Walking with Jesus: Fifth Sunday of Lent C

For Sunday, April 6, 2025

Isaiah 43:16-21, Philippians 3:8-14, John 8:1-11


Last week we celebrated Laetare Sunday. How wonderful it is to realize that God loves everyone in a special way, all the time — no matter how we feel about ourselves. We heard about the Prodigal Son and all of us, at least partially, can identify with the younger son or the older son. Why? So often we have negative feelings about ourselves: I wish I could have … I just never worked on my gifts … I felt I could just not do it … I’m not good enough … why me, Lord … I’m just not worthy of Your love and goodness to me. Why do I do that? Why do I feel that way? I just tear myself down. God never feels that way toward me, you, or anyone. I am His special creation — no matter where He placed me in this world, He is constantly with me. He could have placed me here to be a help and example for a person who is so negative that they can’t see God’s love or His gifts in themselves. Or God placed that person in my life so I could tell them that I love them because God loves them. Today’s readings lead us away from the negative and concentrate on the NOW: God is here with me NOW … I am loved by God NOW … I can love because I am loved NOW.

Isaiah recalls God’s past actions: The people are in exile and have been for a long time. They have not given up hope that they WILL return to their homeland … as a “new exodus” … once again God will free them. In the first exodus [Exodus 15:1-18] God parts the waters of the Red Sea and leads the Israelites to dry land. They are very aware that the full and destructive army of Egypt, led by fierce charioteers, is lined up and ready to attack them through the dry land of the Red Sea. But it is not God’s plan to let His people perish. They petition God, asking why He hasn't left them in Egypt to die. Moses raises his staff and the waters are released by God’s miracle, drowning Pharaoh’s army. God rescues them.

Generations later the Israelite leaders and priests have been taken in captivity to Babylon. God’s rescue comes anew — the prophets are imagining something “NEW” — in the dry desert wilderness, God will provide to make possible their journey home. It will be so special that they will not remember the events of the past. God’s love is everlasting: “Remember not the events of the past, the things of long ago consider not; see, I am doing something new!” [Isaiah 43:18-19] The prophet is stating emphatically who it is that is promising a new creation: God Himself. Certainly a God who created a magnificently ordered universe out of nothing can create something NEW for people who only recently have been released from the control of their conquerors. Are WE thinking BIG, or are we pessimistic? Do we think God is limited in His PROVIDING all the love and solutions that live out His Plan? Lord, help us SEE Your LOVE — help us FEEL Your love — help us be GRATEFUL for Your Presence and Guidance in leading us to Yourself and Heaven.

Psalm 126: “The Lord has done great things for us; we are filled with joy.” Do I trust God?

Paul is sharing his past with the Philippians, saying everything in his past life, education, positions,  means nothing: “I consider them so much rubbish … because of the supreme good of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.” [Philippians 3:8] God has provided an important update to His plan, starting with Creation ... forming His people (Abraham) … knowing his love (Egypt) … knowing His care (the Exodus) ... and knowing God through His Son Jesus and leading us to our home — Heaven.

The Gospel displays the intensity of Jesus’ love and compassion. In bringing a woman caught in adultery to Jesus, the scribes and Pharisees believe they have caught Jesus in the ultimate case to prove He is not from God. She is their pawn to manipulate Jesus into going against Moses’s law in a public setting. Jesus calls their bluff with words that put them in a bind, by not bringing the required witnesses (maybe it was themselves). Alone with her, Jesus faces her and is the first to speak. He does not offer forgiveness; He offers a lack of judgment. “The distinction might seem subtle, but it is powerful and liberating for anyone constantly judged by others, especially women, who are relentlessly scrutinized for their actions and sexual history. Having shown her the possibility of living free of condemnation, He invites her to sin no more.” [Living The Word 2024-2025 Year C, p.121]

So I reflect on:

• I look at myself and an action ... an accomplishment. What is my contribution? What is God’s? Where am I participating ‘in Christ?’
• In what way is my experience of maturity in Christ being manifested on the behalf of others? How might I continue to pursue this kind of maturity?

Sacred Space 2025 states:

“During this last week of His life, when His hearers went home to their houses, Jesus spent His nights at the foot of the Mount of Olives in the garden of Gethsemane, praying and sleeping. Early each morning He set out for the temple for His day’s work of preaching and teaching, at daily risk of arrest. In our meeting with Him, now in prayer, we can dialogue with Him about what this last week was like.

“Jesus always loved the sinner and not the sin. ‘Neither do I condemn you. Go your way and from now on do not sin again.’ The Gospel of John says elsewhere that God did not send the Son to condemn the world but to save it. Let us pray to imitate Him in His great mercy.”