Fourth Sunday of Lent

Mass Readings

• First Reading 2 Chronicles 36:14-16, 19-23
• Responsorial Psalm Psalm 137:1-2, 3, 4-5, 6
• Second Reading Ephesians 2:4-10
• Gospel John 3:14-21

Open the Mass Readings on USCCB.org →

USCCB lists the Year B readings as primary for 2027. Parishes celebrating the Scrutinies with catechumens use the Year A readings instead (the Samaritan woman, the man born blind, the raising of Lazarus), which are always permitted.

Step Into the Story

Second Chronicles closes the Hebrew Bible, and it ends badly before it ends well. Nebuchadnezzar’s troops burned the Temple in 586 B.C. and marched the survivors to Babylon. Then in 539 B.C. Cyrus the Persian took Babylon, and his decree, quoted in the book’s last lines, sends them home. Cyrus left his own boast in clay, the Cyrus Cylinder, of returning deported peoples to their homes. Numbers 21 tells of the bronze serpent on a pole; the bitten who looked at it lived.

1. 586 B.C.Babylon burns the Temple
2. 539 B.C.Cyrus takes Babylon
3. c. 20 B.C.Herod begins the Temple
4. c. 18 A.D.Caiaphas becomes high priest
5. This week’s scene: c. 28 A.D.Nicodemus comes by night

Go out into Jerusalem at night in the Passover season, probably of 28 A.D. The pilgrims have settled in for the night. The lanes are dark and narrow, the stone still giving off the day’s warmth into cool spring air. A dog barks. Lamplight shows faintly through a shutter. Somewhere above the city looms the Temple, pale against the stars.

A man walks quickly through the dark, his cloak drawn close: Nicodemus, a Pharisee and a member of the Sanhedrin, the council of seventy-one that runs Jewish affairs under Roman oversight. He does not want to be seen. Follow him to the house where Jesus is staying. Step in behind him, sit down in the lamplight, and listen to the Teacher answer a learned man’s questions.

Encounter the Lord

Sit in the dark with Nicodemus. He is a respected teacher, and he has come at night with questions. Jesus tells him something astonishing: “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son.”

This is the heart of the Gospel. God did not wait for us to become good. Paul says He brought us to life while we were dead in our sins. It is all grace. But grace calls for a response. Light has come into the world, and we must choose whether to come into the light or hide from it. God created you without your help, but He will not save you without your consent. Lent is an invitation to step out of the dark.

This week, look at a crucifix for a few minutes each day, as the Israelites looked at the bronze serpent. Bring into the light one thing you have been hiding, in prayer and in Confession.

Know Your Faith

Christ the Savior

The Word became flesh to save us by reconciling us with God, and so that we might know God’s love: “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son” (CCC 457-458). The doctrine of original sin is the reverse side of the Good News that Jesus is the Savior of all (CCC 389).

God Wants Us to Have Eternal Life

Even after our first parents’ sin, God did not abandon us; He wishes to give eternal life to all who seek salvation (CCC 55).

Judgment and Light

Christ is Lord of eternal life, yet the Son came not to judge but to save. By rejecting grace in this life, a person already judges himself (CCC 679).

Exile and the Cross

Israel’s infidelity ended in the exile, which was also a sign of God’s mysterious faithfulness and the beginning of restoration; the exile already stood in the shadow of the cross (CCC 710).