FOURTH SUNDAY OF LENT
2Chronicles 36:14-16, 19-23; Ephesians 2:4-10; John 3:14-21
O God, who through your Word reconciled the human race to yourself in a wonderful way, grant, we pray, that with prompt devotion and eager faith, the Christian people may hasten toward the solemn celebrations to come, through our Lord
Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy
Spirit, one God for ever and ever. Amen.
T
he first reading that we listened to
on this Sunday of Lent is a kind of
typical experience that God had with his
people in the Old Testament. We might
say it summarizes the whole relationship with God and his people before this
extraordinary event that we’re about to
celebrate in the mysteries of Easter. Early and often, it says, the people kept
turning away from God and choosing to
live separate from him. And the more
they chose that, the more they were resistant and angry with the word that
was spoken by the prophets, the word
of truth, and they rejected the prophets
over and over and over again until—I
love the image—it says God’s anger got
so great that he didn’t have any control
over it.
You know, in the Old Testament so
often what we see is a testament that is
drawn or put together so that it draws
us into an understanding of the fact that
there is just one God—monotheism is a
great theme of the Old Testament, as I
often say to you. One of the things,
therefore, that we often see is that everything comes from this one God, both
salvation and punishment.
But we know, as we look more carefully into the ways of human beings and
the way God has created this world, the
punishment that comes from sin is not
coming directly from God, but it’s based
in the very acts themselves—the effects,
the natural results of choosing to live in
the darkness, choosing to live illusions,
will always create pain for people. The
pain is the suffering; the pain is the punishment. It’s not that God wills or wants
to punish us. It’s just that he allows the
punishment to be there so that we come
to our senses. We sense something that
we couldn’t sense before. So it’s like if
we refuse to see the darkness, the darkness has to become more and more potent, more and more destructive, more
and more heavy, until we realize where
we made a mistake. And then there’s
the possibility of transformation.
One of the things that’s interesting in
this story from Chronicles is that there
was a period of time that the people
would wallow in their darkness and feel
the effects of it. It would be seventy
years, and one of the reasons they’re doing that is, the prophet said that they
didn’t pay attention to the Sabbath year.
It’s an interesting image, the Sabbath
year, it was the seventh year. Every seven years, the Israelite people were asked
to not plant anything in the ground so
the ground could rest. That’s why the
reference to the “ground resting” in this
passage. There was also a kind of jubilee
year where if you had any debts that
you owed anyone, all those debts were
cancelled. And any slaves that you had
for six years, in the seventh year you
would release them. Imagine that. Every
seven years, in a kind of cycle of life, we
would begin again. We would rest and
then begin again, let go of whatever was
in the past. It’s a really beautiful,
healthy way of imagining what God is
calling us to when he says, Keep holy the
Sabbath day. Each week we’re asked to
stop, rest, reflect, and somehow get a
perspective on what we’re doing with
all of our activity and all the enmeshment we have in the work of the world.
You know, sometimes it just overwhelms us and we become so preoccupied with it, we can see almost nothing
else.
So the idea of pausing, reflecting,
finding a moment of rest is crucial. It
doesn’t have to be one long day in the
week as much as it needs to be some
kind of rhythm in your life and in mine
where we take time to stop, to be still, to
allow something to speak to us that’s
not the brain, then to allow the heart to
speak, to hear what the heart needs to
say to us—it’s a very, very healthy
thing. So it seems one of the things
we’re being asked to do, then, on this
Sabbath day is to pay attention to what’s
really going on, to see things as they really are.
The gospel passage takes place when
Nicodemus comes to Jesus at night, and
it seems that in the gospel of John,
John’s always drawing us into a way of
imagining the message of Jesus as light,
light that comes in the darkness, understanding that comes into misunderstanding, wisdom that comes into illusions and half-truths. So this man is
coming to Jesus and wanting to know
more about him. And he’s very much
caught in the system of the Israelite
people, and Jesus was anything but attractive to those who were entrenched
in, I would say, almost the materialism of
religion. The rules and laws and not the
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spirit, you know? They didn’t seem to
understand what they were really called
to be to one another, and they ended up
being nothing more than law-givers and
judges. But this passage opens with an
interesting image where Jesus is talking
to Nicodemus, and Jesus reminds him of
the time in the desert when the people
of Israel were complaining tremendously about God not being there for them.
They didn’t like the food, they didn’t
like the manna, they didn’t like anything about their life there, and they
were complaining. And they were mostly complaining about a way of seeing
God as one who wasn’t really taking
care of them—almost to say they were
separated from the awesome presence
of a loving and caring God. They just
separated from that. And it was like a
poison in the community; and when they
were in this disposition of separation
from God, snakes appeared in the community and started killing people. And
it was a symbol that this attitude of separation from God, not being connected
to him, not knowing he’s there for us, is
poison. And the way that they were
healed is for Moses to take the serpent
and put it on a staff and hold it up in
front of everyone and say, Look. This is
what’s going on. This is the poison in your
system; this is the poison that’s killing you.
Well, just as that was a sign of people becoming aware of something, Jesus
says the Son of Man is going to be lifted
up in a similar way, and he’s going to be
lifted up and what you’re going to see is
Christ on the cross, crucified for you,
and this is the opposite of the poison.
