Fourth Sunday of Lent

Title

God’s Goal is Human Rescue

Outline

1 Why does God tolerate evil, especially evil persons?

Why were abusive priests not struck dead?

Why were corrupt prelates not stopped by disease?

And perhaps why Vatican bureaucracy is so slow in punishing? Could it be being like God?

Why does God tolerate the 82% of Catholics (and I suspect other ecclesial communities) whose real commitment is not him and who give him a bad name?

Because he is giving them a chance to repent - that is what he wants more than a pure church

2 Chronicles summarizes 100’s of years of calling people to repentance demonstrating that that is God’s desire

And even when destruction came, it led to restoration for those who survived

2 Why is God still tolerating evil in the world?

Because he sent Jesus to redeem people, to rescue people, and until the last one he can gather in is gathered, it is not yet the time of judgment

“For God sent the Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him”

God wants all to put their trust in Jesus

He wants the sign of Jesus lifted up to triumph

But he also realizes that some are judging themselves: “this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil”

How could God be so patient? Because love is his nature and he wants his love to triumph

“God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us, 5. . . , made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), 6 and raised us up with him, and made us sit with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus”

And in love he wants us to live out that grace, for our good, not for his: “we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”

3 Sisters, there are a lot of lessons here

Let us not think that God is greatly concerned with our buildings or our structures, much as he is happy to use them when they serve his purposes

There are the ruins of temple and churches and orders and movements that have collapsed when they no longer served God’s purposes

Let us remember that God will work all things together for his good, but that his good is justice in the end and the salvation of souls now - we need more patience with his purposes

And let us keep our focus on the goal: the salvation of the world. And with this as our goal, let us ask God to guide us so that all we do will have, not judgment, but the salvation, the rescue of others as its ultimate goal

After all, God is so focused on that goal that he gave his beloved Son for it

Readings

Old Testament

2 Chronicles 36:14-16, 19-23

14 All the leading priests and the people likewise were exceedingly unfaithful, following all the abominations of the nations; and they polluted the house of the Lord which he had hallowed in Jerusalem.

15 The Lord, the God of their fathers, sent persistently to them by his messengers, because he had compassion on his people and on his dwelling place; 16 but they kept mocking the messengers of God, despising his words, and scoffing at his prophets, till the wrath of the Lord rose against his people, till there was no remedy.

[17 Therefore he brought up against them the king of the Chaldeans, who slew their young men with the sword in the house of their sanctuary, and had no compassion on young man or virgin, old man or aged; he gave them all into his hand. 18 And all the vessels of the house of God, great and small, and the treasures of the house of the Lord, and the treasures of the king and of his princes, all these he brought to Babylon.] 19 And they burned the house of God, and broke down the wall of Jerusalem, and burned all its palaces with fire, and destroyed all its precious vessels. 20 He took into exile in Babylon those who had escaped from the sword, and they became servants to him and to his sons until the establishment of the kingdom of Persia, 21 to fulfil the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed its sabbaths. All the days that it lay desolate it kept sabbath, to fulfil seventy years.

22 Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah might be accomplished, the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia so that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom and also put it in writing: 23 “Thus says Cyrus king of Persia, ‘The Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and he has charged me to build him a house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Whoever is among you of all his people, may the Lord his God be with him. Let him go up.’ ”

Catholic Biblical Association (Great Britain), The Holy Bible: Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition (New York: National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA, 1994), 2 Ch 36:14–23.

Epistle

Ephesians 2:4-10

4 But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), 6 and raised us up with him, and made us sit with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God— 9 not because of works, lest any man should boast. 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

Catholic Biblical Association (Great Britain), The Holy Bible: Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition (New York: National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA, 1994), Eph 2:4–10.

Gospel

John 3:14-21

14 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of man be lifted up, 15 that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.”

16 For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God sent the Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him. 18 He who believes in him is not condemned; he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. 19 And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. 20 For every one who does evil hates the light, and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. 21 But he who does what is true comes to the light, that it may be clearly seen that his deeds have been wrought in God.

Catholic Biblical Association (Great Britain), The Holy Bible: Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition (New York: National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA, 1994), Jn 3:14–21.

Notes

First day of Daylight Savings Time