Fourth Sunday of Lent Year B

Fourth Sunday of Lent, Year B, March 18, 2012 Readings: 2 Chronicles 36:14-16,19-23 All the heads of the priesthood, and the people too, added infidelity to infidelity, copying all the shameful practices of the nations and defiling the Temple that the Lord had consecrated for himself in Jerusalem. The Lord, the God of their ancestors, tirelessly sent them messenger after messenger, since he wished to spare his people and his house. But they ridiculed the messengers of God, they despised his words, they laughed at his prophets, until at last the wrath of the Lord rose so high against his people that there was no further remedy. They burned down the Temple of God, demolished the walls of Jerusalem, set fire to all its palaces, and destroyed everything of value in it. The survivors were deported by Nebuchadnezzar to Babylon; they were to serve him and his sons until the kingdom of Persia came to power. This is how the word of the Lord was fulfilled that he spoke through Jeremiah, ‘Until this land has enjoyed its sabbath rest, until seventy years have gone by, it will keep sabbath throughout the days of its desolation.' And in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, to fulfil the word of the Lord that was spoken through Jeremiah, the Lord roused the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia to issue a proclamation and to have it publicly displayed throughout his kingdom: ‘Thus speaks Cyrus king of Persia, “the Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth; he has ordered me to build him a Temple in Jerusalem, in Judah. Whoever there is among you of all his people, may his God be with him! Let him go up.”’ Psalm 136:1-6 O let my tongue cleave to my mouth if I remember you not! By the rivers of Babylon there we sat and wept, remembering Zion; on the poplars that grew there we hung up our harps. O let my tongue cleave to my mouth if I remember you not! For it was there that they asked us, our captors, for songs, our oppressors, for joy. ‘Sing to us,’ they said, ‘one of Zion’s songs.’ O let my tongue cleave to my mouth if I remember you not! O how could we sing the song of the Lord on alien soil? If I forget you, Jerusalem, let my right hand wither! O let my tongue cleave to my mouth if I remember you not! O let my tongue cleave to my mouth if I remember you not, if I prize not Jerusalem above all my joys! O let my tongue cleave to my mouth if I remember you not! Ephesians 2:4-10 God loved us with so much love that he was generous with his mercy: when we were dead through our sins, he brought us to life with Christ – it is through grace that you have been saved – and raised us up with him and gave us a place with him in heaven, in Christ Jesus. This was to show for all ages to come, through his goodness towards us in Christ Jesus, how infinitely rich he is in grace. Because it is by grace that you have been saved, through faith; not by anything of your own, but by a gift from God; not by anything that you have done, so that nobody can claim the credit. We are God’s work of art, created in Christ Jesus to live the good life as from the beginning he had meant us to live it. John 3:14-21 Jesus said to Nicodemus: ‘The Son of Man must be lifted up as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him. Yes, God loved the world so much that he 

gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not be lost but may have eternal life. For God sent his Son into the world not to condemn the world, but so that through him the world might be saved. No one who believes in him will be condemned; but whoever refuses to believe is condemned already, because he has refused to believe in the name of God’s only Son. On these grounds is sentence pronounced: that though the light has come into the world men have shown they prefer darkness to the light because their deeds were evil. And indeed, everybody who does wrong hates the light and avoids it, for fear his actions should be exposed; but the man who lives by the truth comes out into the light, so that it may be plainly seen that what he does is done in God.’

Reflections:

* The bronze serpent was raised up by the command of Yahweh to Moses so that all the Israelites in the desert who were bitten by the snakes may be healed.  This serpent is somehow contradictory: it deals mortal blow because of its deadly poison but now Yahweh uses it to heal His people.  The serpent did not have the power to heal in its own.  The bronze serpent is just bronze.  What healed the Israelites was their faith which was encouraged and channeled by the raising up of their eyes to the serpent.  All who were bitten and saw it with faith in their hearts were healed instantly.  The bronze serpent is taken up by Jesus in today’s Gospel as a figure of His Cross.

* The Cross of Christ was raised by the Will of God the Father.  Everything the Son did the Father willed.  He could have saved us by just one drop of His Precious Blood but He saved us by giving His Life.  He was raised up on the Cross: a sign of contradiction to unbelievers and believers alike for the Romans used the Cross to punish most severely the most hideous of criminals but here God used it to forgive most mercifully the worst of the sinners.  The Cross, the Crucifix with Christ crucified on it, heals us not only of our bodily hurts but more importantly it heals us of our spiritual hurts.  With our faith given to us as gift by God Himself we are not only healed but also saved.  On the Cross He pours on us His overflowing grace and love. 

* The Cross has become the symbol of Christians since Jesus’ ultimate sacrifice.  What once was a terrible punishment is now a wonderful grace.  We have it in and on our churches.  We have it in our homes.  We have it in our pockets and around our necks.  But we see today that either the cross has become a banal object or it has been relegated to oblivion or shame as a sign of faith and removed from public places.  The cross continues to excite different feelings to different people and it continues to call us to gaze at it and make a stand: to believe or not to believe.

* The dreadful difficulty here is the radical decision which the Cross demands for those who follow Christ.  The decision to follow Christ does not merely consist of intellectual assent and empty promise to follow Him but to really make the choice, to really make the decision.  When we look at the Cross, yes we are healed and saved, but we are also called to heal and save others, in a way to put ourselves on the Cross as well.