4th Sunday of Lent YEAR B
2 Chronicles 36:14-17, 19-23    Ephesians 2:4-10    John 3:14-21
"Rejoice, Jerusalem! Be glad for her, you who love her; rejoice with her, you who mourned for her" (Entrance Antiphon -- Isaiah 66:10-11). Why does the church invite us in the middle of the penitential season of Lent to rejoice? The story of a little incident that took place in Mainz in 1456 when Gutenberg was printing the first printed Bible can help us with the answer.
The printer had a little daughter, Alice, who came into the printing press and picked up a discarded sheet with only one line of print. That line of print read: "God loved the world so much that he gave..." Now, those were times when popular religion was a matter of living in fear and trembling before the awesome wrath of God. So Alice put the paper in her pocket and kept on thinking on the fact of God being so loving, and her face radiated with joy. Her mother noticed her changed behaviour and asked Alice what was making her so happy and Alice showed her mother the sheet of paper with the printed line. Her mother looked at it for some time and said, "So, what did God give?" "I don't know," said Alice, "but if God loved us well enough to give us something, then we need not be so afraid of Him."
What is love? What does it mean to say God loves us? To understand what the Bible means by God's love we must bear in mind that whereas the Greek language has three different words for three different types of love English has only one. In Greek we have (1) eros meaning romantic love (like the love between a man and a woman that leads to marriage), (2) philia meaning fellowship love (like the love for football which brings people together to form a fan club), and there is (3) agap or sacrificial love (like the love that makes a mother risk her own life for her yet unborn child). In romantic love we long to receive, in fellowship love we long to give and take, in sacrificial love we long to give. Now, with what kind of love does God love us? God loves us with agap or sacrificial love. "God loved the world so much that He gave." That is one big difference between God and us: God gives and forgives, we get and forget. Giving is a sign of agap. This is the kind of love God has for us. This is the kind of love we should have for one another. This is the kind of love that is lived in heaven. And where this kind of love is absent, what you get is hell.
A certain saint asked God to show her the difference between heaven and hell. So God sent an angel to take her, first to hell. There she saw men and women seated around a large table with all kinds of delicious food. But none of them was eating. They were all sad and yawning. The saint asked one of them, "Why are you not eating?" And he showed her his hand. A long fork about 4ft long was strapped to their hands such that each time they tried to eat they only threw the food on the ground. "What a pity" said the saint. Then the angel took her to heaven. There the saint was surprised to find an almost identical setting as in hell: men and women sitting round a large table with all sorts of delicious food, and with a four-foot fork strapped to their arms. But unlike in hell, the people here were happy and laughing. "What!" said the saint to one of them, "How come you are happy in this condition?" "You see," said the man in heaven, "Here we feed one another." Can we say that of our families, our neighbourhood, our church, our world? If we can say that, then we are not far from the kingdom of heaven.
Today the Church invites us to reflect on God's love for the world and to be joyful because of it. God loves each and everyone of us, so much so that He give us His only son. Today we are invited to say yes to God's love. It is sometimes hard to believe that God loves even me, But I believe it because I know that God loves unconditionally; no ifs, no buts. Then we can love God back and enter into a love relationship with God. Then, like little Alice, our faces will radiate the joy of God's love. Then we shall learn to share God's love with those around us. Then we shall learn to give to God and to one another,
Today's 2nd reading from the letter to the Ephesians contains two surprising teachings. One is that "God has raised us up with Christ and made us sit with him in the heavens" (Ephesians 2:6). Are we in heaven yet? The other is the popular only-by-faith, only-by-grace (sola fide, sola gratia) passage. "For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God -- 9 not the result of works, so that no one may boast" (Ephesians 2:8-9). This is a clear statement that good works do not count in the salvation of believers. Yet in the very next verse it says, "For we are ... created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life" (verse 10). If we are created in Christ Jesus for good works, and if good works should be our way of life, how then are good works useless for salvation? In this reflection we shall try to understand more clearly what Ephesians means when it says that we have already been exalted and given our places in heaven together with Christ, and that we are saved by grace apart from works and yet that good works should be our way of life.
The author of the Letter to the Ephesians is a Christian optimist who already claims in faith what in fact belongs to us only in hope. Paul had taught that believers all form one body in Christ. "Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it".(1 Corinthians 12:27). In Ephesians this doctrine is carried to its most logical conclusions. If we are parts of Christ's body, and Christ's body has been raised up to heaven and seated in the heavens, then we too are raised and seated in the heavens with him. This and similar extensions of Paul's teachings, which we find in the Letter to the Ephesians, makes some scholars believe that Ephesians was written not by Paul himself but by one of his disciples writing in Paul's name. The statement that we are already raised up and seated with Christ in heaven is a statement of faith and not of experience. The writer treats a reality that is not-yet as if it is already.
When we come to the issue of good works and salvation, we again notice a big shift from the position of Paul. Paul is clear and consistent in his teaching that "a person is justified not by the works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ" (Galatians 2:16, Romans 3:28). Paul is speaking of justification, which happens at the moment when a person repents, believes and is baptized in Jesus' name. Paul is not speaking of salvation, which is something that takes place in the future of the believer, at the moment of judgment (1 Corinthians 3:15, 5:5). For now we are still being saved (1 Corinthians 1:18), our salvation is near (Romans 13:11), and we should work it out with fear and trembling (Philippians 2:12). For Paul, the salvation of the believer in the world is a hope (1 Thessalonians 5:8) and not a done deal. In Ephesians, however, salvation is regarded as something that happens at the moment of belief in Christ. As such it is seen as an accomplished reality for the believer.
There is another important difference between Paul and Ephesians. Paul speaks of "works of the law" whereas Ephesians speaks of "good works." The two are not the same. Works of the law are ritual actions prescribed by the law, such as circumcision, not eating hotdog, and not working on the Sabbath (Saturday). These actions, in themselves, might not be good or bad. They are done simply because the law says for them to be done. Good works, on the other hand, are good. They benefit people. Examples are feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, visiting the lonely. Paul does not dismiss good works, he only dismisses works of the law. Ephesians, on the contrary, seems to discount good works.
So, what then are we to make of the two difficult teachings in today's 2nd reading, that we are already exalted and seated in heaven, and that good works do not count for salvation and yet should be our way of life? First, we should not try not to harmonise these teachings with those of Paul but see them as different teachings. In Ephesians we listen to a new teacher who highlights new aspects of the faith that Paul does not. What we possess in hope Ephesians sees as being already ours. That is how we are to understand the teaching that we are already in heaven with Christ. As for the apparently contradictory teaching on good works, we should stress the practical teaching in verse 10 that good works should be our way of life. Our coming to faith in Christ was made possible only by God's grace. Our belonging to Christ is made possible only by faith. But our life as people who already believe in Christ should be marked by good works. As God's people in the world, good works should be our way of life.

By Rt.Rev.Prof.Kasomo Daniel

Bishop of the Society of St.Peter and Paul