The joy of last week’s Laetare Sunday begins to fade a bit as we get into this fifth week of Lent. Now the Passion of our Lord is clearly in view. Maybe in your church, statues of the saints, Mary, and even Jesus on the Cross are covered by violet or red cloths. This indicates the very somber tone of these last days of Lent.
Today’s Gospel could almost start with that sinister music: “Dun dun dah!” You know what I mean. The tone is very nerve wracking: some random people come looking for Jesus and when the Apostles tell him, the responds “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.” And not in a good way. That glory is going to entail his death, and clearly the hour for that is fast approaching. That’s going to cause some grief in Jesus and the Apostles, “But it was for this purpose that I came to this hour.”
But it’s not just Jesus’ hour. It’s our hour. We know he bore the cross, but it’s our cross too. Jesus came to identify himself with us sinners: And so the hour is those many “hours” that we have to face. The hour when we are at the bedside of a dying loved one. The hour when we get a call in the middle of the night from or about our child. The hour when we are let go from the job we’ve worked at for years. The hour when we’ve made that mistake that costs us everything. The hour when we’re at our wits’ end and everything is crashing down around us. The hour when we ourselves have that frightening diagnosis. Jesus came for that hour, that precise hour. He didn’t have to do it, “But it was for this purpose that I came to this hour.”
He doesn’t wave a magic wand and make it all go away. But he does walk through it with you. As heavy as that cross may be for you, it would be heavier if not for Jesus. As dark as the hour is for you, it would be darker without the Light of the World. You’re not alone. Never alone. Because it was for your hour that he came. To redeem the suffering of the world, and to give us the Way to a better home.