Homily: Remembering Jesus

Year B / Lent / 4th Sunday

Readings: 2 Chronicles 36.14-16, 19-23 / Psalm 137.1-2,3,4-5, 6 (R/v 6b) / Ephesians 2.4-10 / John 3.14-21

A man, crying, announces a nation’s separation from Federation. Vast tracts of swampland are developed for economic growth. Hundreds of housing blocks are built for a growing population. Schools mushroom and bilingualism becomes a way of life. National Service transforms boys to men. Racial riots lead to inter-racial and inter-religious harmony. The Singapore Girl charms the world. Campaigns proliferate to make us good, better, best. Train lines snake the island to speed us from A to B. The economy thrives. The arts blossom. A financial crisis threatens. SARs pains us all. Local politics diversifies. Society matures and differing people find their voices. 

Fifty years on: these are some memories of Singapore changing, transforming and becoming a nation and home. Our SG50 (Singapore50) celebrations are about counting our blessings, naming our regrets, asking the what-ifs, strengthening our belonging and looking ahead with hope. But to do these, we need to remember.

And “to remember” is a theme in our readings on this 4th Sunday of Lent. 

We hear of how Israel remembers the great things God has done in their past in our first reading. The Israelites were exiled for their infidelities against God and against one another. But at the anointed time, God in compassion gathered them as nation again and restored their temple through King Cyrus, their enemy. 

God’s mercy sets right what is wrong. This is Jesus’ message to Nicodemus in the gospel story. He speaks about God sending God’s only Son to save the world from sin. Jesus’ words invite Nicodemus -- and us -- to embrace this truth that gives us life to the full. 

How can we do this? By remembering the constancy of God’s faithfulness to humankind. The Cross is the sign of God’s strong and constant faithfulness:  as Jesus is lifted up to save the world, so did God save when Moses lifted up the serpent to heal the sick in the desert. Paul challenges Christians to remember God’s faithfulness to save in the second reading. We are never to forget that the goodness of God’s love saves us, not our efforts or merits. 

Yes, our readings invite us to recall and to marvel at how blest we are. But are we constantly aware of how grateful we ought to be? And do we always practice thanksgiving to God who in Jesus on the Cross has already saved us, and, not as some us teach, yet to save us?

Today, we are fifty years removed from the founding events of independent Singapore. Some of us will never really know the anxiety, concerns and pains many pioneers felt at Separation. Nor, will we know their efforts and struggles to build our nation with very few resources, and I think a “do or die” determination to succeed. Though we, especially the young, do enjoy the fruits of their labor, we also find ourselves criticising their shortcomings. We might even disdain what they have achieved because this little red dot is not good enough to be home. Time has indeed distanced us from those historic events and dulled the sense of being freed. What we might forget in all this is having a generosity to give thanks. 

Could this also be how we are as we approach Lent this year? Just another Lent; same old, same old. If this is our disposition, then, what we have forgotten is that God’s gift of Lent is “to remember.” 

To remember that you and I have been saved and liberated from sin, and we loved into God’s merciful union. More significantly, we forget that Lent affords us time to reflect upon our present personal histories of rebelling, of being enslaved, of being unfree, so that we can experience again God's saving love.

The names of Ahmad Ibrahim, Goh Keng Siew, S Rajaratnam, and K.M Byrne might mean very little to most Singaporeans today, unless we read up and remember. We can forget them, as we can also forget the name and person of Jesus. 

Unless we make the effort to remember Jesus and his saving actions, we might find ourselves wondering what all the fuss about Lent is: “after all, we’re saved, so what’s new about that?” we can ask ourselves. Forgetfulness of Jesus and his redeeming actions can make us strangers to the central mystery of our faith, God saving us in Jesus.

This is why our gathering in faith as a family to pray, as a community to worship, as disciples to go on mission is how we remember that God saves us in Jesus, not individually but together. In our second reading, Paul mentions a "you" who are saved by God's mercy.  Is that a "we" or "me?"  The answer is to be found in the gospel story: Jesus talks to Nicodemus as a person, as he also addresses all humanity.  Yes, God so loved the "world,” that God sent God’s only Son to save not just Nicodemus, but all of us.

I’d like to suggest that today’s readings and liturgy "gets us in touch" once again with God’s universal salvation for all by helping us to remember. To remember who Jesus is and how Jesus saved us once in history into God’s love and life, and why he continues to do this today. For Pope Francis this is how we can draw near to God in certain and hope-filled confidence that we will be pardoned (Homily, Penance Service, 13 March 2015).

But it is not always easy to be grateful, is it? Grateful or the ordinary in our lives, like being born, being loved in our families, being given so many simple things in life? And don’t we especially struggle to say “thank you” for being personally saved by Jesus when sinfulness overwhelms us?

This is why the Cross is not meant to make us feel guilty and unworthy. Rather, it is meant to really comfort and console us. For Paul, Jesus lifted up on the Cross should assure us that "God, who is rich in mercy, because of the great love he had for us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, brought us to life with Christ" (Ephesians 2.4-5).  

Yes, Jesus saved us a long time ago by lifting us up with him to God. But this saving event -- the death and resurrection of Jesus -- can remain just a distant event in history and not our living reality if we forget it. Today, you and I are being asked to draw nearer to this God event so that we will always recall it. As we do so -- and we should -- we might begin to not only remember God’s saving love in Jesus yesterday but really savor God’s goodness in Jesus today and forever. Shall we not come closer to the Cross then and remember God’s goodness for us?

Preached at St Ignatius Church, Singapore

Photo: from the Internet (swsnapshortsandnotes)