Fourth Sunday of Lent

Reading I
2 Chr 36:14-16, 19-23

In those days, all the princes of Judah, the priests, and the people
added infidelity to infidelity,
practicing all the abominations of the nations
and polluting the LORD's temple
which he had consecrated in Jerusalem.

Early and often did the LORD, the God of their fathers,
send his messengers to them,
for he had compassion on his people and his dwelling place.
But they mocked the messengers of God,
despised his warnings, and scoffed at his prophets,
until the anger of the LORD against his people was so inflamed
that there was no remedy.
Their enemies burnt the house of God,
tore down the walls of Jerusalem,
set all its palaces afire,
and destroyed all its precious objects.
Those who escaped the sword were carried captive to Babylon,
where they became servants of the king of the Chaldeans and his sons
until the kingdom of the Persians came to power.
All this was to fulfill the word of the LORD spoken by Jeremiah:
"Until the land has retrieved its lost sabbaths,
during all the time it lies waste it shall have rest
while seventy years are fulfilled."

In the first year of Cyrus, king of Persia,
in order to fulfill the word of the LORD spoken by Jeremiah,
the LORD inspired King Cyrus of Persia
to issue this proclamation throughout his kingdom,
both by word of mouth and in writing:
"Thus says Cyrus, king of Persia:
All the kingdoms of the earth
the LORD, the God of heaven, has given to me,
and he has also charged me to build him a house
in Jerusalem, which is in Judah.
Whoever, therefore, among you belongs to any part of his people,
let him go up, and may his God be with him!"

Responsorial Psalm
Ps 137:1-2, 3, 4-5, 6

R. (6ab) Let my tongue be silenced, if I ever forget you!
By the streams of Babylon
we sat and wept
when we remembered Zion.
On the aspens of that land
we hung up our harps.
R. Let my tongue be silenced, if I ever forget you!
For there our captors asked of us
the lyrics of our songs,
And our despoilers urged us to be joyous:
"Sing for us the songs of Zion!"
R. Let my tongue be silenced, if I ever forget you!
How could we sing a song of the LORD
in a foreign land?
If I forget you, Jerusalem,
may my right hand be forgotten!
R. Let my tongue be silenced, if I ever forget you!
May my tongue cleave to my palate
if I remember you not,
If I place not Jerusalem
ahead of my joy.
R. Let my tongue be silenced, if I ever forget you!

Reading II
Eph 2:4-10

Brothers and sisters:
God, who is rich in mercy,
because of the great love he had for us,
even when we were dead in our transgressions,
brought us to life with Christ--by grace you have been saved--,
raised us up with him,
and seated us with him in the heavens in Christ Jesus,
that in the ages to come
he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace
in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.
For by grace you have been saved through faith,
and this is not from you; it is the gift of God;
it is not from works, so no one may boast.
For we are his handiwork, created in Christ Jesus for the good works
that God has prepared in advance,
that we should live in them.

Gospel
Jn 3:14-21

Jesus said to Nicodemus:
"Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert,
so must the Son of Man be lifted up,
so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life."

For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son,
so that everyone who believes in him might not perish
but might have eternal life.
For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world,
but that the world might be saved through him.
Whoever believes in him will not be condemned,
but whoever does not believe has already been condemned,
because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.
And this is the verdict,
that the light came into the world,
but people preferred darkness to light,
because their works were evil.
For everyone who does wicked things hates the light
and does not come toward the light,
so that his works might not be exposed.
But whoever lives the truth comes to the light,
so that his works may be clearly seen as done in God.

COMMENTARY

Today’s first reading from the second book of Chronicles details the end of the Kingdom.  To better understand the meaning of this reading, this commentary will begin with the reign of Jehoahaz King of Judah.  The reign of Jehoahaz is short.  The Egyptians had slain Josiah (Jehoahaz’s predecessor) at Meggido.  They then force Judah to pay tribute, exile the now reigning king Jehoahaz, and replace him with his brother Eliakim.  The reason for this exile is the evil done by Jehoahaz.  Eliakim (also known as Jehoiakim) lasts for a while as Egypt’s vassal.  When Egypt is conquered, he becomes a vassal of Babylon.  The Chronicler adds that, eventually, Eliakim is exiled to Babylon.  Jehoiachin, Jehoiakim’s son, reigns for only slightly more than three months before he is exiled to Babylon, and before his uncle Zedekiah replaces him on Judah’s throne.

