucifixion and the resurrection that Jesus will be "seen" by the Greeks and other Gentiles. Then they will understand the whole story, and the story will give them new life in the Lord.
A Sermon on the Gospel, John 12:20-33 - "Born to Die and Live."
Some people seem to be born to suffer and die, and their fate makes no sense to us. One of my younger brothers was such a person. At age twelve he began to have pains in his legs and was treated for various things for three years before his condition was diagnosed as rheumatic fever. Soon he developed a severe case of arthritis, had to drop out of high school, and saw his ambition to become a golf professional vanish in pain and frustration. From the time he was nine or ten years of age, he had spent all of his spare time at a local golf course. He looked for lost golf balls on his way to school, and by twelve years of age he was learning how to be a caddy, as well as how to play golf. But when his arthritis became severe, he received experimental treatment (which did him no good) and in time moved to Arizona in the hope that the dry climate would be beneficial to his health. It wasn't, and he died - tragically - at thirty-six years of age.
Our Lord was probably a bit younger than that when he told his disciples that he had to die, and that the hour of his death was at hand. He said to them, "For this purpose [to die a terrible death] I have come into the world." I'm certain that he prayed more than once, "Father, save me from this hour" - but it wasn't to be. His comfort came in the knowledge that the Father was with him, and in the assurance that God would see him through the awful experience. "Father," he had prayed to God, "glorify thy name." And God spoke out, "I have glorified it and I will glorify it again." With confidence in this knowledge, he could say, "and I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself."
1. All people come to earth to live and die; Jesus came to earth to die and live. God had revealed to him that his death was necessary if human beings and God were to be reconciled to one another. God planned that Jesus would die to save the human race from annihilation.
2. His death on the cross would be recognized - after the resurrection - as the action God took not only to save people, but to enable them to comprehend the love that he has for his creatures. God will do anything he has to - even sacrifice his Son - in order to save his people from sin and death.
3. The death of Jesus has power to draw people to the crucified risen Lord as their Savior whenever, and wherever, the sacred story - the Good News - is told. It is in the word, the gospel story, that God's mighty action continues, causing people to contemplate the cross and believe that Jesus is their Lord and Savior.
4. So many people have died at a young age (my brother among them) when they wanted to live long and useful lives. Jesus was born to die when he did - also at a young age - so that he would live forever as the risen ascended Lord, whose cross would bring believers to him that he might take them into the everlasting Kingdom of God.
A Sermon on the First Lesson, Jeremiah 31:31-34 - "Christ and the New Covenant."
1. The old covenant was too much for human beings to keep. The law of God, broken by everyone, brought condemnation upon Jews and, later, upon the Gentile world.
2. God had to find a way to renew the covenant, or else he had to destroy the human race. He loved his people too much to do that, despite their infidelity and waywardness.
3. The only way that God could be faithful to himself and to human beings was to take drastic action to renew the covenant - and he did that through the cross of Christ. That day the New Covenant began with the advent of Jesus into the world.
4. God has written that covenant in our hearts through his word and the sacraments. Our business is to thank, praise, serve, and obey him.
A Sermon on the Second Lesson, Hebrews 5:7-9 (R, L, C) - "An Apparently Futile Prayer."
1. By the time we reach middle-age, most of us have had an experience in which prayer seems to have been futile. It might have seemed that God didn't hear our prayer, or that he had refused to grant our petition, or even that he had no power to do anything about the situation. We wonder if there is any point in praying at all.
2. Jesus' prayer, "Father, save me from this hour," seems to be one of those futile prayers. He was destined to die, despite the prayer to the One who said, "You are my beloved Son." What kind of a Heavenly Father would allow his Son to die such a seemingly unnecessary death?
3. The prayer of that soon-to-die man was heard because God answered him when he asked the Lord God to glorify his name: "I have glorified it [his name], and I will glorify it again."
4. And God did glorify his name in Jesus - on the cross, on the third day when the tomb was empty, and on that day when he received him into heaven and placed him at his right hand to share in the eternal glory.
5. That is the Christ who seemed to pray a futile prayer, but whose prayer was really answered by Almighty God. He answers our seemingly futile prayers, too, and delivers us from our worst enemies, death and the Devil.
All of that has been changed now. The Sunday of the Passion now occurs on the Sixth Sunday in Lent, reducing the period for observing the Passion of the Lord to one week. The Fifth Sunday in Lent, therefore, is simply another Sunday in Lent. It retains the theological character of every Sunday - that is, it is a celebration of the death and resurrection of the Lord. It gets its themes from Lent itself, but also from the lessons appointed for the day. In Cycle/Series B, the attention of the church is brought to bear upon the obedience of Christ to the will of the Father (which cost him his life), and also upon the power of the cross to drawpeople to the Savior in whom they will experience the forgiveness of their sins.
