God’s APP has many APPlications – 4th Sunday of Lent – 2 Chronicles 36:14-16,19-23/ John 3:14-21

The readings for the fourth Sunday of Lent revisit the love and mercy of God who desired deeply to save the world. His love reached its pinnacle when he sent his only begotten son, our Lord Jesus Christ, not to condemn the world but to bring it out of darkness into His light and life.

Yet condemnation and wrath are ours to bear when we willfully choose to alienate God from our lives. The second book of Chronicles records this legacy of scornful indifference towards God till such time that He took a Sabbatical for seventy years (2Chronicles 36:21). These became days of desolation for the people of the Southern Kingdom and we know it as the Babylonian exile.

God made us to be ‘hAPPy’ and to do that he gave us his APP but we rejected its APPlications. How does God’s APP work? Look through salvation history and it seems that God has a standard operating procedure (SOP)

1. God APProached humanity with his law; we know them as the Ten Commandments. This was not some temporary contract but rather a permanent covenant. He would be our God; we would be his people. God could have been up there in his heavens, distant like the other gods but he chose to be involved in our lives. He is a God with us who loves the world. (John 3:16)
2. We on the other hand APPended his law to suit our convenience if not disregard it completely. We chose not to be his people.
3. God could have been wrathful but rather he APPealed through the prophets. Verse 15 of the first reading tells us that he “persistently sent his messengers.”
4. In the fullness of time, he APPointed his Son. This was his only begotten son whom he so loved, just as he loved the world. The purpose of sending his son was not to condemn the world but to lead it to life and light. But we crucified the Son of God
5. God was APPalled by our response especially in the Old Testament when they tried his patience and “mocked the messengers,” “despised his words” and scoffed at the prophets.” (2 Chronicles 36:16)
6. It is then that God APProved the destruction of his people. He “brought up against them the King of the Chaldeans who killed their youth with the sword in the house of their sanctuary and had no compassion on young men or young women, the aged or the feeble. The Chaldeans burned the house of God, destroyed the walls of Jerusalem and took into exile those who escaped the sword. “

Then God took a SABBATICAL for 70 years ((2Chronicles 36:21) from his people whom he had loved. He was done and dusted. Will history repeat itself?