March 11, 2018

4th Sunday of Lent B 2 Chronicles 36: 14-16, 19-23; Ephesians 2: 4-10; John 3: 14-21 Three weeks from today is Easter. Do I feel that I am ready to celebrate this most important feast of my faith? Since I’ve started my Lenten journey, has the presence of God in my life become more obvious? Have people in my daily life been aware that I am living the Christ life? Has my image of God and how immense and tremendous His gifts are made me more inclusive, more positive and richer in being His disciple of love? Today is a great day in our Lenten journey to go and to look at what has happened in our history. The readings help us revisit the faith stories of our ancestors, to see how they became aware of God’s great love for them and to hear from Jesus as He fills us with the correct vision of this God who loves us each and every moment…who is ‘crazy in love with me just as I am now!’ Sunday Homily Helps summarizes the readings in this way, “God’s offer of salvation is a gift that sinful humanity does not deserve and has not, in any way, earned. But this gift does require a response and a commitment to turn away from darkness and live in the light of Christ.” So we examine these readings to see God’s love and with His grace to let His love be clearly seen in us and shine on others through us. The book of Chronicles reviews the history of the kingdom of Judah from a positive perspective recognizing the spiritual achievements of their kings and leaders. Yet reality set in…they had ‘given up’ on God, turned to their own selfish ways. The prophets warned them repeatedly of their commitment to the Lord, but they ignored these pleas and failed to put God first in their lives. As always, God remained loyal to the covenant. So their story would not end with the destruction of God’s people. In this final chapter of Chronicles, King Cyrus issues a decreed allowing the people of Israel to return from their captive slavery in Persia to their homeland and rebuild the Temple and their own lives We listen to Cyrus’ timeless words, “Thus says Cyrus, king of Persia: ‘All the kingdom 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.” Hopefully the people would get a good image of their God. Too often people feel that God is not on their side…or God is punishing them…or God is a distant God….or God doesn’t care. We all have to daily learn and grow to an awareness of the God who is. Paul helps our vision by plainly telling the Ephesians that “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…For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not from you, it is the gift of God.” Paul is telling us about God and God’s plan of salvation for every one. It is God’s mercy, His compassion, His kindness in spite of our human transgressions, our sins that speaks volumes of God’s love for everyone and the promise of eternal life through Jesus. Paul’s language of dead in our transgressions…raised up…and seated in the heavens closely parallel Jesus’ own passion and Easter Resurrection. All this is a total gift from God. I do not have anything to boast about. I’m the sinner, redeemed and loved by God. It is total gift. What has become the most quoted phrase from John’s gospel comes next, “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.” John 3:14 I am saved, each person is saved by what God has done for us in Jesus. He completely emptied Himself…He gave His total all in His death on the cross for me and every person of all time. I am…we all are saved. There is no saving that doesn’t involve a cross, Jesus taught us this and showed us this. Being saved isn’t an easy going process, it isn’t nice. Dietrich Bonhoeffer exposes this comfortable attitude: “Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.” The definitive aspect of discipleship is that I have to do something…I have to change myself…I have to be a disciple of love…all the time…I need to be a constant, consistent, committed follower of Jesus. Am I doing this? And I feel that it is most important that I become absorbed with the description of God that Jesus presents to Nicodemus. God is not a judge who wants to condemn us. God is not looking from afar at every little indiscretion I accidentally or on purpose do. But God reaches out constantly to help me. God doesn’t want to humiliate me or embarrass me but God wants to heal and reconcile me to Himself. So if I re-image myself as being loved by God and special to God I am more than my mistakes. I am gifted and have been given the grace, the help to share my uniqueness in love. I have been created and gifted and graced to be an extension of Jesus. This is where Lent’s journey helps me in discovering the God who is in love with me. Jesus is sharing with Nicodemus and me that God did not come to judge me but to love me and save me from myself. He brings me His light of love. Now there is this light in me and there is also darkness. But I need to let the light shine through whatever darkness exists. Perhaps the greatest danger I face is in being wishy washy…never totally choosing light or darkness. This results in me neither being a great saint nor a great sinner, a person incapable of either courage or cowardice. Lent is my time to see the light that God has placed in me…the light of His love. Then with His love and His grace, to let this light shine. As the kids sing so well, ‘This little light of mine…let it shine…let it shine…let it shine.’ So I reflect on: • Do I find it easier to condemn or praise? • Am I merciful to myself? To others? • Does my attitude and teaching reflect a saving God or a condemning God? • Do I find it difficult to admit my sinfulness? No real healing occurs unless a wound is discovered and cleansed. • Do I see in the Gospel that Jesus takes the approach of love, not power…that He acts not for His own sake, but for our sake…that God is not happy until all His wandering children have come home. Is this the God I believe in and show others? Sacred Space 2018 shares: “God so loved the world. This is my faith, Lord. Sometimes it seems to go against the evidence, when floods, earthquakes, droughts, and tsunamis devastate poor people. Central to my faith is the figure of Jesus, lifted on the Cross, knowing what it was to be devastated and a ‘failure,’ yet offering Himself in love for us. God of all light, you continue to send light into the world and into my life. May I recognize it, thank You for it, and participated in its work.”