4th Sunday of Lent
2 Chronicles 36:14-16, 19-23 Ephesians 2:4-10 John 3:14-21
The prelude to today’s Gospel passage is that Jesus had been speaking to Nicodemus about being born again into a higher plane of life. That higher life is now called ‘supernatural life’ or sharing the divine life. Nicodemus asks, how can this happen? And the answer that Jesus gives is a summary of the whole story of salvation. It’s the sort of thing that we struggle with during the holy season of Lent: how can we possibly understand the story of Salvation?
It’s all summed up by Saint Paul in his letter to the Ephesians (today’s 2nd Reading); “God loved us so much that he was generous with his mercy”. We can see this movement of God’s love and mercy happening in three stages. Firstly there is the wondrous mystery of God’s love for all creation. Then there is the fact that Jesus came down from above to be one of us and to raise us up to share his divine life. But our cooperation is required through our willingness to walk in the light of Christ’s way.
From the beginning of the story of Salvation what gives it meaning and starts it in motion is the immeasurable love of God for all people. Our God is a compassionate and merciful God who never holds our sins against us. This is a God who, “when we were dead through our sins brought us back to life”. The sort of compassion that God has for us is described by Jesus in the story of the prodigal son; the sort of compassion that reaches out, that bows down to us, that even conquers our reluctance to come back.
And that is the other aspect of the salvation story; we are presented with the sight of Jesus being lifted up on the Cross. This cross was once a sign of disgrace and of a curse. Now it becomes a sign of healing and forgiveness and grace. Anyone who looks at this Cross will be saved. Nobody is forced to look on the Cross because God respects our freedom in all of this. Our freedom is to choose to cooperate with God’s invitation, to repent of our sins, to turn back to God, to step out of the ways of darkness and be willing to walk in the light of Christ’s way.
This is the conclusion that Jesus comes to with Nicodemus; “people have shown that they prefer darkness to the light – because their deeds are evil.” Indeed we know that we are doing wrong we hate the light, it exposes us! When we are living the truth, when we know that we are cooperating with God’s will we will be glad to be seen in the Light because we know that God’s will is being fulfilled.
Our journey through Lent would be real and holy if all this would fall in to place; that we would look on the Cross and allow its message to touch us; that we would repent of what isn’t of God in our lives; that we would walk confidently in the Light of the Lord.