Christ the Cornerstone

The love of God and the path to happy, holy lives

The Scripture readings for the Third Sunday of Lent provide us with an overview of the fundamental requirements of Jewish and Christian ethics.

The first reading from the Book of Exodus (Ex 20:1-17) contains the Ten Commandments which outline how we are supposed to relate to God and to our fellow human beings.

Several of these commandments are expressed positively (keeping the Lord’s Day holy and honoring our parents). Others are prohibitive (no false gods, taking the Lord’s name in vain, murder, adultery, lying or covetousness). All are meant to show us how to live well and be happy as children of God and brothers and sisters to each other.

These fundamental moral principles can be found in nearly all religions and in the ethical teaching of the greatest philosophers of both the western and eastern cultures. At the root of all ethics is the need to overcome egoism and selfishness. When we’re able to surrender our self-centered desires and embrace true communion with God and our neighbor, we are free to love unreservedly.

Christianity builds on these fundamental ethical principles, but it also transforms them.

In the Gospel verse for the Third Sunday of Lent, we hear the familiar, but astounding statement that “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might have eternal life” (Jn 3:16). This simple statement shows us that the kind of love that God has for us (the love that is God’s own nature) is radically unselfish and self-sacrificing.

God the Father loves us so much that he is willing to sacrifice his only begotten Son for our sakes.

In the second reading, St. Paul tells us that this sacrifice—the crucifixion of our Lord Jesus Christ—is “a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles” (1 Cor 1:23). Humanly speaking, it’s simply not reasonable to expect this much selflessness, and from a religious perspective, it seems sacrilegious to think that the Son of God would be subjected to pain and death for our sakes.

But, as St. Paul assures us, “the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength” (1 Cor 1:25). God’s love exceeds all our expectations. In him, the moral precepts that govern all interaction among people are perfected by God’s utterly unselfish love.

The Gospel reading for the Third Sunday in Lent (Jn 2:13-25) takes on a different meaning when considered in the light of both the foolishness and the weakness of God’s self-sacrificing love.

As St. John tells us:

Since the Passover of the Jews was near, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. He found in the temple area those who sold oxen, sheep, and doves, as well as the money changers seated there. He made a whip out of cords and drove them all out of the temple area, with the sheep and oxen, and spilled the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables, and to those who sold doves he said, “Take these out of here, and stop making my Father’s house a marketplace.” His disciples recalled the words of Scripture, “Zeal for your house will consume me” (Jn 2:13-17).

Jesus refuses to accept the commercialization of his Father’s house, which contradicts the Ten Commandments and makes a mockery of the solemn worship that is due to God alone. His righteous anger is both unexpected and bewildering to his followers. After all, Jesus has shown himself to be a man of peace. He is not normally given to this kind of behavior—no matter how justified.

The love of God which is incarnate in Jesus exceeds all expectations. It can be surprising—even bewildering—and it invariably makes us rethink the reasons for our own beliefs and actions. The two great commandments—to love God wholeheartedly and to love our neighbor as ourselves—are essential to moral perfection (living good, happy lives), and they show us the way to holiness. God’s self-sacrificing love transcends all human rules and customs. It connects us with a way of life that is truly different from anything “the world” can offer us.

We need to keep the commandments if we want to live well and be happy. But we also need genuine holiness (“zeal” for the things of God) which demands more. Holiness builds on, but ultimately transcends, ethics. It calls us to be people whose love for God and others is paramount.

To be holy is to surrender our needs and desires out of love for God and our neighbor.

Let’s ask God our Father and the Holy Spirit for the grace to grow in holiness and to be consumed by the self-sacrificing love of Jesus. †