Other Sunday and Holy Day Readings
4th SUNDAY OF LENT (Cycle B)
Readings:
2 Chronicles 36:14-16, 19-23
Psalm 137:1-6
Ephesians 2:4-10
John 3:14-21
Abbreviations: NABRE (New American Bible Revised Edition), NJB (New Jerusalem Bible), RSVCE (Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition), IBHE (Interlinear Bible Hebrew-English), IBGE (Interlinear Bible Greek-English), or LXX (Greek Septuagint Old Testament translation). CCC designates a citation from the Catechism of the Catholic Church. The word LORD or GOD rendered in all capital letters is, in the Hebrew text, God's Divine Name, YHWH (Yahweh).
God reveals His divine plan for humanity in the two Testaments; therefore, we read and relive the events of salvation history in the Old and New Testaments in the Church's Liturgy. REThe Catechism teaches that our Liturgy reveals the unfolding mystery of God's plan as we read the Old Testament in light of the New and the New Testament in light of the Old (CCC 1094-1095).
The Fourth Sunday of Lent is Laetare Sunday. Every Mass has an entrance antiphon, a sentence or two (usually from the Scriptures), and is sung at the beginning of Mass. Each Mass used to have a title; it came from the first word (in Latin) of the day's antiphon. The antiphon for the Fourth Sunday of Lent is from the 66th chapter of the Book of Isaiah and begins, Rejoice Jerusalem! Come together, you who love her. In Latin, one of the words for "rejoice" is laetare, which gives the title Laetare Sunday to this Lenten Mass. On the Fourth Sunday of Lent, we are halfway to Easter, and we rejoice because we are halfway home.
The Theme of the Readings: Every Sinner is a Displaced
Person
Thus far, the First Readings for each of Lent's Sunday
Readings provided a review of the high points of salvation history. They have covered
God's covenant with Noah and Creation after the flood, His covenant promises to
Abraham after his ordeal of faith, and His covenant promises to Israel at Mt.
Sinai. Today's First Reading recalls the Davidic Kingdom's destruction, a
kingdom that God pledged to David would endure forever
(2 Sam 7:16, 29; 23:5;
2 Chron 13:5; Ps 89:2-5; Sir 45:25). See the list of God's covenants).
In God's judgment against Judah's citizens who had abandoned His Covenant, He
used the Babylonian army as His instrument of judgment, allowing them to
destroy the Jerusalem Temple and take the people into exile in pagan Babylon.
However, God did not reject His people. Centuries earlier, through the prophet Isaiah,
He gave them the promise of returning to their homeland, fulfilled through a
pagan king named Cyrus, which God used as His instrument of restoration.
The Responsorial Psalm repeats the covenant people's lament as they were displaced from their homeland and taken away into exile. Amid their suffering, they remembered God's promise of a future restoration to their Promised Land and the promise of a Davidic king to shepherd God's people in an eternal covenant (2 Sam 7:16-17, 29; 23:5; Ezek 34:23-24).
In today's Second Reading, St. Paul reminds us that God is rich in mercy and always keeps His promises. God promised David that his kingdom would endure forever and a future Davidic heir would rule all nations (Ps 2:7-9). Jesus is that Davidic son and heir (Lk 1:31-32) whose sovereignty over all nations will restore all repentant sinners and bring them back from the exile of sin and death to the Promised Land of Heaven.
The Gospel Reading tells us that Jesus will restore His people through a spiritual rebirth, making every sinner in exile a child in the family of God. We can view the Old Covenant people's 6th-century BC exile in Babylon as a symbol for all who are alienated from God by sin since every sinner is a displaced person. Only those who repent their alienation and long for restoration can be saved and restored through the atoning sacrifice Jesus offered for humanity on the Altar of the Cross.
The First Reading 2 Chronicles 36:14-16, 19-23 ~
The Babylonian Exile and the Return
14 In those days, all the princes of Judah, the priests,
and the people added infidelity to infidelity, practicing all the abominations
of the nations and polluting the LORD'S Temple, which he had consecrated in
Jerusalem. 15 Early and often did the LORD, the God of their fathers, send his
messengers to them, for he had compassion on his people and his dwelling place.
