Fourth Sunday in Lent B

The speaker discusses the importance of Lent and the Gospel, emphasizing the need to allow God's voice to speak to our hearts and preserve His Word in goodness. They suggest practicing Lectio Divina, a form of meditation on Scripture, using the passage from John's Gospel about Jesus being lifted up on the cross. The speaker reflects on the meaning of this passage, highlighting God's love for a world that rejects Him and the significance of the cross. They encourage listeners to meditate on the passage and open their lives to God's love, as well as to love others without judgment. The speaker concludes by inviting listeners to continue reflecting on the Gospel and praying for spiritual growth throughout the week. Greetings, friends. What a joy to share the Gospel. Pope Francis recently reminded us that a central call of Lent is to seek ways to permit the voice of God to speak to my heart and to preserve it in goodness. This we do, of course, in our weekly time with the Gospel. We here give God permission to speak to our hearts and intentionally embrace His Word and so preserve it in goodness. To prepare ourselves to encounter the voice of God, let's take a moment to quiet our inner selves. If you will, take a deep breath, slowly in and slowly out. Come, Lord Jesus, allow Your Holy Spirit to bring Your Word to life in me. May I hear Your voice, Good Shepherd. The ancient prayer of Lectio Divina invites us, first of all, simply to read a passage from Scripture. By reading we grow acquainted with the Word and begin to open ourselves to the movement of the Holy Spirit carried on the words of the Gospel. On this fourth Sunday of Lent, we read from John's Gospel, chapter 3, verses 14-21. Jesus said to Nicodemus, And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in Him may have eternal life. For 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. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. Whoever believes in Him will not be condemned, but whoever does not believe has already been condemned because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the verdict, that the light came into the world, but people preferred darkness to light, because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light, and does not come toward the light, so that his works might not be exposed. But whoever lives the truth comes to the light, so that his works may be clearly seen as done in God. This is certainly an abundant passage, at once familiar and still expansive in what it might say to us. In predicting his passion, Jesus puts Nicodemus, this teacher of the law, in touch with the striking and strange episode found in Numbers, chapter 21, verses 4 through 9. There, with the people of God still wandering in the wilderness, we find them again complaining against God, having lost their patience along the way. Amid this they encounter poisonous serpents, which bite and kill many of them. God orders Moses to cast a bronze serpent. If someone is bit by a serpent, by gazing on this bronze image lifted high on a pole, they will experience God's healing. Jesus reveals this episode as a type of what will unfold in the mystery of his death. Jesus will be lifted up high on the cross. When we gaze upon Jesus, seeing there the anguish and death that is sin itself, we will encounter healing and freedom from the poison of sin. Following this prediction of his death, we come to that most familiar verse, For God so loved the world. In this verse, the innermost depth of the reality of Jesus' suffering and death on the cross is being unfolded before us. God so loved the world. Craig Koster, in his book The Word of Life, expresses the significance of this passage, giving to us an understanding of the word world. He says, The world, in John's gospel, is not characterized by radiant sunsets or gentle breezes, by the colors of spring flowers or the golden hues of fall. It requires no sacrifice to love a world like that. But in John's gospel, God loves the world that hates him. He gives his son for the world that rejects him. He offers his love to a world estranged from him in order to overcome its hostility and bring the world back into relationship with its maker. This, my friends, is the meaning of the cross, its essential core reality. God confronts sin, our resistance to him, not with condemnation, but with love poured out in the gift of his own beloved son. Let's read now again, for a second time, our gospel passage. Notice as we read it this time what stands out to you, a word, a phrase, a sense being stirred up within you. We read John chapter 3, verses 14 through 21. Jesus said to Nicodemus, And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life. For 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. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him will not be condemned, but whoever does not believe has already been condemned because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the verdict, that the light came into the world, but people preferred darkness to light, because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come toward the light so that his works might not be exposed. But whoever lives the truth comes to the light so that his works may be clearly seen as done in God. We have come now to the second step of Lectio Divina, which is, after reading, meditation. By meditating we pause to embrace the word, phrase, that movement of the passage that has spoken most powerfully to us. What is speaking to you at this moment? I feel, personally, so profoundly the call from within this passage to open my life again to the love of God poured out on me in his Son, Jesus Christ. To know this love requires, I realize, the awareness of my resistance to God, all the ways I have, all the ways I continue to rebel against his authority, his plan for me, his will for me. O please, Lord Jesus, as I set my eyes again this Lent on you, lifted high on the cross, heal me of my fear of God, my resistance to your Father, all that keeps me from trusting and surrendering to his love. I also hear in this passage the call to refocus my energy towards others in love, to stop judging, condemning, manipulating those I feel are far from God. Instead, just as God loved the world in rebellion against him, I must seek ways to love in tenderness and generosity all those struggling against God for whatever reason. Let me again invite you, friends, to continue to sit with this Gospel passage. Notice what it says to you, how it stirs within you. Talk to Jesus about what his word is doing in you now. Before leaving prayer, be sure to intentionally place the word you have received deep in your spirit where the Lord might bring it growth throughout this week ahead. And friends, it is a joy to share the Gospel with you.