HOMILY FOR TUESDAY OF THE 5TH WEEK OF LENT.
THEME: ‘When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he’.
BY: Fr. Deotacious Chikontwe SMA.
*READINGS OF THE DAY*
Numbers 21:4-9
Psalm 101:2-3,16-21
John 8:21-30
*LITURGICAL COLOUR*
PURPLE
*FROM OUR FIRST READING*
In today’s first reading, we are told that the people lost patience on the journey through the wilderness from Egypt to the promised land. They were glad to escape slavery in Egypt but the journey towards freedom was proving difficult. Unlike in Egypt, food and drink were in short supply. The people began to wish they had never left Egypt, ‘Why did you bring us out of Egypt to die in the wilderness?’ It was a worthwhile journey, but it was also a very testing one. Whenever we set out on a worthwhile personal or communal journey, there will often be times we wonder if we might have been better off just staying where we had been. ‘Why did we leave where we were to set out for something new?’ Yet, such moments of questioning, of self-doubt, are not necessarily a sign that we should never have set out in the first place.
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*FROM OUR GOSPEL READING*
In the gospel reading, Jesus speaks of the lifting up of the Son of Man, and elsewhere he says that those who look upon the Son of Man lifted up from the earth will live, will share in his own life.
*CONCLUSION*
Any worthwhile journey will bring us face to face with our limitations. Whenever we set out on some journey in response to what we consider to be the Lord’s call we will find ourselves being put to the test. Our faith in the Lord will often be put to the test. Like the people of Israel in the first reading, we will find ourselves asking, ‘Why?’ Jesus set out on a very significant journey at the moment of his baptism in response to God’s call. He was certainly put to the test many times along the way. Yet, he could say in today’s gospel reading, ‘he who sent me is with me, and has not left me to myself’. We can each make our own those words of Jesus. The Lord who prompts us to keep setting out anew on the journey of discipleship is always with us. He does not leave us to ourselves, but sustains us along the way.
The Lord be With You!
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