16 But they mocked the messengers of God, despised his warnings, and scoffed at
his prophets until the anger of the LORD against his people was so inflamed
that there was no remedy. [...] 19 Their enemies burnt the house of God, tore
down the walls of Jerusalem, set all its palaces afire, and destroyed all its
precious objects. 20 Those who escaped the sword were carried captive to
Babylon, where they became servants of the king of the Chaldeans and his sons
until the kingdom of the Persians came to power. 21 All this was to fulfill the
word of the LORD spoken by Jeremiah: "Until the land has retrieved its lost
Sabbaths, during all the time it lies waste it shall have rest while seventy
years are fulfilled." 22 In the first year of Cyrus, king of Persia, in order
to fulfill the word of the LORD spoken by Jeremiah, the LORD inspired King
Cyrus of Persia to issue this proclamation throughout his kingdom, both by word
of mouth and in writing: 23 "Thus says Cyrus, king of Persia: All the kingdoms
of the earth the LORD, the God of Heaven, has given to me, and he has also charged
me to build him a house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Whoever, therefore,
among you belongs to any part of his people, let him go up, and may his God be with
him!"
The citizens of the Kingdom of Judah failed to repent their personal sins and their communal sin of apostasy from their covenant with Yahweh despite the many warnings by God's holy prophets of an impending divine judgment. Their failure led to God's judgment against the Kingdom of Judah, using the Babylonian army as the instrument of His divine punishment. Among the prophets the inspired writer had in mind in verse 16 were the 8th-century BC prophet Isaiah and the 6th-century BC prophets Jeremiah and Ezekiel. In the summer of 587 BC, the Babylonians attacked and destroyed Jerusalem and the magnificent Temple of Yahweh, which David's son, King Solomon, built (2 Kng 24:18-25:30; Jer 52:12-30). Most surviving citizens were taken away as captives to Babylonia to join Judeans exiled in two earlier deportations in 605 and 598 BC.
21 All this was to fulfill the word of the LORD spoken by
Jeremiah: "Until the land has retrieved its lost Sabbaths, during all the time
it lies waste it shall have rest while seventy years are fulfilled."
God commanded the seventy years' exile punishment in the 6th
century BC through the prophet Jeremiah
(Jer 25:11 and 29:10). Seventy years was
the number of Sabbath years of rest the citizens of Judah failed to observe
according to the Law: The LORD said to Moses on Mount Sinai, "Speak to the
Israelites and tell them: When you enter the land that I am giving you, let the
land, too, keep a Sabbath for the LORD. For six years, you may sow your field,
and for six years, prune your vineyard, gathering their produce. But during the
seventh year, the land shall have a complete rest, a Sabbath for the LORD, when
you may neither sow your field nor prune your vineyard" (Lev 25:1-4). The
Sabbath year was a test of faith and obedience in which the people had to rely
on God to meet their food needs. The people failed to keep the Sabbath years,
and therefore, they owed God's land seventy years of complete rest, which
became the duration of the exile that was a communal penance for the people.
The seventy years appear to run from the fall of Jerusalem in 587 to the Temple's
rebuilding in 517 BC, with funds provided by Cyrus of Persia.
22 In the first year of Cyrus, King of Persia, in order
to fulfill the word of the LORD spoken by Jeremiah, the LORD inspired King
Cyrus of Persia to issue this proclamation throughout his kingdom, but by word
of mouth and in writing: 23 "Thus says Cyrus, King of Persia: All the kingdoms
of the earth the LORD, the God of Heaven, has given to me, and he has also
charged me to build him a house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Whoever, therefore,
among you belongs to any part of his people, let him go up, and may his God be
with him!"
The 8th-century BC prophet Isaiah was the first
to deliver God's message that a king named Cyrus would liberate God's covenant
people from exile (Is 44:26-45:7). This prophecy was fulfilled historically in
King Cyrus of Persia (ruled 539-530 BC). Cyrus's conquest of Babylon dates from
the fall of 539 BC. In the first year of his reign over a united Persia, Cyrus
issued an edict in the fall of 538 BC, commanding the return of Judah's
citizens to their homeland (also see Ezra 1:1-4).
For the covenant people, the blinding of Davidic King Zedekiah and the death of his sons appeared to be the failure of God's covenant promise to King David that a Davidic son would sit on the throne of his kingdom forever (2 Sam 7:12-16, 29; 23:5; Sir 45:25; 47:11/13). However, the inspired writer of 2 Kings 25:27-30 recorded that a Davidic heir did survive (also see Jer 52:31-34). We learn from Matthew's genealogy of Jesus (Mt 1:12-17) and the genealogy in the Gospel of Luke (Lk 3:23-31) that the promised line of David did continue. Jesus of Nazareth fulfilled the covenant God made with David, as the angel told Mary: "Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name him Jesus. He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give him the throne of David his father, and he will rule over the house of Jacob forever, and of his Kingdom there will be no end" (Lk 1:31-33). Jesus is the eternal King who came to call all those displaced by sin in their relationship with God back from exile and to fully restore them as citizens in the Promised Land of His eternal Kingdom.