The Prayer of the Day
The classic collect has been replaced (rather than reworded) by the various churches so that it will be more in line with the worship of the people on this day. The Episcopal Church has rewritten an older collect that fits the "new" Sunday and the times we live in:
Almighty God, you alone can bring into order the unruly wills and affections of sinners: Grant your people grace to love what you command and desire what you promise; that among the swift and varied changes of the world, our hearts may surely there be fixed where true joys are to be found; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen
The Psalm of the Day
Psalm 51:1-2, 10-13 (R); 51, or 51:11-16 (E); 51:11-16 (L) - The use of this Psalm in Series/Cycle B places worshipers in the context of Ash Wednesday once again. Many of the Ash Wednesday liturgies include the singing - or recitation - of Psalm 51 in a service of public confession. It is truly a penitential psalm, purportedly the work of David when he fully realizes the gravity of the sins he has committed against Bathsheba and Uriah. But it accommodates the spiritual condition of every human being who becomes aware of his/her unworthiness before God (which is the reason why it is part of nearly every service of confession):
Have mercy upon me, O God, according to your loving kindness; in your great compassion, blot out my sin.... Wash me [a baptismal motif] through and through from my wickedness, and cleanse me from my sin.... For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me.
The last half of the psalm - without the verses that lead up to the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem (18-20) which are omitted in most of the lectionaries and missals - concentrates on a plea for forgiveness: "Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities." But it goes beyond a plea for total pardon, asking - in the spirit of Lent and Easter - that God engage in an act of recreation, so that a totally new creature might emerge from this penitential experience: "Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me."
These two verses were the offertory most often sung in the Common Service of the Lutheran Church. They begin the last half of the service, the Eucharist, or Holy Communion. Many Lutheran congregations continue to sing this offertory. It is unfortunate that the following verses, especially verse 14, have been omitted - "I shall teach your ways to the wicked, and sinners shall return to you.... Open my lips, O Lord, and my mouth shall proclaim your praise." The latter verse (16) is retained as the opening word of Morning Prayer by Lutherans, but Morning Prayer is not widely used in parishes. This psalm makes it clear that penitent pilgrims, attempting to keep Lent and who have their eyes fixed on the cross, must recognize the sinlessness of Christ over their own sinfulness, and plead with God for forgiveness and new life.
The Psalm Prayer (LBW)
Almighty and merciful Father, you freely forgave those who, as David of old, acknowledge and confess their sins. Create in uspure hearts, and wash away all our sins in the blood of your dear Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
The readings:
Jeremiah 31:31-34
This reading was originally appointed for the First Sunday of Advent in various older lectionaries. It is more appropriate on the Fifth Sunday of Lent, when the cross event is about to be scrutinized and celebrated by the faithful, because it talks about a new covenant that God will make with his people. Jeremiah was telling this to the exiles in Babylon, a covenant that will be engraved on the hearts of his people, rather than upon stone tablets as in the past. The reading, which declares, "I will be their God, and they shall be my people," predicts that all people will "know the Lord," and God's promise to "forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more." The church has - almost from the beginning of the Christian era - interpreted this reading as finding its fulfillment in the passion and death of Jesus Christ. God did make that new covenant with his people - at and on the cross of Christ. The cross accomplishes what God intended, and it will last forever.
Hebrew 5:7-9 (R, L, C); 5:(1-4), 5-10 (E)
This little snippet of an epistle is part of the author's argument that Jesus is a high priest after the order of Melchizedek. He did not seek the priestly function on his own, but God himself had said of Jesus, "This is my beloved Son; listen to him." The prayers and cries, to which the writer of Hebrews refers, are undoubtedly those which Jesus uttered in Gethsemane when he asked God to - if possible - remove the cup he had to drink. He knew that God's will had to be done, and although God heard his prayer in the garden, he did not deliver him from death on a cross. He did, however, raise him up and complete the redemption that Jesus had come to do through his resurrection. It is in this - Jesus' perfect obedience, even unto death - that the author sees the perfection of Jesus Christ completed by the Father.
