Fourth Sunday of Lent March 14, 2021

“God sent his Son so that the world might be saved through him.” John 3: 14-21

Dear Parishioners: 

Today we hear one of the most well-known and best-loved verses in the whole of John’s gospel, a verse that proclaims, “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.” These words are spoken in the context of the night visit of Nicodemus to Jesus. Nicodemus, a Pharisee and Jewish leader and teacher, avoids the daylight that might reveal him as associating with a man who is unpopular with the religious institution, and so arouse suspicion of Nicodemus’s own motives and stance. To be unafraid or unashamed of professing our friendship with Jesus by the way we live every day always brings hard demands. 

We often prefer the false safety of darkness to the light of Christ that exposes, for example, our selfish, racist, sexist, or violent selves. We all have our own caves that we need to name. Lent is designed to drag us out of their darkness into the Easter light of Christ through prayer, fasting, and the “almsgiving” of the gift ourselves as well as the offer of material assistance to our sisters and brothers in many kinds of need.

 In our humanity, we are all bitten by death; yet Jesus tells Nicodemus, the God who is love wants to give us life that never ends. And so, the flesh of the Son of Man will be brutally, senselessly twisted around the wood of the cross, forged by the fire of his passion and death, and raised up for our salvation. In John’s gospel, “raising” or “lifting up” always has the double sense of crucifixion and exaltation, death and resurrection, for the two movements are inseparable. To gaze with eyes of faith on this mystery and commit ourselves to it will mean eternal life. Jesus does not come to judge, but just as turning on a light exposes what is hidden in darkness, so it is when light of Christ shines upon us to expose both good and evil. The cross that will be raised up and venerated on Good Friday will give way at the Easter Vigil to the raised candle, marked with the cross of fragrant “nails” of incense, from which we catch fire and rekindle our baptismal commitment to the saving and universal love of Jesus Christ.

In the Good Shepherd,
Rev. Robert B. Adamo