2024-Mar-10: Fourth Sunday in Lent

2 Chronicles 36

This reading tells of Judah’s demise under its last three leaders, Jehoiakim, Jehoiachin, and Zedekiah. Like most of their predecessors, these leaders embraced evil - relying not on God but on their own judgment, ignoring the repeated warning of prophets like Urijah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel thereby spurring Yahweh and entering into alliances with Egypt to secure their future. This resulted in idolatry and heavy taxation by Egypt who installed puppet Kings they could control. 

God then removed His hand of protection and allowed Nebuchadnezzar II to gain control of Judah, plunder and destroy the Temple which had become defiled and send its people into exile for 70 years. The people, including God's prophets, suffered because of the sins of these evil leaders. Finally, God was faithful not to abandon His people in exile. 

After 70 years of captivity, He used a Persian king named Cyrus to free His people. God wants you to place your hope in Him. Even when you sin, He promises never to leave or forsake you.

Psalm 137

Zion was understood by Israel to be the Temple in Jerusalem which was the symbol of God's presence in their midst and everything it stood for: the covenant, the temple, the presence and the kingship of Yahweh, atonement, forgiveness and reconciliation. It was destroyed by the Babylonians during the conquest and destruction of Jerusalem in 587 BCE and the Jews were taken into captivity.

The psalm commences with the melancholy recollection of the destruction of the temple and Jerusalem which caused the Israelite captives to mourn and stop playing their musical instruments, metaphorically hanging them on the tree. The sad memory makes them sit and mourn over the temple and put away their instruments.

Their captors tormented them asking them to sing praise to their Gods while in captivity but they can't seem to muster the spirit to mock Yahweh because the songs of Zion celebrated the majesty and protection of Yahweh over his people. The Babylonians wanted to convince the Israelite captives that Yahweh had forgotten and abandoned them, implying that Yahweh was weak, powerless and could not deliver his people in their time of trouble.

 

However, the Israelite captives refused to participate in the mockery of Yahweh. Singing a song of Zion in a foreign land would be an insult to Yahweh. The Israelite captives couldn't bring themselves to sing a song intended to praise Yahweh for the amusement of their masters.
If the psalmist forgets Jerusalem, which implies disloyalty to Yahweh, then the psalmist calls a curse on himself, by asking God to paralyse him so that he would not be able to play his instrument or sing.

Source: http://www.scielo.org.za/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1010-99192018000100010

Ephesians 2:4-10

Imagine a building contractor whose responsibility is to clear the area of dirty materials before even laying a foundation for a large house. In this new house constructed by God, Paul invites Jews and Gentiles, previously enemies to live in harmony, discovering their God-giving gifts, talents, and skills and to apply these in a way pleasing to God. Knowing one’s gift is a liberating way to live, work, and function alongside others in a way that builds God’s Kingdom here on earth. 

The message of the letter is that peace and harmony are possible when people cease to live in alienation.

Death is not just a biological event. In today's reading, death is the slow decomposition of what was once vital and full of possibility. Our lives are so salted by sin that nothing grows. 

St Paul presents a vision where we are rescued from a land of death and allowed to sit beside Christ in eternity. Moreover, God's grace is freely given, never out of obligation

What this passage reveals is the central role of the cross or the Christ event. Jesus Christ becomes the means through which the unity of “all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth,” are made possible.  In essence, Ephesians calls all people, nations, women, men, youth, and adults to find their place in God’s mission.

Source; https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/fourth-sunday-in-lent-2/commentary-on-ephesians-21-10-4

John 3:14-21

John 3:1-21 records a nighttime conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus, one of the Jewish leaders of the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem; he recognizes Jesus as a teacher from God (verse 1-2), but he comes in secret, at night when no one will know and he is obtuse. Jesus chides him for his lack of understanding.

In the Old Testament, specifically in Numbers 21, the Israelites wandering in the desert after being liberated out of bondage in Egypt grumble against God’s wilderness provisions. To reveal their mistake, the Lord sends poisonous serpents, who bite and kill many Israelites. When they cry out to Moses for intercession, God’s prescription is a mounted serpent set up in the camp. To experience healing, the Israelites must look to the serpent raised above them: that is, they must see the image of their sin acknowledge their wrongdoing and accept God’s gift of life. 

God’s motivation for sending Jesus is not condemnation, but love. God sends Jesus into the world, and the mission culminates with Jesus’ own exaltation upon a stake: a Roman cross. Lifted high, Jesus’ pierced body demands attention as the narrator’s gaze lingers on this scene. Just like the serpent in the wilderness, Jesus’ body, the very location of God’s glory (John 2:21-22), is the most staggering revelation of the Gospel.

This passage then is a story about an encounter with Jesus that left an intelligent and accomplished man, Nicodemus, scratching his head in bewilderment - asking him to reevaluate all he held tone true - and it proved too much for him so he went back out into the darkness. 

Today however this is a story about how any one of us might reject the light offered to us because of the way it exposes what is dark in us. Instead of placing our trust in the values of the world, we are called to place our trust in God - focusing not on our insecurities of happiness, health and safety but giving ourselves to god's mission here on earth.

Source: https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/fourth-sunday-in-lent-2/commentary-on-john-314-21-3