Today is the final day before Holy Week. Tomorrow is Palm Sunday, the first day of the holiest week in the Christian year. As Jesus approaches His "hour", for which He was born and for which He came into our world, our readings have a double focus. Ezekiel gives us hope, with his dream of the future restoration of Israel and of Yahweh's 'new covenant' with His people. We must always be people of hope. We must see Good Friday through the eyes of Easter Sunday.

In contrast, the Gospel focuses on that moment in history when Jesus' human fate was sealed. Because of His raising of Lazarus, the Jewish leaders become alarmed. They convene to decide how to handle this deepening threat to their control over the people. It is Caiphas, the high priest for that year, who tells them, "It is expedient that one man die for the people". He means, "It is better that Jesus die than that we all be destroyed by the Romans." But John, whose Gospel is marked throughout by ironic double meanings (being "born again", the "living water", the "blindness" of Jn. 9), here makes the irony clear. Caiphas spoke prophetically as high priest, but he himself did not know the real truth of what he said.

What about me? Can I see the divine meaning of the events in my life? Only with that double vision will I be able to see Calvary - in Jesus' life and in my own - as the necessary way to rise to new life.