Destiny calls

One theme for the fifth Sunday of Lent is that  'the hour has come' for Jesus to fulfil his destiny. He was troubled about what lay in store for him as he celebrated the Passover in Jerusalem. We know the story and can appreciate the foreboding which accompanied him to Jerusalem where the final drama of his earthly life was to be played out.

Jesus has a sense of destiny which is shared by many other people throughout history. They have a sense that they put in motion events which will affect them profoundly or they will be part of a larger scheme of things over which they have no control. 

Next Sunday, we celebrate Palm Sunday when Jesus enters in triumph to cheering crowds, but he is not fooled by them. Crowds have their own dynamic which can be happy one minute and hostile the next.

Ursula Le Guin, the American sci-fi writer, makes a perceptive comment in her book The Wizard of Earthsea: The truth is that as a man's real power grows and his knowledge widens, ever the way he can follow grows narrower: until at last he chooses nothing, but does only and wholly what he must do.

A recent example of this behaviour might be Alexei Navalny, the Russian opposition leader, activist and political prisoner who died last month in prison. He opposed President Vladimir Putin and, in returning to his homeland, knew he was putting his life in danger. He paid the price for his dissent and must have known the risk he was taking.

Jesus said that the grain of wheat must die in order to bear abundant fruit. What power is unleashed as a result of Alexei Navalny's sacrifice is yet to be known or seen. The sacrifice of such an honourable life has power. 

Another example of this living devoted to the truth is the life of Martin Luther King Jr, whose speech 'I Have a Dream' on August 28, 1963, changed America and the world. 

He was assassinated on April 4, 1968. He told the people that he might not be with them when they entered the Promised Land of racial equality because he had a sense of the forces of evil arrayed against him. And he was right.

His legacy lives on, but the issues have not gone away. Martin Luther King did change the landscape of attitudes of racism and gave people the incentive to fight back against tyranny, but the fight goes on. King was another man whose choices became more limited as he grew more powerful. Like Jesus he has given us an example of how to live.

So, as we prepare for Palm Sunday, we are not fooled by the crowd's adulation, probably because we know that Judas is going to betray Jesus. After the Last Supper, a wonderful time of togetherness and promises as well as betrayal, Jesus enters his passion. 

No one to defend him, even his friends disappeared. It is fortunate to know that the Resurrection of Jesus is really the crowing glory of this story otherwise how would we bear it?

Look at what God has done for us!