IV Sunday of Lent – Cycle B – March 14, 2021 God’s Love: Not just a special gift, but the giving of himself 2 Chronicles 36: 14-16, 19-23 / Psalm 137 / Ephesians 2: 4-10 / John 3: 14-21
“When you care enough to send the very best.” That was a slogan from an advertisement years ago, which had to do with a certain service or gift. I only remember that line; nothing else. Even so, it opens the door to deeper reflection on our willingness to give and the extent of our giving.
What is the best you can give to others? Perhaps it is better for us to ask ourselves, “Who is the best we can give?” The more we are willing to love as Christ teaches us, the clearer our answers to those questions will become. When we commit to love others, you may not even spend one dollar, but the commitment is demanding. It is about giving of ourselves, so that his mercy might become more visible.
In today’s reading from the third chapter of John’s Gospel, we hear what has been a fairly familiar verse over the years, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life” (John 3:16). As Jesus makes very clear, God does not send something, but someone. It is about God sending, better said, giving, his very best to humanity. It is about God giving of himself.
Our Holy Father, Pope Francis echoes this message when he writes, “The word which God speaks to us in Jesus is not simply one word among many, but his eternal Word (cf. Heb 1:1-2). God can give no greater guarantee of his love…”¹
Jesus reveals to Nicodemus and all of us volumes about God’s loving commitment to all of history and humanity and how he is given as Son and Savior to carry out his Heavenly Father’s will of salvation. Through his Incarnation, Jesus Christ made visible to his people and makes present to us what many have forgotten – the fullness of God’s love: God’s willingness to give his very best, the “greatest guarantee of his love.”
Pope Francis highlights this truth as the dynamic of mercy. When he opened the Jubilee of Mercy in 2015, he wrote, “Jesus Christ is the face of the Father’s mercy... Mercy has become living and visible in Jesus of Nazareth, reaching its culmination in him.”² Christ is the gift – God’s love made visible – and, through mercy, is the way the love is given.
This might all seem obvious, but it is amazing how God’s will and ways are so easy to forget or distort. Nicodemus and the Pharisees were highly educated in the ways of God and the law of Moses. Sadly, in spite of them being so learned in matters of religion, they had become ignorant of the truth about God. They had forgotten the essence of God, that is to say, love. Their hearts had become hardened; they forgot mercy. Jesus lamented that reality and sought to warm their cold hearts and open their closed minds.
Such hardness of heart and closedness of mind persist in our day. Instead of criticizing the Pharisees, Jesus challenges us with a few questions: Have we forgotten God’s goodness? Have we forgotten that God loves us? Do we think his love has limits?
The question is not, will we be saved? But rather, do we desire salvation? God‘s will is clear; he did not send his son into the world to condemn the world. Pay attention not only to what God does, but who he gives. Jesus means for his words to remind us of just how generous God is to us and to the world. The Father’s love knows no bounds. The mission of Jesus Christ is to take his Heavenly Father’s mercy beyond the walls imposed by our sinfulness and lack of trust.
God has a great concern, that we know and trust him as love. Christ had and has a mission: to give us his Father’s mercy and so show us how to love. God is love, he always gives and he always remembers our need; true happiness occurs when we never forget that.