Responsorial Psalm 137:1-6 ~ The Song of the Exiles
The response is: "Let my tongue be silenced, if I ever forget
you!"
1 By the streams of Babylon, we sat and wept when we remembered
Zion. 2 On the aspens of that land, we hung up our harps.
Response:
3 For there our captors asked of us the lyrics of our
songs, and our despoilers urged us to be joyous: "Sing for us the songs of Zion!"
Response:
4 How could we sing a song of the LORD in a foreign land?
5 If I forget you, Jerusalem, may my right hand be forgotten!
Response:
6 May my tongue cleave to my palate if I remember you not,
if I place not Jerusalem ahead of my joy.
Response:
This psalm is a lament of the Judean exiles, recalling the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of Yahweh's holy Temple. The Babylonian conquest resulted in the forced deportation of the Davidic Kingdom of Judah's citizens on the tenth day of the fourth month (June-July) in 586 BC. "Zion" is the mountain upon which the Israelites built the Jerusalem Temple of Yahweh (also identified as "Moriah" in 2 Chron 3:1). However, the word "Zion" also came to be identified with the faithful of the Old Covenant Church (Is 28:16; also see the document: "Zion and the Presence of God.".
During the covenant people's resettlement in Babylon, their captors urged them to share their national hymns. They refused because most of the songs were part of liturgical worship sung in the Temple, the "House of Yahweh," many of which were composed by the great King David. They would not sing Yahweh's joyous hymns, but in their lament, they promised not to forget their hymns of praise, Yahweh, or their homeland, where they worshiped the God of Israel in beauty and truth.
Make this psalm your Lenten prayer. Recite it as you repent your sins in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. And after your restoration to fellowship with God, remember this psalm as you worship the Lord and sing songs of praise with the community of the faithful of Jesus Christ in the New Covenant liturgy of worship.
The Second Reading Ephesians 2:4-10 ~ Salvation in Christ
is a gift of Grace
4 God, who is rich in mercy, because of the great love he
had for us, 5 even when we were dead in our transgressions, brought us to life
with Christ: by grace you have been saved, 6 raised us up with him and seated
us with him in the heavens in Christ Jesus, 7 that in the ages to come he might
show the immeasurable riches of his grace in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.
8 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not from you; it
is the gift of God; 9 it is not from works, so no one may boast. 10 For we are
his handiwork, created in Christ Jesus for the good works that God has prepared
in advance, that we should live in them.
St. Paul states that salvation from sin and death is God's gift, and we should accept it in faith. Our good deeds cannot purchase our hoped-for justification and salvation; we cannot work our way to Heaven. Instead, our good deeds must manifest our purification and gratitude to God for His abundant love and mercy. The sinner who receives God's forgiveness and restoration of fellowship with Him and the faith community should desire to do something good in return for the gift of God's mercy and grace.
10 For we are his handiwork, created in Christ Jesus for
the good works that God has prepared in advance, that we should live in them.
In this verse, as in Colossians 2:12 and 3:1-4, the use of
the past tense indicates that the future event of the Christian resurrection
and glory united to Jesus in Heaven is considered an accomplished event. In
other words, Jesus is victorious; He has conquered sin and death! All we have
to do is to have the faith to claim victory in our journey to salvation. It is
another example that one's salvation is not a one-time event but a process. St.
Paul expressed this concept in his letters in the past, present, and future
tenses. As Christians, who are God's masterwork, having received the gift of grace
and a new life through the Sacrament of Baptism, we must provide a living example
of our radically altered spiritual life. When we live up to the challenge of a
holy life, we ratify God's calling in electing us for eternal life in the
Kingdom of Heaven (2 Pt 1:10).
