18 March 2018

 Fifth Sunday of Lent

“Is there a God?” Many people believe that the task of evangelization that has been entrusted to us consists in answering this question, in convincing a world that more and more rejects God, that God does, in fact, exist. As important as answering this question is, an even more important and pressing question that needs to be answered: “which god is the true God?” Not every god merits our worship and adoration: in fact, if we believe our own scriptures, among those who are worshiped as “gods,” there is but one true God, revealed in Jesus Christ, through whom we are saved ( Acts 4; 1 Tm 2). As Christians, we need to be clear about who the God we believe in is and recognize that not every argument for the “existence of God” actually argues for the existence of that God in whom we believe. An adherent of another monotheistic religion unequivocally declared to a Christian in a recent encounter, pointing to Christ on the cross, “that is not the god that I believe in.” But for a Christian, Jesus Christ is the only begotten Son of the Father: He is the God we believe in.

Our request before God and his Church ought to be like that of the Greeks in John 12:21: “sir, we would like to see Jesus.” When we are given the grace to see what Jesus does and hear what he says, we ought to be able to declare, in awe, “this is what God is like!” And, today’s readings offer us a great surprise: “Son though he was, he learned obedience from what he suffered” (Heb 5:8). That’s not the “god” we would be, if we were “god.” But it is the way the true God is, and there is no greater life than the life that this God reveals. If we are to follow Jesus and say “yes” to the divine life that God wishes to share with us through our human lives, then maybe we should set aside our vain attempts to “be like God” by “getting our way,” and opt instead, out of love, to follow the Son in “learning obedience through what we suffer.”