The Fourth
Sunday of Lent (LAETARE)
13-14 March
2021
at St. Mary’s
in Salem
2 Chr 36:14-16, 19-23
Eph 2:4-10
Jn
3:14-21
As a boy of high school age or maybe as a young man in
college, I can remember being sort of embarrassed and annoyed that I had never
learned how to quote Bible verses like some protestants do. The way they would
shout out chapter and verse, “John 3:16!”, would infuriate me. I kept internally
protesting this behavior and asking myself what sense does it make to shout out
numbers? Wouldn’t it have been better to memorize the verse and repeat that?
Let it also be said from a thoroughly Catholic point of view
that this lovely verse should never stand alone; it deserves a context. I
cannot just take this verse from John’s Gospel and make of it what I will. On this
Laetare Sunday, our Sunday for lightening up and rejoicing in the midst of our
Lenten penance, there has to be more to this quote. Why has the Church chosen
to focus on John 3:16 today? “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.”
Our first reading today from the 2nd Book of
Chronicles can help explain the choice of this iconic verse, which should inspire
joy and bring us consolation. Let me quote from our Old Testament reading!
“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.”
God in His great love chastises us for our wrongdoing, for
our failure to respond to His messengers. The Cambridge Dictionary defines
“chastise” as “to punish or criticize someone strongly”. The punishment visited
on God’s People to which 2nd Chronicles refers was the destruction
of Jerusalem and its great Temple, looting the whole place and carrying the
people who survived the massacre off into Babylonian captivity. “Punish
strongly” might be considered an understatement in this regard. God chastised His
faithless people. Our wickedness or hard-heartedness before God must have
consequences for us just as Israel scoffing God’s prophets had consequences in
their day and time.
Read John 3:16 against that background if you will!
“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.”
The Chaldeans carried the Jews off after crushing Israel and then
70 years later King Cyrus of Persia, called on the people to return home to
Jerusalem and rebuild their Temple.
Could you or I find ourselves living somewhere on this
timeline of chastisement and blessing? Why not? Should we be fearful of
punishment for our sins before a just God? Why not? The qualitative difference between
Israel and us, Christ’s Church, is really not all that great. Granted,
Chronicles speaks in a prophetic key. Our
Savior is not an earthly lord, like the great Cyrus, the king of the Persians. We
have deliverance through Jesus, the Christ, God’s only Son, the King of kings
and Lord of lords. Cyrus called Israel to restore true worship in Judah, their homeland.
Jesus puts us on the way to our heavenly homeland, establishing not a brick-and-mortar
temple in Jerusalem but worship of the living God in spirit and in truth.
Our second reading today from St. Paul to the Ephesians
explains it so: “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…”
Apart from the Church providing us with a broader context, note
too that our Gospel today does not limit its quote to verse 16. The passage
read from St. John today starts with verse 14 and goes through verse 21; the
Gospel quotes Jesus explaining God’s mercy toward His people in the context of
the bronze serpent set up in the desert by Moses, declaring that image to be
prophetic of the Son of Man lifted up on the Cross, “so that everyone who
believes in him may have eternal life.” Death-dealing crucifixion in Christ
Jesus brings life, brings salvation.
The coat of arms of the Diocese of Sioux Falls has two
principal elements: first, the bronze serpent on the cross (inspired by the
French explorers use of the word “Sioux” meaning snake). This was a reference
to the Dakota or Lakota tribe they found living here when they came; second, the
wavy blue lines of a waterfall add the reference to the falls on the Sioux
River, so important for the commercial development of our see city back then. In
2004 at my episcopal ordination, I took that coat of arms for my own. I changed
it a bit, shifting the serpent and cross from the center to the top field and
dividing the bottom field in two, using the falls to recall our baptism into
Christ and adding a third field, namely that of Mary’s Star, as a tribute to
the Mother of God.
Without its proper context, John 3:16 does not probably have
much more to say to a person than just shouting out the numbers. Its proper
context has to do with Israel’s chastisement in the desert, offering life
through the unlikely symbol of the bronze serpent. Because of our sins, we dare
not expect other of God than due punishment. Nonetheless, we place our hope in
Him, “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…”
So, John 3:16 on Laetare Sunday, a time for us to rejoice in
the mercy of God, who did not spare His only Son, but delivered Him up for all
of us!
Praised be
Jesus Christ!
PROPERANTES ADVENTUM DIEI DEI
No comments:
Post a Comment