John 12:20-33
It almost seems as though Jesus summarily dismissed the request of the Greeks, who had said to Philip, "We would see Jesus." Jesus responds when the request is relayed to him with an announcement about his impending death. First, the time appointed by God is at hand; he will die very soon. Second, he informs the disciples that it is necessary for him to die in order to accomplish God's purpose of delivering all people - Jews and Gentiles - from their sins. And third, he makes it perfectly clear that he can only be "seen" - that is perceived as the Savior - only after he is crucified and resurrected from the dead. In the middle of Jesus' explanation, when he says, "Father, glorify thy name," God speaks and declares, "I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again." Jesus believed that the disciples needed to hear this, and that they had to know not only that he would die, but also that he would die by crucifixion. So in the statement Jesus made to the disciples, it is clear that it can only be after the crucifixion and the resurrection that Jesus will be "seen" by the Greeks and other Gentiles. Then they will understand the whole story, and the story will give them new life in the Lord.
A Sermon on the Gospel, John 12:20-33 - "Born to Die and Live."
Some people seem to be born to suffer and die, and their fate makes no sense to us. One of my younger brothers was such a person. At age twelve he began to have pains in his legs and was treated for various things for three years before his condition was diagnosed as rheumatic fever. Soon he developed a severe case of arthritis, had to drop out of high school, and saw his ambition to become a golf professional vanish in pain and frustration. From the time he was nine or ten years of age, he had spent all of his spare time at a local golf course. He looked for lost golf balls on his way to school, and by twelve years of age he was learning how to be a caddy, as well as how to play golf. But when his arthritis became severe, he received experimental treatment (which did him no good) and in time moved to Arizona in the hope that the dry climate would be beneficial to his health. It wasn't, and he died - tragically - at thirty-six years of age.
Our Lord was probably a bit younger than that when he told his disciples that he had to die, and that the hour of his death was at hand. He said to them, "For this purpose [to die a terrible death] I have come into the world." I'm certain that he prayed more than once, "Father, save me from this hour" - but it wasn't to be. His comfort came in the knowledge that the Father was with him, and in the assurance that God would see him through the awful experience. "Father," he had prayed to God, "glorify thy name." And God spoke out, "I have glorified it and I will glorify it again." With confidence in this knowledge, he could say, "and I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself."
1. All people come to earth to live and die; Jesus came to earth to die and live. God had revealed to him that his death was necessary if human beings and God were to be reconciled to one another. God planned that Jesus would die to save the human race from annihilation.
2. His death on the cross would be recognized - after the resurrection - as the action God took not only to save people, but to enable them to comprehend the love that he has for his creatures. God will do anything he has to - even sacrifice his Son - in order to save his people from sin and death.
3. The death of Jesus has power to draw people to the crucified risen Lord as their Savior whenever, and wherever, the sacred story - the Good News - is told. It is in the word, the gospel story, that God's mighty action continues, causing people to contemplate the cross and believe that Jesus is their Lord and Savior.
4. So many people have died at a young age (my brother among them) when they wanted to live long and useful lives. Jesus was born to die when he did - also at a young age - so that he would live forever as the risen ascended Lord, whose cross would bring believers to him that he might take them into the everlasting Kingdom of God.
A Sermon on the First Lesson, Jeremiah 31:31-34 - "Christ and the New Covenant."
1. The old covenant was too much for human beings to keep. The law of God, broken by everyone, brought condemnation upon Jews and, later, upon the Gentile world.
2. God had to find a way to renew the covenant, or else he had to destroy the human race. He loved his people too much to do that, despite their infidelity and waywardness.
3. The only way that God could be faithful to himself and to human beings was to take drastic action to renew the covenant - and he did that through the cross of Christ. That day the New Covenant began with the advent of Jesus into the world.
4. God has written that covenant in our hearts through his word and the sacraments. Our business is to thank, praise, serve, and obey him.
A Sermon on the Second Lesson, Hebrews 5:7-9 (R, L, C) - "An Apparently Futile Prayer."
1. By the time we reach middle-age, most of us have had an experience in which prayer seems to have been futile. It might have seemed that God didn't hear our prayer, or that he had refused to grant our petition, or even that he had no power to do anything about the situation. We wonder if there is any point in praying at all.
2. Jesus' prayer, "Father, save me from this hour," seems to be one of those futile prayers. He was destined to die, despite the prayer to the One who said, "You are my beloved Son." What kind of a Heavenly Father would allow his Son to die such a seemingly unnecessary death?
3. The prayer of that soon-to-die man was heard because God answered him when he asked the Lord God to glorify his name: "I have glorified it [his name], and I will glorify it again."
4. And God did glorify his name in Jesus - on the cross, on the third day when the tomb was empty, and on that day when he received him into heaven and placed him at his right hand to share in the eternal glory.
5. That is the Christ who seemed to pray a futile prayer, but whose prayer was really answered by Almighty God. He answers our seemingly futile prayers, too, and delivers us from our worst enemies, death and the Devil.