It’s the medicine, it’s the healing, it’s the
presence of a God in your life that you
know would do anything for you—
anything for you. Jesus, mysteriously,
who is God and man, represents God
offering himself, but there’s also this
strong image of God, the Father, offering his only Son for you, for me. If God
is willing to offer his Son for us, what is
it that we think he won’t do for us? Why
would he hold back little things we ask
him for when he wouldn’t hold back the
most treasured thing he could offer for
us? It’s a beautiful image of saying, the
healing that we need, the experience we
need in the Sabbaths we choose, the
twenty minutes we spend each day, the
retreat we go on, the way we spend
some time on a regular basis just quiet
and still—we need to see, feel, sense, to
know this God who is there for us—
always there for us, wanting to do
something extraordinary, and in John’s
gospel, it’s always somehow bringing
light. That’s one of John’s favorite images: The message of Jesus is light. John’s
gospel is very different from the synoptic gospels: It’s much more mystical
than the other three gospels, because it
doesn’t so much talk about Jesus as the
teacher we need to follow, or Jesus as
the suffering servant, that we have to
learn how to suffer, or even Jesus as the
one who’s given us new life and we
should rejoice in that. Those are strong
themes in the synoptics, but it’s interesting, for John it’s not something out there
showing us what to do or something out
there giving us something that we need.
No, for John it’s something inside of us.
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He uses, in his gospel, the image that we
believe not “in” Jesus, but the actual
translation in John’s gospel is “we believe into Jesus.” Interesting! Believe into
him. We enter into him. He enters into
us. He dwells in us, we dwell in him. It’s
an awesome image, very different from a
teacher we have to imitate or a teacher
we have to follow. It’s this mystical union that brings this light into us, into our
world.
So what we sense in this gift of light
is the gift of that which enables you and
me to not fall into the trap of what the
Old Testament seemed to be unable to
do because it didn’t have the capacity.
The thing that John experienced was all
because of redemption. Before we were
redeemed, we didn’t have the capacity
for this kind of mystical experience of
Jesus, of being one with him, he being
one with us. He died so that this division, this separation between the secular
and the sacred, between divinity and
humanity would somehow be brought
together and healed. It would be such a
mistake to not feel that awesome gift of
redemption. That’s what this Lent is all
about. It’s getting us ready to experience
what it is that Jesus has won for us.
And we look at St. Paul, in the second reading, and you know Paul is interesting because he talks about how it’s
all about faith and not works. What’s so
interesting about the evangelists, about
Paul himself, everyone who preaches as
they preach, they preach out of their experience of Jesus. We know that Paul’s
experience of Jesus was an awesome experience of being deliberately, inten-
tionally working against Jesus, working
against his message, destroying his followers. In the midst of that intentional
desire to go against him, Jesus appears
to him, doesn’t condemn him, but asks
an incredibly interesting question: Why,
why are you doing this? Why are you persecuting me? Imagine, to be one who is in
total opposition to the Messiah, rejecting
him, punishing and destroying followers, to that person comes love, comes
understanding, comes compassion,
comes forgiveness, and what’s in that
action is the deep, deep desire that we
see in our redemption, is the revelation
of what we can see is a God who wants
more than anything else to save. Look at
the difference from the God in the first
reading, who gets so filled with anger
he can’t hold it in when he sees someone
doing something against what he would
like to see them do. He loves people so
much he doesn’t want them to hurt
themselves. Compare that to an image
of a Paul, and instead of Paul being seen
in the same way the Israelite people
were seen, as choosing to go against him
and therefore wrath came up. So it
should have been that Paul was afflicted
with some horrible tragedy or disease
that would be punishing him. And instead of being punished, he’s invited to
be changed, to be transformed, and
that’s why Paul is so amazingly clear in
his constant state of wanting people to
know that you don’t earn this thing. It’s
a gift, not your works. My works were the
opposite of what I should have done. And he
came to me.
So in short, this wonderful set of
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readings is inviting us just to be aware,
conscious, to see the light of the Old
Testament for what it was, for what it
couldn’t do, and the New Testament for
everything it does and the awesome gift
of our redemption.
Father, your desire, as you have redeemed us, is to open our hearts to feel, know,
sense, and see you clearly for all that you are to us, all that you long to be. Bless
us with this vision; bless us with a kind of awareness that leads us to the kind of
joy that is the inheritance of all who live in your kingdom. And we ask this in Jesus’ name. Amen.
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2Chronicles 36:14-16, 19-23
14All the leading priests and the people also were exceedingly unfaithful, following all
the abominations of the nations; and they polluted the house of the LORD that he had
consecrated in Jerusalem.
15The LORD, the God of their ancestors, sent persistently to them by his messengers, because he had compassion on his people and on his dwelling place;
16but they kept mocking the messengers of God, despising his words, and scoffing at his
prophets, until the wrath of the LORD against his people became so great that there was
no remedy.
They burned the house of God, broke down the wall of Jerusalem, burned all its palaces with fire, and destroyed all its precious vessels.
20He took into exile in Babylon those who had escaped from the sword, and they became servants to him and to his sons until the establishment of the kingdom of Persia,
21to fulfill the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had made up
19
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for its sabbaths. All the days that it lay desolate it kept sabbath, to fulfill seventy years.
22In the first year of King Cyrus of Persia, in fulfillment of the word of the LORD spoken
by Jeremiah, the LORD stirred up the spirit of King Cyrus of Persia so that he sent a
herald throughout all his kingdom and also declared in a written edict:
23“Thus says King Cyrus of Persia: The LORD, the God of heaven, has given me all the
kingdoms of the earth, and he has charged me to build him a house at Jerusalem, which
is in Judah. Whoever is among you of all his people, may the LORD his God be with
him! Let him go up.”
Ephesians 2:4-10
4But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us
5even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—
by grace you have been saved—
6and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,
7so that in the ages to come he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in
kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
8For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is
the gift of God—
9not the result of works, so that no one may boast.
10For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God
prepared beforehand to be our way of life.
John 3:14-21
14And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be
lifted up,
15that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.
16“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes
in him may not perish but may have eternal life.
17“Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order
that the world might be saved through him.
18Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God.
19And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved
darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil.
20For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may
not be exposed.
21But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that
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their deeds have been done in God.”
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