God So Loved the World!

Sunday, March 10, 2024

Fourth Sunday of Lent

2 Chr 36:14-16, 19-23; Eph 2:4-10; Jn 3:14-21

The fourth Sunday of Lent emphasizes God’s love and demands our response to honor it.

In the Gospel, Jesus helps us understand the nature of God’s love, while other readings complement what Jesus puts forward. 

The Bronze Serpent: What we read in Num 21:5-9 serves as a backdrop for what Jesus talks about himself as being lifted up. An act of faith saved people from death in the Old Testament. In the same way, our salvation depends on looking at Jesus on the cross in faith. Looking at the Cross in faith is an opportunity both to confront the evil in us and contrast it with God’s love for us. 

Saved, Not Condemned: In his exposition, Jesus wants us to understand God’s magnanimity. God did not love the world because it was perfect; nor did He love it because He found it just and peaceful. Rather, He loved it even when it was found in utter chaos. He dared to embrace the world as it was. God’s love did not shun the world, though it was resistant to God and characterized by darkness, rather than light. 

Similarly, we should know that God did not love us because Jesus redeemed us from our sins. Rather, God so loved us that He sent Jesus into the world to redeem us. This redemptive fact is given emphasis by Paul in the second reading. God loved us not because we were perfect but just so that we could become perfect like Him. 

Out of Darkness, Into Light: John’s Gospel presents Jesus as the light of the world. Even Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus at night is rich in symbolism because the setting dramatizes the role of Jesus as the light. The people hated light. They loved darkness because their works were evil. It is to this world that Jesus the light comes so that they will all be drawn to the Light. Jesus the light illuminates our lives so that we all will be turned into the ‘light of the world’ (Mt 5:14).

In all these, if there is one underlying theme, it is God’s positive outlook toward humanity. 

Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore said, ‘Every child comes with the message that God is not yet disappointed with the world.’ 

Likewise, though human response had been characterized by betrayal, God was not tired of loving the world. In the first reading, the punishment for disobedience was only a disciplinary measure, which in no way suggests that God was desperate to take revenge on His people. If so, God would not have thought of salvaging His people through a gentile king, Cyrus, King of Persia.  

If God were to be a strict judge, who could be spared?

If not for God’s love for us, we cannot even love ourselves. 

If God’s love demands a response, only our faith and faithfulness can be the proper forms. 

Fr. Dhinakaran Savariyar