4th Sunday Of Lent :: B

4th Sunday of Lent, March 22, 2009 The “Sign” of the Truth About God and Us Scripture Readings First 2 Chronicles 36:14-16, 19-23 Second Ephesians 2:4-10 Gospel John 3:14-21 Prepared by: Fr. Jonathan Kalisch, OP 1. Subject Matter •

Jesus is the revelation of God – which reaches its high point in His being “lifted up/exalted” in the “sign” of the Cross.

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The immensity of God’s love is that the Son was sent not to condemn, but to save. However the refusal to accept the revelation of the Son’s being “lifted up/exalted” results in selfcondemnation for those who prefer the darkness to the light.

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The event of God ‘giving’ His Son gives life to faith, decisively alters the options available to the world – eternal life or perishing.

2. Exegetical Notes •

Just as those who looked at the bronze serpent were cured of their poisonous bites due to their sinfulness (Numbers 21:8-9), so too, those who look on the crucified Christ can obtain salvation. The Good Thief was the first to look upon the Crucified Christ, and be saved (Lk 23:39-43).

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There is a double meaning to the verb hypsoo – both a lifting up and an exaltation of the one who descended from heaven, the son of man. This implies that the lifting up on the cross will be a moment of exaltation as well. See also Jn 8:28 and 12:32-34 for statements about the “lifting up.”

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Jesus’ lifting up makes ‘eternal life’ possible. “Eternal life” is the change wrought in human existence by faith – a life lived in the unending presence of God. Eternal life begins in the believer’s present through acceptance of Jesus’ own offer of his own life on the cross. In this way, we are ‘born again’ from ‘above’ through the lifting up of Jesus on the cross.

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John 3:16 is the only passage in which God “gave” his Son to the world. Elsewhere it is “sent.”

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Nicodemus’ difficulty results from his “inability to reach beyond what he can measure, control, and understand. He could not grasp that the only way to full acceptance of Jesus was to recognize that he offered a gift ‘from above.’” (Maloney)

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Judgment does not simply come at the end of time – one judges oneself in the here and now by the acceptance or refusal to believe in the revelation of Christ on the Cross. To love darkness more than light, is the same as not believing. The way one acts in the presence of light (in the encounter with Christ) is the defining mark of identity, and results in a judgment.

3. References to the Catechism of the Catholic Church CCC # 65: "’In many and various ways God spoke of old to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son.’ Christ, the Son of God made man, is the Father's one, perfect, and unsurpassable Word. In him he has said everything; there will be no other word than this one.” CCC # 221: “But St. John goes even further when he affirms that ‘God is love’: God's very being is love. By sending his only Son and the Spirit of Love in the fullness of time, God has revealed his innermost secret: God himself is an eternal exchange of love, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and he has destined us to share in that exchange.’” CCC # 591: “Jesus asked the religious authorities of Jerusalem to believe in him because of the Father's works which he accomplished. But such an act of faith must go through a mysterious death to self, for a new ‘birth from above’ under the influence of divine grace. Such a demand for conversion in the face of so surprising a fulfillment of the promises allows one to understand the Sanhedrin's tragic misunderstanding of Jesus: they judged that he deserved the death sentence as a blasphemer. The members of the Sanhedrin were thus acting at the same time out of ‘ignorance’ and the ‘hardness’ of their ‘unbelief.’” CCC #682: “When he comes at the end of time to judge the living and the dead, the glorious Christ will reveal the secret disposition of hearts and will render to each man according to his works, and according to his acceptance or refusal of grace.” 4. Patristic Commentary •

St. Andrew of Crete: “The cross is raised and appears above the earth, which until recently malice had kept hidden. It is raised, not to receive glory (for with Christ nailed to it what great glory could it have?) but to give glory to God who is worshiped on it and proclaimed by it.”

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St. Cyril of Alexandria: “The serpent signifies bitter and deadly sin, which was devouring the whole race on the earth…biting the Soul of man and infusing it with the venom of wickedness. And there is no way that we could have escaped being conquered by it, except by the relief that comes only from heaven. The Word of God then was made in the likeness of sinful flesh, ‘that he might condemn sin in the flesh,’ as it is written. In this way, he becomes the Giver of unending salvation to those who comprehend the divine doctrines and gave on him with steadfast faith. But the serpent, being fixed upon a lofty base, signifies that Christ was clearly manifested by his passion on the cross, so that none could fail to see him.”

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Isaac of Nineveh: “Not that he was unable to save us in another way, but in this way it was possible to show us his abundant love abundantly, namely, by bringing us near to him by the

death of his Son. If he had anything more dear to him, he would have given it to us, in order that by it our race might be his. And out of his great love he did not even choose to urge our freedom by compulsion, though he was able to do so. But his aim was that we should come near to him by the love of our mind. And our Lord obeyed his Father out of love for us.” •

St. Augustine: “Unless the Father, you see, had handed over life, we would not have had life. And unless life itself had died, death would not have been slain. It is the Lord Christ himself, of course, that is life, about whom John the Evangelist says, ‘This is the true God and eternal life.’”

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Hilary of Potiers: “There are some who stand midway between the godly and the ungodly, having affinities to both but strictly belonging to neither class, because they have come to be what they are by a combination of the two…For many are kept within the pale of the church by the fear of God, yet they are tempted al the while to worldly faults by the allurements of the world. They pray, because they are afraid; they sin, because it is their will…These, then, are they whom the judgment awaits that unbelievers have already had passed on them and believers to do not need.”

