His Light Has Come

Ephesians 2: 4 - 10

But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

This reflection could well be connected to the sequence we had in the month of January, talking about the Time. The coherence of the Bible about the fulfillment of times should serve us in our personal anguish to recognize that God acts in accordance with his absolute control over everything that happens, which is why his plans are perfect. Nature knows very well about the fulfillment of times, which is why the seasons occur with the simplicity of what God designed, and it does so with sufficient perfection, even despite climate change; The cycle of the seasons is still there, reminding us of the majesty of God. Also, the gestation of a baby in the womb of his mother is a wonder that occurs based on times defined by the wonderful hand of God.
 
In the liturgical calendar this is the time of Easter to remember the vicarious death of Christ on the Cross, in this way we can increase our dependence on Jesus, but it is also a time to discern our reality and confront it in the light of the gospel to illuminate the darkness of indifference and individualism and propose a more supportive and active attitude in the transformation of our lives and our relationships. This fourth Sunday of Lent, we celebrate with new hope. When it seems that all is lost, the Spirit of God is floating: his word, making calls, giving us guidance that is truly our salvation. Lent is a journey towards Easter; its perspective is the risen Christ who offers us a new life. Christ paid with his cross, with his passion for the miseries of human beings. God is offering us salvation in Christ! It is not simply a law as we meditated last Sunday: A moralism; It's about his love. Love for Christ is the best reason to live in holiness, to please Christ. If human beings let us be reached by that love, everything would be different. If the world is in crisis, it is because we do not believe in God. Obviously, for the unbelievers, this is an absurd explanation. Now is the time to believe in God and not only religiously but in the authenticity of a contextual and relational God.
 
On April 8, 2024, the country will witness an extraordinary celestial phenomenon: a total solar eclipse in Canada. This rare event will darken the midday skies over North America, giving observers a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to witness a breathtaking spectacle. Total solar eclipses are rare events, with NASA noting that they occur approximately two to four times a year. However, the probability of witnessing them is much lower. According to NASA, the area of land covered by total solar eclipses is narrow, only about 80 kilometers wide. Some specific areas may experience a total eclipse only once every hundred years. In the case of Canada, the last time a significant portion of the country experienced a total solar eclipse was on February 26, 1979. The event will be especially impactful in areas like Hamilton and Niagara Falls, where a true total eclipse will be experienced. However, before you get excited and look directly at the sky, experts warn about the need to take precautions to protect your eyes. NASA recommends using specialized "eclipse glasses" or indirect methods, such as a pinhole projector, to avoid eye damage. Regarding safety, we offer valuable tips to enjoy the eclipse safely. Eye protection is essential, and we provide information on recommended types of glasses and safe viewing methods.
 
Just as we can live this astronomical event with expectation, we must also prepare to live the event of the full realization of the Kingdom of God as part of our Christian responsibility and our hope. Let's go to the Bible to discern God's message.

Last Sunday, we were studying Moses on Mount Sinai. There, the story stopped being that of Abraham as a promise of a great people and became a reality. Four centuries had passed, and Abraham was represented in that crowd of Israelites walking towards the promised land; These people had to ally with God, they had to respond to so many privileges that God had granted them in the desert and throughout their history, the response had to be the fulfillment of this decalogue. God had designed all the relationships of human beings with God and with each other. The alliance included a law, and from that moment, a new phase in the history of salvation began, called the Mosaic Era, that is, Moses. The main characteristic of that stage was the law given to Israel.
 
The sin broke the alliance. The bibles says in Numbers 21: 4-9: They traveled from Mount Hor along the route to the Red Sea, to go around Edom. But the people grew impatient on the way; they spoke against God and against Moses, and said, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? There is no bread! There is no water! And we detest this miserable food!” Then the Lord sent venomous snakes among them; they bit the people, and many Israelites died. The people came to Moses and said, “We sinned when we spoke against the Lord and against you. Pray that the Lord will take the snakes away from us.” So, Moses prayed for the people. The Lord said to Moses, “Make a snake and put it up on a pole; anyone who is bitten can look at it and live.” So Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole. The,n when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, they lived.
 
But in that time of Moses, in that time of the law that spanned several centuries, very good things happened, but also very bad things. When the Israelites, led by Moses, entered the difficult road of the desert, they murmured against him. This murmuring was punished in the desert. Some poisonous snakes appeared that bit, and whoever was bitten by the snake died. Faced with this calamity, they ran to Moses to tell him what was happening. Moses, as usual, prays to the Lord, and the Lord gives him the answer: "Build a bronze snake, lift it on a pole, anyone who looks at the snake with faith will be free from the poison of those poisonous snakes."
 
Who knows just what these serpents were?  The fact that they are called “fiery” literally in Hebrew could indicate that these were not ordinary snakes.  They sound like maybe a divine kind of sign or something.   But whatever they were, the main thing to know about these serpents is that they were lethal.  If the God who sent them doesn’t do something to get rid of them, the people would soon start to die in big numbers. As is the predictable pattern in Numbers, God does respond to Moses’ plea on behalf of the people.  Curiously, however, he does not respond by just evaporating the fiery snakes he had sent in the first place.   That would have been the logical thing to do.   God sends snakes, God removes snakes.   That’s what the people asked Moses to pray, too, and presumably, he did so; he prayed that God would “take the snakes away for the people.” In the New Testament, we find the words of the apostle Paul to the Ephesians that say...
 
