Fifth Sunday of Lent
The attraction of the great gospel text is so powerful that we cannot help but consider the other two texts in its light, even if they are “diminished” by it.
ISAIAH 43:16-21
Thus says the Lord, who made a way in the sea, a path in the mighty waters, who drew out chariot and horse, army and warrior; they lay down, never to rise again, they were extinguished, quenched like a wick:
Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old. I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.
The wild animals will honor me, the jackals and the ostriches; for I give water in the wilderness, rivers in the desert, to give drink to my chosen people, the people whom I formed for myself so that they might declare my praise.
The prophecy of Isaiah insists on the same theme as in previous Sundays. God has saved the people; from the beginning, He is “The Savior.” With Him, the people left slavery, the desert became passable… with God, we know how to live, we count on His strength for everything to be “new.”
And yet, a new theme emerges. God’s action is not only, nor mainly, an action of the past. It is not a matter of believing in Him because of the wonders He did long ago. God’s action is, above all, future, and it surpasses itself in such a way that the past is only a shadow and an announcement of future salvation.
Thus, Jesus will be the fullness and total transcendence of the ancient Law. Today’s gospel is a magnificent demonstration of this.
PHILIPPIANS 3:8-14
I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith.
I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own.
Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.
This is the theme that Paul gathers. I have left many things behind, “the old man,” I have lost everything for Him, and it is worth it. And I keep running, as if it were a race in which I run after Him, to arrive with Him at the goal, “trying to arrive at the resurrection.”
Paul is aware of having lost all the values for which common people strive. The knowledge and following of Jesus has a price: one renounces everything that the world appreciates. But this has no importance, compared with what is gained. It is exactly the same message as the Parable of the Treasure, (Matthew 13:44).
And this is like a race. One does not possess until the goal, although we are running because we already have within us the desire, the beginning of the possession of that treasure. The treasure is, therefore, the New Life, announced as Good News, as resurrection. The Good News is that Life has meaning in God, that God is the Savior of our life, that we count on Him to live, that “if God is the one who saves, who condemns?”, that the Life of God is stronger even than death itself… And this is what shines in an incredible way in the gospel.
José Enrique Galarreta, S.J.