Today's readings: 2 Chronicles 36, 14-16. 19-23; Ephesians 2, 4-10; John 3, 14-21.

The first reading today from Chronicles recounts how things got out of hand at one point for God's people in the Old Testament and there really "was no further remedy". The people were deported to Babylon where they experienced being in exile.

We experience similar exile in life today. There are times when there seems to be no solution, when we are stuck, when life seems to stop, when apparently there is nothing we can do.

In the account of Israel's exile in the first reading, we have in narrative form what destroys our true identity, what made God's people in the Old Testament lose its identity and be taken into exile. The Gospel speaks of God as restoring our true identity, recomposing our broken image. The reference to Moses lifting the serpent in the desert reminds us of the need for inner healing.

Today, the Scriptures speak to us about God's power and how we can see it in life. But God's power is loving, not condemning. We've always conceived His power as threatening, terrible, to the extent of instilling fear. But in the Gospel, John is reassuring: "God so loved the world that He sent His Son who came not to condemn but to save."

Jesus addressed these words to Nicodemus who, however, continued to raise questions interminably. His mistake was to look at things from the doctrinal point-of-view. And he completely missed the point of it all. Probably it is for this same reason that we tend to condemn more than to save. God's power must first and foremost be experienced. Nicodemus kept asking 'How can this happen?'

This significant dialogue between these two masters ends with a sharp reminder of just how hidden and veiled God's redemptive power in Christ is.

Prior to his death on the cross, Jesus announces, "the Son of Man must be lifted up", thereby synthesising his crucifixion and his glory. On the hilltop outside the city the Son of Man will be lifted up, and this will reveal the power of the promised new life. What could be more hidden, what could be more opaque, more difficult, more impossible than the power of life in the crucified Jesus?

It is simply paradoxical to contend that God's loving power can be manifest in the contemplation of the cross. Many times our experience does not confirm that God loves the world very much. For many, it is not true that we can immediately understand or sense God's providence just by looking around us. Instead, there is much to be scandalised about wherever we look.

God's love is a mystery because it is not evident to our eyes. It is a mystery because it is the experience of the divine and beyond the flesh, not because it is so complicated we cannot understand it. It happens when someone experiences joy in suffering, or when you keep hope alive despite having reason to despair.

It's like a special window from where one can see what is not visible. God's infinite love can be revealed precisely where our eyes experience the absence of God and of His love. Jesus being lifted up on the cross is actually an 'interruption' of the way we expect things to happen. We do not expect to see God's power being manifest at a moment of such utter silence as Golgotha was.

This is the way God saves, even if it sounds paradoxical. For decades, we have been experiencing what we may consider the collapse in the West of institutional religion and of values that have always been considered vital for civilisation. This is our modern-day exile. Our belief no longer rests on cultural foundations. Notwithstanding this, God is always present in the world. As believers we need to have eyes to see. In the ruins of society and Church, we need to focus again on the crucified Christ.