Paulist Fr. Rich Andre preached this homily on the 4th Sunday of Lent (Year B) on March 10, 2024, at St. John XXIII University Parish & Catholic Center in Knoxville, TN. The homily is based on the day’s readings: 2 Chronicles 36:14-16, 19-23; Psalm 137; Ephesians 2:4-10; and John 3:14-21.

We Christians use the word mystery a lot. We don’t use it in the sense of a who-done-it murder mystery. There, the thought is, if we’re clever enough and if we think long enough, we will discover what happened. In other cases, we use the word “mystery” to describe something incomprehensible. People throw up their hands in surrender, saying, “I don’t know: It’s a mystery to me!” 

But in matters of faith, mystery means something else. No matter how deeply we reflect on the mysteries of our faith – be it the nature of the Trinity or Christ’s presence in the Eucharist – we grasp some part of a great truth, but the full truth is beyond us. Sr. Timothea Elliot, back when she was Director of Faith Formation here in the Diocese of Knoxville, explained it by citing the great 20^th-century theologian Edward Schillebeeckx. In contemplating a mystery of the Christian faith, it’s like a sparrow drinking from the foot of Niagara Falls. The understanding fills our brains, but there’s infinitely more that our minds can’t take in.

In our gospel passage today, the Pharisee Nicodemus is just starting to drink in the mystery of who Jesus is, calling him “a teacher who has come from God.” But Nicodemus is cautious, approaching Jesus in the middle of the night. Is that because he’s scared to be seen with Jesus? Is it because he doesn’t fully comprehend? John probably intends both of these ideas, plus several others.

Jesus engages Nicodemus in some pretty remarkable theology. People throughout Tennessee put the key verse of today’s gospel passage – John 3:16 – on bumper stickers and signs, but it’s not a simple passage to comprehend. For John, Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection are all part of one great, salvific action. None of the pieces can really be separated from the others. At every Mass, we call this “the mystery of faith.”

Our first reading, from the Book of Chronicles, takes up the connection between death and renewed life. King Cyrus’ permission for the Judean people to return to Jerusalem makes no sense without us first comprehending the horrors of the destruction of the Temple and the exile of the people to Babylon decades earlier. The Babylonian exile is the event that makes the religion of Judah a great religion. In Babylon, the people faced the mystery of how they could be God’s chosen people and still have bad things happen to them. It was in Babylon that the Bible first took its form, that the religion was first called “Judaism,” and that the people were first called “Jews.” 

This Lent, we’ve faced a Babylonian moment of our own. Almost all of us in the Paulist universe — including everyone here at St. John XXIII, everyone at the Paulist Center in Boston where I serve, and most other Paulists, employees, collaborators, parishioners, and recipients of our ministries around the world — have been forced to face the possibility of diminishment. The number of experienced Paulists retiring right now is outpacing the number of new Paulists becoming priests. Over the past month, Paulist ministries have written comprehensive reports, and now we’re awaiting the results of the deliberations of the Paulist General Council, which this guy [point at René Constanza, President of the Paulist Fathers and presider at this Mass] will be announcing in the next few days. But we have already been told that the Paulists remain committed to their presence in the Diocese of Knoxville! [Applause.]

In one sense, part of the “mystery” of the General Council’s deliberations have been revealed here, and the entire mystery will be revealed to everyone – including me! – very soon. But in another sense, we are being ushered into a new phase of the mystery of faith experienced by Jews during the Babylonian exile and by Nicodemus in the dark of night. 

Every year in the second half of Lent, we embrace the mystery that Christianity became a great religion through the cross. We are also forced to face the mystery of our own suffering. If God is good and God is loving, how can God allow difficult things to happen? As Paul said last week, “The foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.” There will be new life for every one of us on the other side of the General Council’s decisions, whatever they are.

In this second half of Lent, we are also invited to face the mystery of our own personal relationship with Jesus. How is Jesus my way and my truth and my life? We will never fully comprehend the identity of Jesus the Christ in this lifetime, but Lent calls us to be like the sparrow at Niagara Falls, attempting to take another sip from the abundant life-giving water that Jesus provides.

We continue with Jesus on the journey to Calvary… which is also the journey to his tomb… which is also the journey to his resurrection. “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.” It is in the very moment that Jesus Christ is lifted up on the cross that our victory over death is won.

Will we ever completely understand what this means in our lifetime? No, but that’s OK. It’s a mystery.

And the story of Nicodemus gives us hope. While he first approaches Jesus in the dark of night and with halting comprehension, we will see him again. On Good Friday, after Jesus dies upon the cross, John reports that it is Nicodemus who comes in the afternoon with Joseph of Arimathea to prepare Jesus’ body for burial. “The light came into the world,” and “whoever lives the truth comes to the light, so that their works may be clearly seen as done in God.”