The Son of Man must be lifted up
Fourth Sunday of Lent (B)
We are moving now towards the most sacred time of the Christian year – the commemoration of the Paschal mystery of our Lord Jesus Christ. Holy week is just two weeks away. The Church’s eyes are now directed towards the great work of our salvation accomplished on Calvary.
On Good Friday, at 3pm in the afternoon, the time when the Lord died, we will come together for a solemn commemoration of the Passion. The liturgy is sombre and restrained. A special personal moment of each of us will be coming forward to venerate the cross.
Today’s Gospel reading prefigures the moment when we will look upon the cross on Good Friday.
Foreshadowing his passion and death, the Lord in today’s Gospel says prophetically, “The Son of Man must be lifted up as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life”. On Good Friday afternoon the cross will be lifted up in the Church and we will gaze upon it.
These words are from the final part of Jesus’ dialogue with Nicodemus found in Chapter 3 of St John’s Gospel. The “lifting up” of the Son of Man alludes to an episode during the Exodus journey of the Chosen People told in the Book of Numbers (21:4-9).
Finding themselves in the wilderness, without proper food or water, the Israelites have begun to grumble against the Lord and against Moses, and in consequence are punished with a plague of deadly snakes.
God who sent the punishment has also, in response to the prayer of Moses, sent the remedy: the erection of a bronze figure of a snake. When the Israelites looked upon this figure it acted as a life-giving antidote to the poison.
The Gospel passage takes this incident, where the Israelites found salvation and life by directly confronting what was afflicting them, as a type of the coming “lifting up” of the Son of Man upon the cross.
Those who will “look upon” the Crucified One with the eyes of faith, seeing him there as “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (1:29), will find eternal life.
St Paul commented in one place that God made the sinless One into sin. (2 Cor 5:21) Jesus, on the cross, embodied all human sin. It is a complex but profound thought. The people in the desert looked on a snake. When we look upon Christ, we see the one who assumed all our sins that we might be reconciled with God.
Immediately following this passage about being lifted up St John presents one of the most important (and most often quoted) New Testament scriptural texts: “God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not be lost but may have eternal life”.
The reference to the love of God for humanity is linked directly to the Lord being lifted up on the cross at Calvary. We cannot begin to understand the depth of the love of God for humanity until we contemplate the cross of Christ.
This can remind us of our attitude to the veneration of the cross on Good Friday. It is a deeply personal moment when we can show our gratitude to Christ and humbly accept the salvation won for us in such an extraordinary act of love. Nothing declares more who Jesus is than to look upon him on the cross. God loves the world this much!
When we contemplate this great act of the love of God to save sinful humanity, we do need to examine ourselves and recognise our need for salvation. We are all sinners. Considering what God was prepared to do to reconcile us to him, we surely should be moved to make our own personal reconciliation with God prior to Easter.
Jesus gave his life on Calvary that humanity might be reconciled with God and that human sin would be forgiven. In this regard we can note that the very first thing the risen Jesus did when he appeared to his disciples on Easter night was to say, “For those whose sins you forgive they are forgiven”.
The means by which the fruits of Calvary are made real and effective in our lives is through the sacramental encounter offered by going to Confession.
Such a price was paid for our sins, and there is such a simple way in which we can allow saving grace to flow upon us. All we need to do is to go to confession and confess our sins. The words of absolution from the priest echo the words of Christ: “For those whose sins you forgive they are forgiven”.
In the Archdiocese we have set aside one particular day as a ‘Day of Mercy’. It is Friday, 22 March. On that day priests will be available to hear confessions for an extended period.
Here in the cathedral from 6pm several priests will be available for as long as necessary to hear confessions. Come to the cathedral on that Friday night.
As we were reminded in the Gospel today, confession is a means by which what is in the dark is brought out into the light. Once in the light, healing comes upon our souls.
Archbishop Julian Porteous
Sunday, 10 March 2024