Fourth Sunday of Lent
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Msgr. Owen F. Campion
The Sunday Readings
The Second Book of Chronicles is the source of this weekend’s first reading.
As the name implies, this book and its companion volume report important events in the early history of God’s people.
History was very important to the Jews. It taught a lesson. History revealed the critically important fact that humans, always seriously flawed by sin, often sin again and again, and their sins produce hard times and even disaster in their lives.
Equally important was the belief that there was no human power available for rescue from this disaster. Only rescue graciously given by God would offset trouble and death itself.
Wonderfully, God never failed to come to the aid of the people. He always would aid them, if they would repent and be faithful. By being faithful, by obeying God, people would not get themselves into such dire trouble.
From this understanding came the strong conviction that hardship and distress were not punishments from God. Humans created the circumstances surrounding their lives.
A perfect example of all this was the plight of the Hebrews during and after the Babylonian invasion. The invasion cost much. Many people died. The independent Hebrew kingdoms were destroyed, never to be rebuilt.
Then survivors were taken to Babylon, where they and their offspring endured eight decades of languishing and misery.
At last, a pagan king, Cyrus of Persia, freed these unwilling Hebrew residents of Babylon when he overcame Babylon itself. The devout saw him simply as an instrument of God’s mercy.
The Epistle to the Ephesians furnishes the second reading.
It also is a proclamation of God’s unending mercy. From this divine mercy comes salvation. Salvation is God’s gift. God lavishly extends it to us in eternal, divine love.
St. John’s Gospel gives the final reading.
Jesus is speaking to Nicodemus, a prominent and devout Jew from Jerusalem. The Lord refers to an event that occurred during the Exodus when Moses lifted high a serpent. All who looked upon this serpent were rescued from death.
Serpents were important in ancient iconography, more important among the pagan cultures of the Ancient Near East than among Jews. Serpents symbolized eternal life because they shed their hides and seemingly were re-born to new lives.
Jesus predicts being lifted up. All who would look upon Jesus will have everlasting life. People must freely choose to follow Jesus by renouncing their own sin. Renouncing sin is necessary for eternal life. The consequence of sin brings death.
Reflection
This weekend often is called “Laetare Sunday,” taking its name from the Latin word “laetare,” which means “to rejoice.” This is the first word of the Entrance Antiphon, which in the Roman Rite for centuries has been in Latin.
The Church calls us to rejoice even as we are in the fourth week of Lent, the season of austerity and penance. Jesus has opened for us the way to salvation. Our Lenten prayer and sacrifice condition us to respond eagerly to the Lord.
This weekend, priests have the option of wearing pink or—to be precise—rose vestments. Rose is not the toning down of a stricter purple. It is the subdued purple brightened by the golden light of the Resurrection, which is awaiting us just a few weeks ahead. Then, in the burst of liturgical majesty and joy, we shall celebrate that the Lord lives!
We can look upon our lives on earth as time spent in darkness. Everyone experiences moments of sadness and fear.
Always, for the truly holy, Jesus stands before us, the “Light of the World.”
The brightness of God’s love, given to us in Jesus, and the brightness of heaven, lighten the darkness of any human life and provide even the most tried with a glimpse of the glory that awaits those who love the Lord. †