Reflection for the Third Sunday of Lent. 2025

Today’s Gospel asks us to reflect on the good life and the good death. 

Pontius Pilate, the governor of Judea, had killed some people from Galilee who were in the temple worshipping God.  We assume from Jesus’ response that whoever had come to tell him about these men from Galilee had also asked what these men had done to deserve this terrible death.  But we know nothing more about this tragedy than what we read here in the Bible.

We do know, however, that Pilate was a cruel man.  He upset the Jews by bringing the Roman legionary standards, with their images of pagan gods on them, into Jerusalem.  He raided the Jewish Temple Treasury to pay for Roman building projects, and he used heavy-handed troops to deal with any Jewish dissension.  Pilate might well have told his soldiers to murder a group of pilgrims who had come to worship at the temple for no reason other than that they had come to worship at the temple.

Perhaps the people who told Jesus the news hoped that he would tell his listeners what these Galileans had done so wrong as to bring this death on themselves.  Perhaps, on the other hand, they hoped that Jesus would be so incensed by this news, so angry that people who had come into God’s house of prayer had been slaughtered, that he would finally take on the role of the Messiah Militant and lead an armed rebellion against Rome.

Who knows what they wanted?  What we do know is what Jesus told them.  Jesus told them about some people who had died when a building collapsed on them.  Did these people deserve to die?  Did the Galileans deserve to die?  No more than anyone else.  Death comes to everyone, and no-one knows when they themselves will meet death.

So, says Jesus, “repent. or you will all be destroyed in the same way”.  Another way to put it is “Keep a short account with God”.  Always be ready to meet your maker, so repent of your sins and seek forgiveness now.  The people who died in the temple or who died under the tower died unexpectedly, they were not ready to meet their maker.

So, Jesus encourages his listeners to be ready, to keep a short account with God.  He talks about an unfruitful fig tree.  The owner of the tree has had enough and wants it cut down and rooted out, but the gardener asks for time to set the tree right so that it might be restored to fulness of fruitful life.

We have time now to ask Jesus to set us right; we have time now to keep a short account with God; we have time now to get ready to live a fruitful life; we have time now to prepare for a good and godly death.  We have time, God give us grace to use our time aright.