2Ch 36: 14-16.19-23; Ps 136 (137); Eph 2,4-10; Jn 3: 14-21

Last Sunday the Jews were asking for signs that would establish the authority with which Jesus had performed such a disruptive messianic sign. Nicodemus also goes to Jesus claiming to know who he is because of the signs he has done. He pretends to know Jesus, ignoring that it is Jesus who knows the heart of every man, therefore also his. Jesus offers him the true sign that his mystery tells and that of the Father who sends him: the sign of the one who is “lifted up”, which reveals to us how much God loves the world, to the point of giving up his only Son. The cross is the culminating point of that story of resistance to God to which the Chronicles allude in the first reading. Paradoxically it becomes the place of the greatest manifestation of the faithful love of God who, despite our history of sin, carries out his saving work right at the heart of our most radical refusal. Sin had led Israel into the tragic experience of exile. Even there the announcement of hope resounded: Cyrus grants the exiles a return to Jerusalem. Now, and definitively, in the darkness of the cross the light of salvation shines. The one raised draws us to himself to lead us no longer to the land of the fathers, but – the letter to the Ephesians affirms – to “sit in heaven in Christ”. And all for the great love with which he who is rich in mercy has loved us.

Commentary by Comunità di Dumenza

Translation by f. Mark Hargreaves, Prinknash Abbey