For the Chronicler, one of Zedekiah’s major sins is his refusal to defer to the spokesman of Yahweh.  Zedekiah revolts against Babylon, in spite of the fact the Jeremiah has interpreted Nebuchadnezzar as the Lord’s servant who is executing God’s just judgment on Judah’s sin; Jeremiah counsels the people to submit to Babylon (compare Jer 21:7).  Zedekiah is also guilty of other infidelities, though the Chronicler omits any description of his fate (compare 2 Kgs 25:4-7).  Nebuchadnezzar destroys Judah and Jerusalem, sparing neither city walls nor Yahweh’s temple.  The people are slaughtered or exiled.  The word of the Lord will be effective and the seventy years of exile prophesied by Jeremiah will be completed.  In the first year of the reign of King Cyrus of Persia, he commissions the Jews to go up to Jerusalem to build a temple to the Lord God of heaven.

What Paul has said of Christ is now said of all Christians: they are raised and enthroned with him in the heavenly heights.  Their solidarity with him and his exaltation is indicated by the apostle’s use of the phrase “brought us to life with Christ”.  The letter speaks of salvation as the result of God’s gift alone, and shifts the emphasis away from works and faith.  Therefore, it is no longer a matter of faith vs. works but rather God’s grace vs. human good deeds.

Today’s Gospel begins with the first of the three Son-of-Man sayings to refer to Jesus’ exaltation and is typical of Johannine Theology.  The evangelist then begins the narrative with a discourse on the sending of the Son to bring life to the world.  The realized eschatology of Johannine theology is evident in the connection between believing in the Son and not being judged but having eternal life.  Though the Fourth Gospel does not focus on the death of Jesus as a sacrifice, the expression “he gave his only Son” would be understood as a reference to Jesus’ being given up to death.

Using an ethical dualism of light and darkness, the evangelist tries to explain why people reject god’s salvation: “whoever lives the truth comes to the light”.  The Dead Sea Scrolls tell us that, to live the truth is and idiom for being righteous.  Responsiveness to the truth is a function of one’s righteousness.

REFLECTION

Perhaps one of the most quoted passages of Scripture is found in today’s reading from the Gospel of John: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son”. Just as the Israelites “fell” from God’s grace (according to the chronicler) and they were called to recall their past relationship with God, so too can we make this very same mistake. American poet George Santayana said “Those who do not remember the past are condemned to relive it”. This very wise statement is true for every generation, and today’s Scripture readings are a call for us to remember our past and correct our mistakes.

We need to remember that it is out of love that God has given us salvation in and through Jesus Christ and that this is a free gift that comes from his grace. Just as Israel forgot their past and the love shown to them by God, we are not immune from these ills, and just as Israel forgot what was important, namely their God-people relationship, we can forget what is most important – Jesus Christ. The Church (and by this I mean all of Christ’s mystical body – both the faithful and the hierarchy) must never forget that we must preach Jesus Christ and that this message cannot be compromised or watered down because we want to “fit-in” to a more modern or western world or because we are falling into complacency to the traps of society. People are constantly quoting the passage from Jn 3:16 but are forgetting that in the same way that God so loved the world, we too are called to love the world and everyone in it to the same degree and to the same ultimate consequences. We must be a prophet in a world that has closed its ears to God’s word.

Perhaps one of the greatest problems we face in the world today is that men (and this obviously includes both sexes – men & women) say one thing and then act in a way that is totally contrary to their word. God’s words are constantly manipulated for the benefit of expressing our own point of view or twisted to support our arguments. The Church as an institution goes to great pain to interpret God’s word in a way that will express its true essence but the problem is that individuals (clergy & faithful alike) re-interpret what the Church has interpreted correctly and consequently end up perverting the true message of the Gospel, and that is God’s unending divine love. Through these next few weeks that remain of Lent, let us honestly re-examine our past and see if it has or has not been faithful to God’s word which is given to us in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. Let us examine ourselves in the present using as our guide nothing less than the example of God’s love, and let us look to the future as a new beginning where we can learn from our past mistakes, practice what we preach, and become more closely molded to the person of Jesus Christ.
 

Biblical Sources:

New American Bible; United States Conference of Catholic Bishops; Williamson, H. G. M., “Israel in the Books of Chronicles”; Mangan, C., “1-2 Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah”; McConville, J. G., “Chronicles”; Bruce, F. F., “The Epistles to the Colossians, to Philemon, and to the Ephesians”; The Collegeville Bible Commentary; Barrett, C. K., “The Gospel According to John”; Brown, R. E., “The Community of the Beloved Disciple”; Schnackenburg, R., “The Gospel According to St. John”; Segovia, F. F., “Love Relationships in the Johannine Tradition”; Brown, Raymond E., S.S., “Introduction to the New Testament”; Brown, Fitzmyer, and Murphy (ed.) “The New Jerome Biblical Commentary”.

Reflection:

Deacon Lazaro J. Ulloa