God So Loved the World!

Wednesday, April 30, 2025

Acts 5:17-26; Jn 3:16-21

Today’s Gospel invites us to an awareness of God’s love and insists on our journey towards the Light, leaving behind our preference for darkness as it symbolizes our love for evil ways. 

When Jesus describes God’s unconditional love that sent His own Son into the world for its redemption, he also hints at the fact that many were not receptive to the generous initiative of God. 

Here, Jesus highlights the noble intention of God, which is to redeem the world and not leave it to its fate. We must note that Jesus does not show God as a strict judge but as a compassionate Father in rejecting whom we often condemn ourselves. We are called to remember that being receptive and reciprocative to the message of love from God are our responsibilities. 

While ‘God so loved the world,’ our love of God was incomplete, and such partial love can be explained through our inability to come towards the Light, which again explains our love for darkness. 

Not being open to God’s love affects our freedom to respond to His invitation. It is only when we walk towards the truth of God’s love that we become affected by it. Only when we let ourselves be affected by it will we be able to respond to it in love and freedom and radiate it in our lives. 

We betray God’s unconditional and complete love when we make our response conditional and partial. 

Let us pray that our realization of God’s love may enable our movement towards the Light. 

Fr. Dhinakaran Savariyar