By Fr Antony Christy, SDB –
March 14, 2021: 4th Sunday of Lent – Laetare Sunday
2 Chronicles 36: 14-16, 19-23; Ephesians 2: 4-10; John 3: 14-21
For God so loved the world that God gave God’s only Son, that everyone who believes in him might have eternal life (Jn 3:16)… the Word presents in this verse, the crux of the mystery of God’s love! St. Paul would elaborate on this when he says, “God who did not spare God’s own son, will not withhold anything from us!” (Cf. Rom 8:32). God’s love for us has been so undeservedly deep! What is our response?
The fourth Sunday of Lent is called the Laetare Sunday…or Rejoicing Sunday, within the Lent! It is because we are already prompted to think about Resurrection right in the middle of the season of the passion of Christ. Just to remind us, despite all suffering and temptation, what awaits is the crown that the Lord has prepared for us – because God loves us! Not because we deserve it, but because God has decided to love us, right till the end!
God’s love for us is so deep, so undeservedly deep! And what response do we give…the Word educates us to it, this Sunday. There are three persons presented to us and may be we can take a lesson from each of them.
The first person is Cyrus, the King of Persia, who released the people of Israel from their exile in Babylon. Cyrus, was not a believer in Yahweh; neither did he know the Lord or come to accept the Lord. But he was considered by the people of Israel as a messiah who acted on behalf of Lord God and gave them the long-yearned-for freedom. They could come back to their homeland and once again feel loved by God. Cyrus becomes a channel of the love of God… not that he experienced the love of God! Though he might have had the opportunity, we do no judge the person of Cyrus, but he chose to remain a mere channel through whom the love of God came to the people, without even affecting him in any decisive way.
This is one kind of response we can give to the love of God – that we become passive channels of the love of God. God in God’s almightiness, can use any means to communicate God’s love. And we can become one such channels – it is a very instrumental understanding of the role we play… nothing of myself is changed but through me others might feel the love of God. But what a loss for me, that I did not drink in, what I was passing on to the others. Some examples that come to our mind in this context are persons who are considered good, loving, lovable, kind and gentle…but suddenly they take an unfortunate decision to end their lives by themselves! Everyone known to them, starts wondering, what was wrong, because so many experienced goodness through these persons, but they themselves end up so desperate. When so many are capable of seeing, experiencing God’s love in me, but I myself do not really recognise it or enjoy it or be transformed by it…I am just being a channel of God’s love, because God uses me! But how unfortunate that I don’t know what I am missing – God’s love so undeservedly deep.
The second person we are given to encounter today in the Word is, Nicodemus, a just Jew! He was someone who admired Jesus, he even loved Jesus, he was eager to listen to Jesus, but the sad thing…he could not decide to follow him! He was too afraid of his circumstances, the respect of his fellow Jews, the fear of losing the status as the teacher of the rabbis…he did not dare even to meet Jesus in the broad day light. That is why he comes today in the cover of the night to meet him and listen to him – oh, how he admired Jesus, but what is the use?
When Jesus the love of God is revealed to us, we could also respond this way: as just admirers; admirers from far, admirers in secret; admirers under cover. We know so much, we understand it all, but we cannot speak about it or witness to it…for fear of so many things. Because we fear being called old fashioned, because we don’t want to be called pietistic, because we are afraid of being branded ‘religious’, because we wish to be modern or post-modern, because we want to keep abreast with the latest fashion of questioning everything and making fun of everything, because we want to identify ourselves with the so-called scientific world…we at times are prepared to forego the immense love that awaits us, the love that comes across to us in varied ways! In spite of knowing well what it is and what it is that we are missing, we choose to miss it, because we consider something else more important! How sad it is again, that we remain mere admirers of the love of God without really getting it into our selves – our body, heart, mind and soul!
The third person we meet today, is the one through whom the Word speaks so powerfully – St. Paul, the Apostle… he uses the very same terms of Jesus: the words, ‘God loved us with so much love, that…’ – they sound just as Jesus said, ‘for God so loved the world, that…’ St. Paul understood how much God loves us, how God chose us from before the foundation of the world (Eph 1:4), how God does not spare anything for our sakes (Rom 8), how God sent God’s own son even when we were sinners (Rom 5:8) and how God’s love is poured into our hearts (Rom 5:5). He was someone opposed to this love, thinking all the time about the law and the rule and the Jewish supremacy, but when he was touched by that love, he gave in, he gave himself up fully! He admired God’s love, became a channel of God’s love and he grew gradually towards becoming that love – be imitators of me, as I am of Christ (1 Cor 11:1), he said.
This is the response that we are expected to grow towards: to become God’s love ourselves. Just as Jesus was God’s love, we are called to become God’s love – that is, persons who bear God’s love to the others, specially to those who are in need of it most. Being bearers of God’s love would presume that we have known that love, tasted it, and are filled with it, that we share it with everyone whom we come into contact with. Bearing God’s love to the other is not merely doing something for the other, it is not giving something or making something for the other – it is being God’s love to them. Our very beings need to be transformed by God’s love. The lenten practices should lead us to that: not merely to some self inflicted pain that bears no fruit for the other, but a continual and gradual transformation of selves, that we become God’s love to those around us!
However, with the personal weaknesses and the temptations, with the kind of characters around and the troubling situations, with the concerns we have and the burdens of worldly responsibilities, it becomes tremendously difficult to pursue that call: to be true bearers of God’s love! But that should not worry us, as long as we are constantly, in our will and in our efforts, on our way, on this journey towards being God’s love to the world and everyone around us!
Fr Antony Christy is a Salesian Priest from 2005, who has a Masters in Philosophy (specialisation in Religion) and a Masters in Theology (Specialisation in Catechetics). He is currently pursuing his doctoral research in Theology at Salesian Pontifical University, Rome. Walking with the Young towards a World of Peace and Dialogue is the passion that fires him.