JOURNEY INTO THE NIGHT WITH NICODEMUS

"It gave, indeed, did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world may be saved through him."

 

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Dear brothers and sisters,

in our lives we have had moments of great night and existential and spiritual darkness. In those moments the Lord was close to us with his Light, even if perhaps we didn't realize it at first. On this journey of Lent we can think back to those moments and discover the meaning of hope as theological charity. Nicodemus himself had come to Jesus at night. The two have a long exchange of which only part of it is actually reported today. The most important section:

"During that time, Jesasu said to Niconamo: “How Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so the Son of man must be raised up, so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life. In fact, God so loved the world that he gave the only Son so that whoever believes in him would not be lost, but have eternal life. It gave, indeed, did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but for the world to be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned; but those who do not believe have already been sentenced, because he did not believe in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the verdict: the light has come into the world, but men loved darkness more than light, because their works were evil. Anyone in fact does evil, He hates the light, and it does not come to light so that its works are not reproved. Instead, whoever does the truth comes towards the light, so that it may clearly appear that his works were done in God"" (GV 3, 14-21).

Initially Jesus refers to the serpent in the desert raised by Moses (14-15), arguing with great force that He is the newly raised one who will give eternal life. Effectively, the reference to the serpent was not new to Nicodemus. For here, Jesus, refers to the episode in which Moses took a snake and placed it on a pole to free the poisoned Jews from death (cf.. Nm 21,8 ss).

Here then is that Jesus is the New One Raised: the one who, if welcomed with faith and love, frees us from all the poisons of our life. The sins, vices and frailties. Embracing true and authentic life means discovering all your potential, the gifts of God and offer them in charity to others. It is therefore necessary to purify the gaze of our faith to try to encounter Jesus raised up even in moments of difficulty and suffering. Even that moment, if lived with faith it gives moments of growth: you enter new life when you are raised on your cross in Him, in moments crucial of life.

This flourishing in new life in Christ opens up hope for a better world already now, which builds the Common Good in Charity, and also eschatological hope. That is, the hope of being redeemed and one day going to Heaven. Jesus himself promises it to Nicodemus:

"It gave, indeed, did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world may be saved through him.".

The salvation that Jesus offers us It happens right on the cross, in which, with a supererogatory work he redeemed us from the dominion of sin and the devil; we drew on this salvation directly in our baptism and reinvigorated it in confirmation.

In this time of Lent we can reinvigorate the faith and hope of eternal life, always with acts of charity, but also with a look of hope and goodness on the history we live. Indeed, the personal micro-story that we live in our daily lives is a great gift of grace: God gave us life, freedom and personal vocation, therefore, our personal choices influence the construction of our daily life. Our daily life, if lived with faith and charity, allows us to hope to build a macro-history of the world in which we live, which opens the path of hope for eternal life. So, in our little daily journey we love, we believe and work in the Good at the same time we found the hope of a life that will be eternally beautiful because in the presence of God. Eternal life that will be inaugurated on Easter morning in which with Christ we will be called to be born never to die again.

Lent purifies us to learn to hope in the Eternal and no longer only in temporary realities. We ask the Lord to grow more and more in hope and increasingly generate a heart poured out by his Holy Spirit and Marian love.

Amen!

Santa Maria Novella in Florence, 10 March 2024

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