In today's second reading, Hebrews 5: 7-9, we are told that Jesus "learned obedience from what he suffered; and when he was made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him."
What amazes me is the statement that Jesus "learned obedience from what he suffered." Jesus is the Son of God! Why would He need to learn obedience from the sufferings He endured? Is it that Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life and through Jesus we learn to obey God through the sufferings we endure, especially those sufferings that result in our disobedience, the sufferings that are the consequences of our walking away from God and doing things our way, not God's? Jesus in our teacher! Jesus is our Way! Jesus is our Truth! Jesus is not an exception but the example of what being a brother or a sister to Jesus/to God means!
In today's Gospel, John 12: 20-33, Jesus says that "the hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Amen, amen, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies, it produces much fruit." Jesus' death and resurrection continues, to this very day, to bear fruit in the life of believers.
Unlike Jesus, whose ego died to the spirit's obedience to the Father's will, our ego wants to be in charge of our lives and opposes the One who is truly in control of our lives. When we die to the ego's way of doing things and follow the will of God for us--that we love as He loves us--it is then that we "bear much fruit." We find life, John tells us, by losing life, that is by dying to selfishness and narcissism, to "I'll-do-it- my-way; thank-you" stance or to defiantly proclaiming that "nobody-tells-me-what-to-do" that we truly bear fruit that will last! By dying to selfish attitudes we are truly glorified. That hour to be glorified approaches whenever we are faced with the call to serve others in self-sacrificing love: a baby cries or a child asks for help, a teen wants to learn to drive, a spouse needs us to share the responsibility of running a household. Or, if we are members of a religious community, a community member needs us to drop what we are doing to help an elderly, sick member or to listen to someone who is grieving a significant loss: the loss of independence, the loss of hearing, the loss of memory, the loss of a close friend or family member, the loss of a sense of belonging and so on!
What "death" am I being called to embrace in order to know new life, to experience a resurrection? What suffering, today, will teach me obedience?
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