March 10, 2024: Fourth Sunday of Lent/Laetare Sunday

At the midpoint of Lent, we rejoice in the gift God offers to us sinners.  Though sin has cut us off from our relationship with God, He has provided a way of salvation for us.  The first reading has a dark tone as it describes how God's people were unfaithful to God.

Then God sent them into exile for 70 years, to bring rest to the land that had missed its Sabbaths.  After that time, He restored His people.

The second reading praises God, Who is rich in mercy, and proclaims the important truth that we are saved by grace, and then we are empowered to do the good works God has in mind for us.

Ultimately, as Jesus told Nicodemus in the Gospel reading, God loved the world, and didn't want to condemn it:  So He sent His Son so that we could be saved.

That is such Good News, and we are called to proclaim it and live it.