Jesus Meets with Nicodemus

Homily for the Fourth Sunday in Lent

Today we celebrate “Laetare” Sunday. The Latin word “laetare” means to be filled with joy. Yet I cannot help but notice that the responsorial psalm for today is one of the most powerful lamentations in the entire psalter. It begins like a ballad about the heart-rending experience of the Babylonian Exile which we read about in the first reading from the Second Book of Chronicles. The Assyrian Empire has destroyed both the northern and southern kingdoms of Israel and Judea and carried off all of the able-bodied men and women to serve as their slaves in the capital of the Assyrian Empire, Babylon.

We hear the voice of one of the temple musicians who has been asked by his captors to sing “a song of Zion,” one of the psalms that he would sing in the temple for the Lord. However, he tells us that it would be a mockery to sing of the sacred texts and rituals of the temple before non-believers. To do so would be akin to blasphemy. How can he sing one of the songs that proclaims that God’s city would last forever when it seems that all is lost? How can he endure the taunting which points out the failure of their belief in the words of their own songs? They are like the dead who have been consigned to Sheol who can no longer praise God from the grave. The singer swears an oath by what is most dear to a musician—hands and tongue—to exalt Jerusalem always.

The first reading also skips over the actual experience of exile and records that the exile was brought to an end by a pagan king, Cyrus of Persia. He and his army have attacked Assyria and have freed all of the Jewish exiles, giving them permission to return to their land and to rebuild their temple. This reading is used during Lent to remind us that through our baptism and our faith in Jesus, we also are commissioned to rebuild the kingdom that Jesus proclaimed.

The second reading for today’s liturgy comes to us from St. Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians. In this reading we can hear some of the joy of this particular Sunday as St. Paul waxes eloquent in praising God’s mercy as it has been shown to us in the life of Jesus who has saved his people through his own death and resurrection. St. Paul can never separate the death of Jesus from his resurrection. For him the two events are really one, for though Jesus dies on a cross, he becomes the one who points us to the fact that we will also rise from the dead if we die with him. Our own ritual of baptism points to this reality as we are immersed into the waters of chaos and rise from them with the grace of the Holy Spirit in our very body and soul.

The Gospel text for today comes to us from the Gospel of St. John who, unlike his predecessors, is not so much concerned with providing a biographical picture of Jesus. Rather, St. John uses certain motifs, poetic images, that reveal that Jesus is the Light of the World. In the very first chapter of his Gospel, he tells us that Jesus is a light that has been rejected by his own people. He emphasizes this point in his conversation with Nicodemus who is depicted by St. John as coming to Jesus in the dead of the night, using the darkness to hide himself from the gaze of his fellow Jewish elders. It is in the context of this conversation that Jesus speaks the words that have become the most familiar words of the Christian Scriptures: “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.” Jesus became one of us because God loved us, his creatures who he proclaimed to be very good in the first chapter of the Book of Genesis. Jesus tells Nicodemus that Jesus did not come to condemn; Jesus came to save. Perhaps the most amazing part of this statement is that we can be saved through our faith.

As he continues, Jesus points out that people who truly believe that he is the light of the world will perform deeds that point to the light. Those who do not believe will hide in the darkness, for they don’t wish to expose their evil deeds to the light where all can see them. This passage concludes with another powerful statement: “But whoever lives the truth comes to the light, so that his works may be clearly seen as done in God.” Yes, we are saved by faith; but a person of faith is someone whose deeds illuminate his faith for all to see.

St. John illustrates this particular statement throughout his Gospel as he very clearly points out when things happen. The woman at the well of Samaria comes to the well at noon when the light is strongest. Judas betrays Jesus at night and leads the cohort out to the Garden of Gethsemane with torches so that they can find Jesus. When Jesus gives up his life on the cross, John comments on the fact that the sun disappears and darkness envelops the people standing near the cross. Peter denies Jesus as he sits by the fire in the courtyard of the high priest. Judas hangs himself at night when he realizes what he has done.

Laetare Sunday announces that our Lenten journey is almost finished. We approach our Paschal feast when we celebrate the passion, death, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus. The church begins the celebration of Easter in the darkness where a new fire is kindled and the Paschal candle is lit as a sign that the light of the world has been raised from the dead. Let us be joyful today as we celebrate our redemption by Jesus’ death on the cross.