The resurrection of Jesus Christ and his exaltation as Lord at the right hand of the Father is the beginning of what we hope for, believing that the triumph of the “head” is at its root the triumph of all the “members” (Cor 2, 12; 3, 1-4); but it is nothing more than the beginning of the end that has yet to be fulfilled for the benefit of those of us who journey in hope. That is why we need to persevere, resist with patience (cf. Rom 8, 25) and keep hope in suspense (Eph 4, 4; Rom 8, 24). Paul places at the center of his attention what he has previously put in parentheses in v 5; that is, the gratuitousness of our salvation in Christ. The following verses until the end of the text offer a summary of his doctrine, widely explained in the letters to the Romans and the Galatians. Salvation comes from God and is not the final product of our good works and the demand of our merits. Therefore, we have nothing to boast about, and everything is a reason for thanksgiving to God. Although man can believe or not, reject or freely accept God's salvation, "good works" in the Pauline sense are already the fruit of the salvation received, an expression of grace.
 
In the gospel of John, we find again the figure of the desert serpent, now connected to Jesus Christ. John 3:14-21
 
Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.” For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.

With the story of the bronze serpent lifted by Moses in the desert (Num 21:8f.), John illustrates the "lifting" of the Son of Man on the cross. The word “elevation” is used in a double sense: elevation to the cross and elevation to the right hand of the Father. We Christians have translated it as "exaltation." John sees in the crucifixion, and not after it, the culminating moment of Jesus' life, the "hour" of his glorification. The “exaltation” is the transition of Jesus from the world to the Father, the saving Passover (Jn 12, 32), glorifying Jesus (17, 2; cf. 13, 31f). The best comment on this text is made by John in his first letter (4, 9s). "Perdition" (or death) and "life" are contrasted here, just as in the next verse, "condemnation" (or judgment) and "salvation." Man can only escape perdition and condemnation if, by believing in Jesus Christ, he receives life and salvation.
 
There are two ideas that I want to propose for this day about putting our Christian faith. First, we must think about the need to discern the times, and to do so, we must be attentive. Nowadays, there is a lot of misinformation about everything. Last week I talked about the enormous problem of consumerism, and now I want to add the problem of individualism. When we are uninformed, we are victims of the selfishness of our interpretations, we are victims of ideologies, and we can go so far as to deny God or fall into the idolatry of things.
 
According to John, salvation or damnation occurs when man resists the Gospel with his disbelief: for he who does not believe condemns himself and deprives himself of the last opportunity to achieve life. According to this, the “final judgment” would be nothing other than the divine confirmation of that sentence that man executes against himself, by handing over his existence to perdition and death. In front of the "darkness", which is presented here as a personification of evil, rises the "light" which is the Son of God himself in person (1:4s). The coming of "light" into the world denounces the existence of "darkness" and, although the Son of God does not come to judge anyone, his presence inevitably establishes a judgment. The "light", and therefore the proclamation of the gospel,  questions men and forces them to decide between faith and salvation, or unbelief and perdition. Many decide to disbelieve because their works are not good. We speak here of "making the truth" because for Juan, the truth, like the lie, is not two opposing theories. But two contradictory ways of living. Those who act perversely oppose the truth with the lie of their life and hide their evil deeds by fleeing from the light. On the other hand, those who do the truth seek the light, so that their good works may be seen.
 
To overcome individualism, we must face reality; we must not live with our backs to reality but be well informed about everything that happens in our reality, in our community, in our environment, because we are not isolated individuals, but we are part of a community and therefore, what affects one, affects us all. We must pray for our community and be supportive in prayer and accompany those who are in need due to illness or problems of different kinds. This week, while participating in the Prayer Breakfast in Toronto, I learned about the difficult situation of refugee shelters; we must pray so that the churches can contribute right here to find answers that dignify the human condition. Likewise, we must pray for places where there are armed conflicts, such as Ukraine and Palestine, so that sanity and justice reach especially the victims, and for there to be restorative justice.
 
Each one carries a cross, but all people are also called to hope, every day is an appropriate day to seek the cross, times are propitious for hope because they are bad times, times of human tragedy, because each person faces their own drama and is increased by the structural conditions of our societies dominated by complex economies and the high cost of living, in addition to the climate crisis, but the time of salvation is present in Christ's promise to restore all things, the cross It is the raised image but not for idolatry, last week we warned about the problem of idolatry, those that come from politics, consumerism and also from the theology of prosperity, we should not turn to idolatry in search of healing or solve our individual or structural problems, we must believe in Christ, in his word, in the Holy Spirit who works miracles on our behalf, that is why we must not faint or stop believing, we must not renounce against God because the acceptable time has come, God in his mercy will give us a way out.
 
We must bear the reality of individual and social sin, which lies in the lack of solidarity and indifference, we must respond communally in favor of those who need it most inside and outside our borders and do so in the name of who is the salvation raised for all who believe in our Lord and savior Jesus Christ, to whom be honor and glory forever and ever.