"GOD SO LOVED THE WORLD . ."

Homily for March 11th, 2018: Fourth Sunday in Lent, Year B.

Ephesians 2:4-10; John 3:14-21.

AIM:  To proclaim God’s unconditioned love, and appeal for a response.

 

          At the center of every Catholic Church the world over is a cross. The cross hangs around the necks of hundreds of thousands of people in our world who give no other outward sign of being religious. Teachers of young children report that when they offer the youngsters a selection of holy cards and ask them to choose one, time and again children choose the picture of Jesus on the cross.

          Why is the cross so important, and so central? Why is it hanging, right now, around the necks of thousands of our fighting men and women in the Middle East? Why, after two thousand years, has the cross lost none of its fascination and power? The best answer is also the simplest: because the cross is a picture of how much God loves us. “There is no greater love than this,” Jesus tells us, “to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 15:13).

          “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son,” we heard in the gospel.  It was the most God had to give. That is why the cross is at the center of every Catholic Church the world over. That is why the cross is also at the center of the Church’s preaching – or should be. Many people associate the words “preaching” and “sermon” with a list of Do’s and Don’ts: all the things we must first do or avoid before God will love us and bless us. Yet the gospel is supposed to be good news. Is it good news to be told that God won’t love us until we have kept enough of his many rules to show that we are worthy of his love? That doesn’t sound like very good news to me. It sounds like horribly bad news.

          The gospel is the good news that God loves us just as we are, right now.  How much does God love us? Let me tell you, through an Internet posting I received some time ago:

          "If God had a refrigerator, your picture would be on it. 

          If God had a wallet, your photo would be in it. 

He sends you flowers every spring. He sends you a sunrise every morning.  He never lets you out of his sight. 

Do you know why? Maybe you’re thinking it’s because he wants to catch you breaking one of his rules. Many people think that. They’re wrong – dead wrong. 

God never lets you out of his sight because he loves you so much that he can’t take his eyes off you. 

          Face it, friend — he’s crazy about you! 

God doesn't promise days without pain, laughter without sorrow, sun without rain; but he does promise strength for the day, comfort for the tears, and light for the way."

          That is Paul’s message in our second reading: “God, who is rich in mercy, because of the great love he had for us [Note: not because of our love for him], even when we were dead in our transgressions, brought us to life with Christ. ... For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not from you; it is the gift of God ...”      

          Does this mean that obedience to God’s law — all those Do’s and Don’ts — is unimportant? Of course not. God’s law tells us how to respond to the free gift of God’s love. But the preaching of God’s law has little power to convert. It is the proclamation of God’s love which break’s through hardened hearts. Let me give you an example.

          Marie is eighty-nine years old and a widow. She has lived for the last year in a nursing home. It is hard to grow old, to have to give up your own place and to be dependent on others. Marie hasn’t adjusted yet. She is crabby and disagreeable much of the time. She complains over trifles. She criticizes those who look after her, often for little or no reason. Her loved ones have reproached her for her bitterness, and tried to talk her out of it. They’ve failed.      

          One day Marie received a letter from her grandson at college. He told her how much the whole family loved her, how in her old age she was an inspiration to them. He said how much he admired her. Shortly after she received the letter a priest visited her. He found her clutching the letter, in tears.

          “I want you to read that, Father,” Marie said. When he had done so, she told him she wanted to go to confession. She did so and received the Lord’s forgiveness: that love that will never let us go, which heals us and makes us well again.

          Afterwards Marie was transformed. For the first time anyone could remember she was kind to the nurses. Instead of criticizing them, she thanked them for all they did for her. What had changed her? Simply a letter which said: “Grandma, we love you.” It is love that breaks through. And the cross is a picture of God’s love for us. 

          “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert,” we heard in the gospel, “so must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life. 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. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.” 

          The One who hangs on the cross, to show us God’s love, says elsewhere in this gospel according to John: “I am the light of the world” (8:12). And in today’s gospel he tells us that our eternal destiny is being determined, even now, by how we react to his light: “Everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come toward the light, so that his works might not be exposed. But whoever lives the truth comes to the light, so that his works may be clearly seen as done in God.” 

          Are you walking in the light of Jesus’ love? Or do you fear his light because of what it might reveal in the dark corners of your life which, like all of us, you try to keep hidden? We all have those dark corners. Now, in this hour, Jesus Christ is inviting you to put away fear. Come into the bright sunshine of his love. Once you do that, the fire of Christ’s love will burn out in you everything that is opposed to his light. Then the reason for your fear will be gone. Then you will have no need to hide. You will be home. You will be safe: safe for this life, but also for eternity.

          “Whoever believes in [Jesus Christ] will not be condemned, but whoever does not believe has already been condemned, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the verdict, that the light came into the world, but people preferred darkness to light, because their works were evil.”

          The eternal destiny of each one of us is being determined by our response to the light, and love, of Jesus Christ. He is waiting for your response, right now.