Daily Mass Gospel Reflection- Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross

Word on Fire Ministry ^ | 9.14.23 | Bishop Robert Barron

[MurphsLaw]

John 3:13-17

Friends, in today’s Gospel,
Jesus is speaking to Nicodemus and tells him,
“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.”

Why does the Son come?
Is it because God is angry?
Because God wants to lord it over us?
Because God needs something?
No, he comes purely out of love,
out of God’s desire that we flourish:
“For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world,
but that the world might be saved through him.”

It is not in order to work out his anger issues
that the Father sends the Son,
but that the justice of the world might be restored.
Jesus is the fulfillment of God’s salvific intent,
displayed throughout the Old Testament.
He wanted to bring the divine life even into the darkest places.
He wanted to hunt us down.

The Father, in short, sent the Son
all the way into time, history, and the human condition.
But then the Father sent him further,
into our sin and dysfunction,
and finally all the way down into
hatred, violence, rejection, and death itself.

[MurphsLaw]

Phil 2:6-11

Brothers and sisters:
Christ Jesus, though he was in
the form of God,
did not regard equality with God
something to be grasped.
Rather, he emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
coming in human likeness;
and found human in appearance,
he humbled himself,
becoming obedient to death,
even death on a cross.
Because of this, God greatly
exalted him
and bestowed on him the name
that is above every name,
that at the name of Jesus
every knee should bend,
of those in heaven and on earth
and under the earth,
and every tongue confess that
Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.

+++Jesus said to Nicodemus:
"No one has gone up to heaven
except the one who has come down
from heaven, the Son of Man.
And 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.
For God did not send his Son
into the world to condemn the world,
but that the world might be
saved through him.+++