March 14, 2021
4th Sunday of Lent B
John 3:16 is the Gospel in one verse. “God so loved the world that he gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him might not perish but might have eternal life.” The verse is loaded with meaning about God’s love, about God’s Son, and about our belief in Him.
This world that God loves is not a mythical Shangri-la where people live in justice and in peace. It is a world with crime, dishonesty, wars, and constant feuding, with all its greed and immorality. Like the society, the author of the Book of Chronicles describes as full of infidelity and abominations and hostile to God’s messengers the prophets. It is this real world that God loves and desires to bring healing and new life. Into this world that we inhabit God sends his beloved Son.
In the Gospel according to St. John, the world is both a focus of God’s love and a hostile place opposing Jesus. I see this “both and” dramatically visualized in a recent photograph of Pope Francis in the NY Times standing amid the ruins and rubble of bombed mosques and churches in Iraq. After the Islamic State radicals took control of Mosul seven years ago and declared it the capital of its caliphate, the terrorist group sought to strike fear deep into the West by vowing to conquer Rome. But with the Islamic State pushed from the city, it was Pope Francis, the leader of the Catholic Church, who last Sunday came to Mosul with a message of consolation and healing, of hope and encouragement to rebuild, and to forgive.
Pope Francis’ message of God’s loving concern is like St. Paul’s testimony in the letter to the Ephesians. “God who is rich in mercy, because of the great love he had for us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, brought us to life with Christ.” Paul confesses that he has done nothing to deserve it, but God’s salvation is now his in Jesus Christ. God’s beloved Son is the source of divine mercy and new life for whoever believes in him.
“Believing in Jesus” is more than quoting verse Jn 3:16. “Believing in Jesus” is coming to know him and his truth and walking in the light. Lent is the time to reflect upon the meaning of Jn 3:16. Lent is the time to meditate on the cross as the symbol of our sinfulness and of God’s precious gift of love. Lent is the season that readies us to enter the Paschal Mystery – suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus.
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