Homily Lent 4B: God loves us with carrot and stick

 Homily for 4^th Sunday of Lent Year B 2021

2 Chronicles 36:14-16,19-23; Ephesians 2:4-10; John 3:14-21

Introduction

John 3:16. This is the verse you will often see displayed on billboards, on hand-made signs held up in stadiums and on pendants worn especially by evangelical Christians. And what does John 3:16 say?  As we just heard in today’s gospel, it says: “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.”

You can perhaps see the reason why this verse is famous, because it describes the core message of the gospel, the message of God’s love for us.  We human beings show love for others using words, like “I love you”; or by doing things like cooking a really nice meal; or by our presence, by spending time with someone, especially when they are sick or down in the dumps.  And yet our love as human beings, even the love of parents for their children, spouses for each other, pales in comparison to the love of God.

Scripture and Theology

But first, what is love?  What does it really mean to love someone?  Does it mean all sunshine and roses?  Not really.  That is the superficial kind of love we hear in musical lyrics, read in tabloid magazines and see in the movies.  Love is not about how we feel; love is willing or desiring the good of another person.  And that is how God loves us.  He desires good for us.  In fact, this verse which we heard in our gospel today, is only the culmination of a long history of God showering love upon love on his people.  Sometimes he loved with the carrot, sometimes he loved with the stick. But in both ways he desires our good.

In the first reading we heard how the people of Israel sinned, adding infidelity upon infidelity.  Think of any sin against the Lord and they did it.  The most serious sin was that they practiced "all the abominations of the nations" and polluted "the LORD’s temple which he had consecrated in Jerusalem."  They turned away from their God and turned to other gods, even bringing their statues into the temple, God's holy house.  What does the Lord do in this situation?

He acts like any good and loving parent, who has someone speak to their wayward child, perhaps the school counsellor or the priest or a relative, someone who can speak to them and help them see the right path.  And so, God showed his love for the people by sending them prophets: the major prophets like Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel and the twelve minor ones including Hosea, Joel and Amos.  These prophets taught the people the way of righteousness.

But as we heard in the reading, the leaders rejected the prophets that God sent to help them, even killing some of them.  In this way they compounded the situation, by not only sinning, but also by refusing the help of those who came to heal them of their sinfulness, like a patient who rejects the doctor's advice.

How did God react to this further provocation?  He had had enough.  He sent the people into exile.  Back in the 8^th century B.C., he had sent the people of the northern Kingdom of Israel into the Assyria. Our reading today describes the situation in the 6th century B.C., when God also sent the people of the southern Kingdom of Judah into exile, this time into Babylon.

By this action of sending them into exile God was not giving up on the people, but was continuing to show them love.  Yes, God punished them severely, by allowing them to be enslaved like their forefathers had been enslaved in Egypt.  The exile was a time for the people to learn from their pain and suffering, that they must be faithful to God.  Think of the punishment of detention that you give your children.  As a parent or teacher, I would hope that you do not punish your children out of hate or vengeance, but out of love for them, out of a desire to see them grow and become better people.  And so, because he had used the carrot before, now with the exile God had to use the stick to help the people.

That is why the punishment was not to last forever.  After 70 years, God sent the exiles a saviour, a very unlikely saviour, the pagan Persian King Cyrus.  He freed the Jewish people from captivity in Babylon to return Jerusalem, to rebuild their temple and their community.  And on returning home, that is what they did.

And now when they had been back home for quite some time, God then showed them his utmost love.  If he sent King Cyrus to help the people return to their national homeland, in Jesus his Son, God sent them a Messiah to restore them to their heavenly homeland.  That is why John's Gospel of today proclaims loud and clear: “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.”

This is wonderful news; this is God showing his love once again for his people.  For now, in Jesus Christ, final salvation has come not only to the people of Israel but indeed to the whole world.  Jesus is the new Moses telling, not Pharaoh this time, but the Evil one: "let my people go!"  That is why in John's First Letter he describes God's love in another way saying: "See what love the Father has bestowed on us that we may be called the children of God. . .. Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we shall be has not yet been revealed. We do know that when it is revealed we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is" (1 Jn. 3:1-2).  For those who know Jesus, fall in love with him, do his will, God has opened the gates of heaven.

Christian Life

But this love of God came at a cost, the suffering and death of God’s Son on the Cross.  That is why the verse about God so loving the world that he sent his son is immediately preceded by Jesus saying: “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.”  In other words, just like the Hebrew people were healed from the snake bites by looking to the serpent Moses lifted up for them, God's people will find healing by turning to Jesus who is lifted up on the cross.  By his Cross we are saved!  By his Cross we are loved.

How do we respond to this love, to this great love of Jesus on the Cross?  There is a scene in the movie Saving Private Ryan that might give us an answer.

You might remember, this movie is about a group of soldiers sent to save private James Ryan, who has already lost two of his brothers to the war; the army wanted his parents to remain with one son.  Anyway, many of these men die in the process of saving James, including their leader Captain Miller who just before he dies tells the now rescued Ryan, “James.  Earn this . . . earn it.”

Ryan seems to take these last words of the captain very seriously.  In a scene set with Ryan as an old man, he returns to Europe to the cemetery where Captain Miller is buried.  Staring at the grave marker he mumbles to his dead commander that every day of his life he has thought of Miller’s dying words.  He has tried to live a good life, at least he hopes he has.  He hopes he has earned the sacrifice that Captain Miller and his men made in giving up their lives for his.

But he is not really sure.  He wonders how any life, however well lived, could be worth the sacrifice of all those men.  The old Ryan stands up, but does not feel released.  Trembling and filled with anxiety he turns to his wife and pleads to her, “Tell me I’ve led a good life.”  Confused by his request, she asks: “What?”  He has to know the answer, so he asks her again: “Tell me I’m a good man.”  Finally, she responds to him and says: “Yes you are.”

Conclusion

Of course, we cannot earn God’s love, but we respond in a way commensurate with the very price paid by God to show us this love.  Are we using this Lenten season to respond to such wondrous love with equally wondrous lives?