The Gospel of John 3:14-21 ~ Jesus Came to Offer God's
Gift of Eternal Life
(Jesus said to Nicodemus) 14 "Just as Moses lifted up the
serpent in the desert, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15 so that everyone
who believes in him may have eternal life." 16 For God so loved the world that
he gave his only [only-begotten = monogene] Son so that everyone who
believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life. 17 For God did
not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might
be saved through him. 18 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. 19 And this is the verdict, that the
light came into the world, but people preferred darkness to light because their
works were evil. 20 For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and
does not come toward the light so that his works might not be exposed. 21 But
whoever lives the truth comes to the light, so that his works may be clearly
seen as done in God.
Interlineal Bible Greek-English, Vol. IV, page 255. (...) added for clarity but not in the
Greek text. [...] = literal Greek translation.
14 "Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert ...
Jesus compared Himself to
the healing image of the bronze serpent God told Moses to construct and raise above
the Israelites' heads on a standard in the wilderness journey to the Promised
Land (Num 21:4-9). All the people had to do when the bites of deadly snakes
afflicted them was to look at the figure raised above them on the standard to
be saved from death.
so must the Son of Man
be lifted up, 15 so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life."
The incident in the wilderness
was a foreshadowing of Christ's crucifixion. We must look to the crucified
Christ, believe that He is the only Son of God, and be "lifted up with Him" to
be saved from the "bite" of eternal death. If we believe, we can receive true
salvation, the gift of eternal life (Jn 3:18). When we turn in faith to Christ,
repenting our sins, He cleanses us by the purifying blood and water that flowed
from His pierced side (Jn 19:34; Zec 13:1). It is the reason St. Paul wrote in
1 Corinthians 1:23, we preach Christ crucified, and it is why in every Catholic
Mass, an image of the crucified Christ must be present.
Notice Jesus used the title "Son of Man" for Himself in verse 14. It was Jesus's favorite Messianic title for Himself. The title stressed Jesus's humanity, while the previous verse (not in our reading) stressed His divine origin as the one who has gone up to Heaven except the one who came down from Heaven, the Son of Man (Jn 3:13). Verse 13 is a reference to the Prophet Daniel's vision of the divine Messiah who had the appearance of a son of man/looked like a man in Daniel 7:13-14, which Jesus alluded to at His trial before His crucifixion (Mt 26:64; Mk 14:62).
Jesus said: 16 For
God so loved the world that he gave his only [begotten/monogene] Son, so
that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.
17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that
the world might be saved through him.
John 3:16 is one of the
best-known Bible verses. When Jesus said God the Father did not send Him into
the world to judge the world, He meant that God sent Him into the world to
announce the Kingdom of God and to offer the gift of salvation. Judgment comes
later and depends on whether or not one decides to receive Christ as Lord and
Savior.
Jesus continues in verses 18-21 to say that to believe in His "name" is to believe everything that He revealed about His true nature, human and divine. It is to believe Jesus is the Son of God, to believe that He died for our sins and that He rose from the dead to raise those who believe in Him to eternal life. But is there any in-between in so far as judgment is concerned? No. In rejecting Christ, one rejects salvation and eternal life. There is no "middle ground." Peter preached this in Acts 4:11-12 to the members of the Jewish Law Court (Sanhedrin) when he said, "This is the stone which you, the builders, rejected but which has become the cornerstone. Only in him is there salvation; for of all the names in the world given to men, this is the only one by which we can be saved" (emphasis added).
But what about the poor soul who never heard the Gospel and therefore never had the choice? They will be judged by their consciences and the innate, natural law that God has placed in the heart of every human being (see Rom 2:12-16). However, there is a problem because sin can erode one's conscience to the point where it will no longer be aware of the degree of wickedness. That is why spreading the Gospel across the earth is so important and necessary to bring salvation to every human being (also see Lk 12:47-48 and CCC # 846-48).
So then, to what was Jesus calling Nicodemus, a man who came to Him in darkness (see Jn 3:1-2)? He called Nicodemus to come out of the "darkness" of unbelief and into the "light" of faith. He could come into the "light" by professing belief in Jesus as the Messiah, the Son of God and the "Light of the world" (Jn 1:5; 8:12), who offers the gift of God's divine grace and restoration of fellowship with God to all men and women. Grace, in its most intimate definition regarding Christ, is nothing less than divine sonship. CCC# 1997: "Grace is a participation in the life of God. It introduces us to the intimacy of Trinitarian life ...." This gift of the grace that God gives to us is His own life, infused by the Holy Spirit into our souls, to heal us of sin and to sanctify us. This gift is the sanctifying or deifying grace we receive in Baptism. It is a gift of His life that God makes to us, and in turn, we become a new creation. St. Paul wrote: So whoever is in Christ is a new creation: the old things have passed away; behold; new things have come. And all this is from God, who has reconciled us to himself through Christ and given us the ministry of reconciliation, namely, God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting their trespasses against them and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation (2 Cor 5:17-18 NABRE; also see CCC # 1999).
