BISHOP BARRON – ON JOHN 3:16

Jesus said to Nicodemus:
“’Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of Man be lifted up. . . so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.’

For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.”  John 3:14-16

(All of the quotations below are from “Diamonds from the Dirt”,  Reflection on John 3:16, Bishop Robert Barron – On John 3:16, Word On Fire Bible, 2020.)

God becoming man was something like having to reinstall the operating system on a computer.  Something got messed up. In this reflection Bishop Robert Barron gives us some insights into the “mind” of God whose logic was planted in us before man’s choices started our malfunctioning. Thus the mission of Jesus was:

“In his passion to set right a disjointed universe, God broke open his own heart in love. The Father sent not simply a representative, spokesman, . . but his own Son into the dysfunction of the world so that he might gather that world into the bliss of the divine life.”

“God’s center — the love between the Father and the Son — is now offered as our center; God‘s heart breaks open so as to include even the worst and most hopeless among us.”

“In so many spiritual traditions, the emphasis is placed on a human quest for God, but this is reversed in Christianity. Christians do not believe that God is dumbly ‘out there’ like a mountain waiting to be climbed by various religious searchers. On the contrary, God, like the hound of heaven in Francis Thompson’s poem, comes relentlessly searching after us.”

“Because of this questing and self-emptying divine love, we become friends of God, sharers in the communion of the Trinity.”

WHY DEATH ON THE CROSS?

Some, perhaps many, of our past preachers and teachers “infected our minds” with the idea that God became a man in order it appease God for the sins of humanity. This may be akin to an attitude we had as children thinking that our parent may be upset with us for not doing as we were told.

Carefully reflect on Bishop Barron’s message to those of us who may have transferred that erroneous thinking onto God.

”. . . . There is a terrible interpretation of the cross that has, unfortunately, infected the minds of many Christians. This is the view that the bloody sacrifice of the Son on the cross was “satisfying” to the Father, and appeasement of a God infinitely angry at sinful humanity. In this reading, the crucified Jesus is like a child hurled into the fiery mouth of a pagan divinity in order to assuage its wrath. It is no wonder that many, formed by this cruel theology, find the Christian doctrine of the cross hard to accept.

“What eloquently gives the lie to that awful interpretation is this passage from John’s Gospel, which is often proposed as a summary of the Christian message. God the Father is not some pathetic divinity who’s bruised personal honor needs to be restored; rather, God is a parent who burns with compassion for his children who have wandered into danger. It is not out of anger or vengeance or a desire for retribution that the Father sends the Son but precisely out of love. Does the Father hate sinners? No, but he hates sin. Does God harbor indignation at the unjust? No, but God despises injustice. Thus God sends his Son, not gleefully to see him suffer, but to set things right.

JESUS’ MISSION:  NOT TO SUFFER, BUT TO SET THINGS RIGHT

“St. Anselm, the great medieval theologian, who is often unfairly blamed for the cruel theology of satisfaction, was eminently clear on this score. We sinners are like diamonds that have fallen into the muck; made in the image of God, we have soiled ourselves through violence and hatred.”

Do you see yourself and those you hear about in the news, or encounter in your everyday life, as diamonds that may have fallen into the muck – muck of the violence and hatred? And from whence does this arise? Is it from self-centeredness, jealousy, personal preferences?  Do violence and hatred feed on the impulse to shun someone whom my self-aggrandizing mind categorizes as “different” from me and my friends?  My truest friend is God who sent His Son to us lost and starving men and women. Jesus demonstrates that we possess the ability to “see” and to experience the joy that is ours, once we let ourselves see each other as Jesus saw and sees each of us.

Who are the people I see as “different”?  (Sit in Jesus’ presence and ask why. Ask for a change of heart.)

“God, claimed Anselm, could have simply pronounced a word of forgiveness from heaven; but this would not have solved the problem. It would not have restored the diamonds to their original brilliance. Instead, in his passion to reestablish the beauty of creation, God came down into the muck of sin and death and brought the diamonds up and polished them off. In so doing, of course, God had to get dirty. This sinking into the dirt – the divine solidarity with the lost – is the “sacrifice” that the Son makes to the infinite pleasure of the Father. It is a sacrifice expressive not of anger or vengeance but of compassion.”

Sister Loretta