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St. John Chrysostom: “They are punished because they would not leave the darkness and hurry to the light…Had I come to demand an accounting of their deeds, they might have been able to say that was the reason they stayed away. But now I have come to free them from the darkness and to bring them to the light. Who can pity the person who does not choose to approach the light when it come to him but would rather remain in the darkness?”

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St. Augustine: “The beginning of good works is the confession of evil works, and then you do the truth and come to the light. How do you do the truth? You do not soothe or flatter yourself or say, ‘I am righteous,’ while in actuality you are unrighteous. This is how you begin to do the truth. You come to the light so that your works may be shown to originate in God. And you have come to the light because this very sin in you, which displease you, would not displease you if god sis not shine on you and his truth show it to you. But the one who loves his sin, even after being admonished, hates the light admonishing him and flees from it so that his works that he loves may not be proved to be evil.”

5. Examples from the Saints and Other Exemplars •

St. John of the Cross commented on Hebrews 1:1-2: “In giving us his Son, his only Word (for he possesses no other), he spoke everything to us at once in this sole Word – and he has no more to say ... because what he spoke before to the prophets in parts, he has now spoken all at once by giving us the All Who is His Son. Any person questioning God or desiring some vision or revelation would be guilty not only of foolish behavior but also of offending him, by not fixing his eyes entirely upon Christ and by living with the desire for some other novelty.”

6. Quotes •

Pope Benedict XVI: “God's greatness, his being love, becomes visible precisely in this total gift of himself. It is the glory of the Crucified One that every Christian is called to understand, live and bear witness to with his life. The Cross - the giving of himself on the part of the Son of God - is the definitive ‘sign’ par excellence given to us so that we might understand the truth about man and the truth about God: we have all been created and redeemed by a God who sacrificed his only Son out of love. This is why the Crucifixion, as I wrote in the

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Encyclical Deus Caritas Est, ‘is the culmination of that turning of God against himself in which he gives himself in order to raise man up and save him. This is love in its most radical form’ (n. 12).” Pope Benedict XVI: “How should we respond to this radical love of the Lord? The Gospel presents to us a person by the name of Nicodemus, a member of the Sanhedrin of Jerusalem who sought out Jesus by night. He was a well-to-do man, attracted by the Lord's words and example, but one who hesitated to take the leap of faith because he was fearful of others. He felt the fascination of this Rabbi, so different from the others, but could not manage to rid himself of the conditioning of his environment that was hostile to Jesus, and stood irresolute on the threshold of faith. How many people also in our time are in search of God, in search of Jesus and of his Church, in search of divine mercy, and are waiting for a ‘sign’ that will touch their minds and their hearts!” Pope Benedict XVI: “Today, as then, the Evangelist reminds us that the only ‘sign’ is Jesus raised on the Cross: Jesus who died and rose is the absolutely sufficient sign. Through him we can understand the truth about life and obtain salvation. This is the principal proclamation of the Church, which remains unchanged down the ages. The Christian faith, therefore, is not an ideology but a personal encounter with the Crucified and Risen Christ. From this experience, both individual and communitarian, flows a new way of thinking and acting: an existence marked by love is born, as the saints testify.” Pope John Paul II, Redemptor hominis, 10 “Man cannot live without love. He remains a being that is incomprehensible for himself, his life is senseless, if love is not revealed to him, if he does not encounter love, if he does not experience it and make it his own, if he does not participate intimately in it. This…is why Christ the Redeemer ‘fully reveals man to himself.’ If we may use the expression, this is the human dimension of the mystery of the Redemption. In this dimension, man finds again the greatness, dignity and value that belong to his humanity…the one who wishes to understand himself thoroughly…must, with his unrest and uncertainty and even his weakness and sinfulness, with his life and death, draw near to Christ.” Pope Paul VI: “’For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son’ for its salvation. All our religion is a revelation of God’s kindness, mercy and love for us. ‘God is love’ (1 John 4:16), that is , love poured forth unsparingly. All is summed up in this supreme truth, which explains and illuminates everything. The story of Jesus must be seen in this light. ‘(He) loved me’, St. Paul writes. Each of us can and must repeat it for himself – ‘He loved me, and gave himself for me’ (Gal 2:20).” Vatican II, Ad Gentes, “The words of Christ are at once words of judgment and grace, of life and death. For it is only by putting to death that which is old that we can come to newness of life…No one is freed from sin by himself or by his own efforts, no one is raised above himself or completely delivered from his own weakness, solitude or slavery; all have need of Christ, who is the model, master, liberator, savior, and giver of life.”

7. Other Considerations •

Belief in Jesus changes one’s life so that one can speak of ‘being born-again,’ due to the new beginning that comes with recognition of the fullness of God revealed by Jesus. This is a God whose love knows no bounds and who asks simply that we receive the gift of His Son. In receiving the Gift, one’s life is reshaped and refashioned by the love of God in Jesus.

Recommended Resources Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture: John 1-10 ed. by Joel C. Elowsky, Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity Press, 2006. Benedictus: Day by Day with Pope Benedict XVI, ed. by Peter John Cameron, OP. Magnificat, 2006. John Bartunek, The Better Part: A Christ-Centered Resource for Personal Prayer, Hamden, CT: Circle Press, 2007. Francis J. Moloney, SDB The Gospel of John, Sacra Pagina series ed. By Daniel J. Harrington, SJ, Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1998. The Navarre Bible: St. John Dublin: Four Courts Press, 1998. The New Interpreter’s Bible: John, Vol. 9, Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1995. http://www.clerus.org/bibliaclerus/index_fra.html