So for anyone who is in Christ, there is a new creation: the old order is gone and a new being is there to see. It is all God's work; he reconciled us to himself through Christ and he gave us the ministry of reconciliation. I mean, God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not holding anyone's faults against them, but entrusting to us the message of reconciliation (2 Cor 5:17-18; also see CCC # 1999).
At the beginning of our lives, God made us creatures fashioned after His image. He made us in His image, but we are still creatures, nonetheless. Christ is the eternal Son "begotten" of the Father. He is the image of the Father, while we are created in the image of the Father. In the New Creation, Christ gives us rebirth into permanent sonship through His own life. In 1 John 1:3, John wrote: You must see what great love the Father has lavished on us by letting us be called God's children, which is what we are! (emphasis added). We are no longer just called children of God by being part of His creation. We ARE children of God by the blood of Christ, which unites us in our rebirth.
In Greek, the word is anothen, meaning = "from above or again." We are reborn "from above" to become God's children. This rebirth from above is the most distinctive feature of Christianity. It is what Pope Pius XI expressed when he said: "Ours is a religion of Divine Sonship. We are made partakers of the divine nature." St. Peter wrote, His divine power has bestowed on us everything that makes for life and devotion, through the knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and power. Through these, he has bestowed on us the precious and very great promises so that through them you may come to share in the divine nature, after escaping from the corruption that is in the world because of evil desire (2 Pt 1:3-4 NABRE; emphasis added). Also, see CCC# 1994-5.
God's grace "is a participation in the life of God" (CCC# 1997) through which we receive the gift of divine sonship, and by His grace, we are justified. Catholic Christians define justification as that which has been merited for us by Christ's Passion on the altar of the Cross. Like conversion, justification has two aspects: Moved by grace, we turn away from sin and to God. In submitting our lives to God, we accept forgiveness and righteousness in our transformed souls, which the Holy Spirit has infused with the very life of Christ. Justification includes the remission of our sins, sanctification, and the renewal of the inner person, which is an ongoing process in our lifelong journey toward salvation: "Our justification comes from the grace of God. Grace is favor, the free and undeserved help that God gives us to respond to his call to become children of God, adoptive sons, partakers of the divine nature and eternal life" (CCC# 1996, also see Jn 1:12-18; 17:3; Rom 8:14-17).
We are not just called "children of God" as creatures of the Creator like the people of God in the Old Covenant. The distinctive feature of divine sonship in the New Covenant is that we are no longer children in the exiled family of Adam. Through our Baptism by water and the Holy Spirit, we become reborn from above as genuine children in the family of God, infused with the life of the Son. The Catholic Church teaches that justification and salvation consist of not just being declared the children of God and thereby being only "declared just" but of actually receiving a mystical infusion of the life of Christ through which we are, in fact, justified. St. Augustine believed that the gift of salvation and the justification of the wicked was a more extraordinary work of God than the creation of Heaven and Earth because "heaven and earth will pass away but the salvation and justification of the elect...will not pass away." He also believed "that the justification of sinners surpasses the creation of the angels in justice, in that it bears witness to a greater mercy." Jesus came to call all men and women out of their displaced exile of sin and into eternal life as citizens in the Promised Land of Jesus's heavenly Kingdom.
Catechism References (* indicates Scripture quoted or
paraphrased in the citation):
2 Chronicles 36:21 (CCC 2172*)
Ephesians 2:4-5 (CCC 654*); 2:4 (CCC 211, 1073)
John 3:14-15 (CCC 2130*); 3:16 (CCC 219, 444, 454*, 458, 706*); 3:17 (CCC 679*); 3:18 (CCC 444, 454*, 679*); 3:20-21 (CCC 678*)
Christ as Savior (CCC 389, 457*, 458*, 846, 1019, 1507*)
Christ is the Lord of eternal life (CCC 679*)
God's gift of eternal life (CCC 55*)
Israel's exile foreshadowed the Passion of the Christ (CCC 710)
Michal E Hunt, Copyright © 2015; 5revised 2024 Agape Bible Study. Permissions All Rights Reserved.