30/03/2003 – 4th. Sunday. Lenten Season - Year B 

The First Reading recalls one of the most painful events that affected the People of God, the destruction of the Holy City and the deportation of the people to Babilyon as slaves of their enemy. Why did this happened? The prophets had foretold it, but they were despised and ridiculed. They kindly tried to warn the people of their letting go and their pagan practices like other peoples. This Reading sounds like the story of the present world: devasted families, generation struggles, a return to pagan religions and magicians, giving in to drugs and other surrogates, abortion, sexual perversion and others as if they are not sins that calls upon those who commit them the ‘punishment’ as a consequence.

The so called ‘punishments’ of God are never irrevocable. When God let man punish himself, He does it in view of a renewal of the faithfulness of the people whom He follows and love tenderly. God cares for His People: if He punishes him, He does it so that they understand that they are on the wrong side that leads to ruin and hence, return on the way of life. That’s why, after seventy years, He raises a new king, the Persians Cyrus, that let free the deportated to return to their own land to build the Temple!

Sin and mercy, punishment and salvation, are the themes discussed by Jesus with Nicodemus. The teacher recalls an episode in the Book of Exodus, an episode that helps one to understand the designes of God regarding his life. During the journey in the desert the people was bitten by poisonous snakes as a punishment for their complains and rebellion against God. To the prayer of Moses, God answered by inviting the people to lift up a snake of bronze: those who would look with faith upon it, even though bit by a snake, will be healed.

We have to admit that the world is continuously bit by the ancient snake, who induce men to sin and hence, kept away from God, and to live in darkness so that they wont be able to see their own wicked actions. But such is God’s love for the world: The Son of man, the only Son of God, shall be lifted up, "so that whoever believes in Him should have life eternal"! God wants the salvation of man, eitherwise he would remain condemned. This is salvation: believing Jesus on the cross.

God’s proposal, from one side, is easy to accept and to live. On the other side, it encounters many oppossers, that would even let others to be saved. It is therefore necessary that each and everyone decides for himself in the light of the Father, free from the influence of others. To such a decision the catechumens prepare themselves and the baptized renew. They know that they have no support from the world, hence during these days they commit themselves to contemplate the love of God, the sacrifice of Jesus, and the gift promised to all those who believe.

Writing to the Ephesians, st. Paul helps us to remember and contemplate the merciful love of the Father! Thanks to Jesus, the Father saved us, and salvation reaches us when we believe in the Son. What does it mean to believe in Jesus? Keeping only in mind that Jesus is the Son of God and Saviour? Believing means to adhere to this truth! If Jesus is the Son of God, I’m to believe His Word, and live It in my life situations, personal, familiar, social…even though this might cost me a change. Believing that Jesus is the Saviour, and that it’s not me that save myself with my goodness, of which I decide the actions! The good acts are already predisposed by God, reminds us st. Paul. We are to obey to Him with joy! Faith is therefore obedience! The word obedience is instinctively refused by today’s man, afraid of being abused. The obedience of Faith goes to that God who loves us and knows only how to love us! It is to our benefit to obey Him! We can live in the light, without being ashamed of anything, for the actions done, and the obedience to God are the truth that produce good for all!

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