Homily for 4th Sunday of Lent

Homily for the

4th Sunday of Lent

March 30, 2003

2 Chron 36: 14-16, 19-23
Eph 2: 4-10
John 3: 14-21
St. Clement, Plant City, Fla.                   

“Early and often did the Lord, the God of their fathers, send his messengers to them, for he had compassion on his people” (2 Chron 36: 15).

The 2 books of Chronicles narrate the history of Israel from King David until the Babylonian Exile, paralleling 1-2 Kings and to some extent also the books of the prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah.  Their final chapter, part of which we just heard, recapitulates that history.

Jeremiah Laments the Destruction of Jerusalem

(Rembrandt)

Israel’s history—and Christian history too—is a story of good news and bad.  The good news is evangelization, which means literally, the announcement of good news.  Anglo-Saxon English rendered “good news” as gospel, but that has a particular Christian connotation.  To Israel God repeatedly sent messengers—prophets—to speak his word, which very often was a word of compassion, mercy, deliverance.  Indeed, 2 Chronicles ends with just such a message, coming from, of all possible sources, a pagan king:  “The Lord inspired King Cyrus of Persia to issue this proclamation thruout his kingdom,” and the announcement of the end of Israel’s forced exile, the return to Judea, the rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem follows (36:22-23).

When we turn to today’s 3d reading, from the Good News according to St. John, we hear how deep is God’s love for us:  that God sent his own Son into the world to save whoever would believe in him—to deliver them from darkness and eternal death and lead them to light and everlasting life.  This recapitulates the entire message of Jesus Christ, who came that we might have life, and have it in full (cf. Jn 10:10).

St. Paul takes up that same theme:  “God, who is rich in mercy, because of the great love he had for us, even when we were dead in our sins, brought us to life with Christ…, raised us up with him, and seated us with him in the heavens” (Eph 2:4-6).

God is always motivated by love, by mercy, by compassion.  He wishes nothing more than to save us from our folly, from our sins, from the darkness of evil, from the death that is the inevitable consequence of human foolishness.  We see that graphically as we watch CNN or the other networks in these very days.  War is sometimes necessary, but as Pope John Paul said, it is invariably the sign of human failure, of human sin.  It is evil, it is a work of darkness, and it leads inevitably to death.  Gen. Sherman was not kidding when, more than 120 years ago, he reportedly said, “War is hell.”  War’s only possible justification is that it’ll end or avert even worse calamities, and no other means will secure a just peace.

But if Israel had heeded the prophets whom God sent to them; if they had been faithful to God and obedient to his law—they wouldn’t have experienced national disaster:  “Their enemies burnt the house of God, tore down the walls of Jerusalem, set all its palaces afire,” slew its inhabitants and carried off the survivors into exile (2 Chron 36:19-20).  If we disregard the ways of God, we’re left to the mercy of human beings.  And that is not good news.

Jesus says that too.  Those who accept God’s only Son, those who believe in him—belief meaning both intellectual and especially practical faith—will be saved.  “But whoever does not believe has already been condemned.  For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come toward the light” (Jn 3:18,20).  Those who deliberately choose the works of darkness and of death in this world are condemned to eternal darkness, eternal death.  That’s bad news.  It’s not what God wants for us, but it’s the result of sinful choices.

But, to repeat, even tho we are sinful people God in his love has extended to us his grace.  “By grace you have been saved thru faith, and…it is a gift of God” (Eph 2:8).  God will deliver from their sins and from the consequences of their sins all who turn to him; not from suffering and death in this life, which he did not spare even his own Son, but from eternal condemnation.  As he raised up his innocent Son from the grave and brought him, even in his human nature, to the heavenly throne, so will he raise us up with Christ and seat us with him at the banquet of eternal life, recognizing us as innocent and worthy of his gifts because we have accepted his pardon in Christ.

Therefore, brothers and sisters, the Good News of Jesus Christ invites us to return to God if we have strayed, or to deepen our commitment to him.  It invites us to execute the good works that God means for us to do and to live consistently virtuous lives, for we are God’s very own handiwork, his works of art, his craftsmanship (Eph 2:10).  “Whoever lives the truth comes to the light, so that his works may be clearly seen as done in God” (Jn 3:21).  After intellectual belief—accepting the truth of the Gospel of Jesus in our heads—we must walk in his ways, “walk the walk,” as they say, making the truth of the Gospel plain for the world to see.