I haven’t seen this recently, but when a baseball player would hit a home run a fan in the area where the ball landed would hold up a sign reading “John 3:16.” Baseball fans watching the game on television were being directed to their bibles to, what must be, the most famous text in the New Testament, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but have eternal life.” Those who held up those signs were presuming a lot: that viewers would know what “John 3:16″ referred to and that people who had a bible at home, would know how to find that quote.
We are in the midst of Lent, but our Scriptures are already looking ahead to Holy Week, especially GoodFriday, when the “Son of Man” will be “lifted up.” The reference is to the Book of Numbers (21:4-9). When the Israelites grumbled against Moses in the desert they were punished by bites from poisonous snakes. To help them God instructed Moses to make a bronze snake and place it on a pole and “lift it up.” Anyone bitten by a snake needed to look at it to be healed. That healing snake on a pole prefigured Christ and became a symbol of salvation. As Jesus says today, “The Son Of Man must be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.” John uses “seeing” as a symbol for faith. So, to “see,” or “look” on Jesus is to have faith in him and to “have eternal life.” Note: The reference to eternal life is in the present tense — for the believer it begins now.
Jesus is speaking to Nicodemus who came to him at night (3:1ff). Maybe he wanted time with Jesus in a quiet atmosphere. Or, maybe he is a symbol of the world in darkness. Nicodemus seems to have accepted the light offered to him because later in the gospel he will speak on Jesus’ behalf (7:50) and will purchase spices for Jesus’ burial (19:39).
In today’s passage the evangelist John has broken the flow of his gospel to make a proclamation of the good news, a summary of his gospel. This section is filled with themes which anticipate the rest of the gospel: faith and judgment; Jesus, the revealer sent by God; light and darkness; those who do evil deeds and those who do good. John is announcing that God is making a revelation to the whole world, everyone, not just to particular individuals,. or a privileged few. God is concerned about all people and anyone who “lives the truth” and “comes to the light,” is offered eternal life.
The passage reflects the experience of John’s community. Not everyone responded to God’s grace and accepted the offer God made in Jesus. This is suggested by references like, “people preferred darkness to light.” In this the times were a lot like our own. People continue to choose darkness over light and practice evil deeds, “people preferred darkness to light because their works were evil.” This would have caused discouragement in the early Christian community, just as similar discouraging events cause pessimism and discouragement in our church today.
But the passage ends on an optimistic note. Just as Jesus is the light to the world and his life a revelation of God to all, so too, each Christian who has “come to the light” reveals God to the world. People prefer the darkness because it hides their evil deeds. Believers, on the other hand, are light bearers whose deeds bear witness to God.
John has a tendency to use words and phrases that have double meanings. Jesus tells Nicodemus that he will be “lifted up,” that those who “believe in him may have eternal life.” The term “lifted up” would refer to his death on the cross. It would also mean his resurrection from the dead and his being raised to glory at God’s right hand. So, those who look to Jesus upon the cross are not only healed of sin, but receive the same life Jesus now has — eternal life.
John provides us with a verse that has been bandied about on placards in sports stadiums and on bumper stickers of cars. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but have eternal life.” Believers repeat this phrase not as a slogan, but as a word of truth and assurance.
When we have sinned, or realize our deeds have not reflected God’s light to the world but have copied the world’s darkness, this verse is both a prayer and an assurance for us. It is a prayer of confidence in God’s love and assurance that we can be forgiven, not for any merit of our own, but because we can look upon the One who was raised up on the cross and so we can come out of the darkness of sin to the light of Christ.
Nicodemus has come to Jesus at night. In the instruction Jesus gave him we are reminded of what God has done for us. Despite the fact that so many choose deeds of darkness, God’s love for an undeserving world is without limits. God doesn’t just love the good people of the world, or the chosen over the rest. Jesus’ life, death and resurrection is for all the world. So, because of God’s love revealed in Christ we cannot look upon anyone as unlovable, for they have been embraced by Christ’s outstretched arms on the cross. Even those who openly reject him, or are preoccupied by the things of this world, are still loved by God.
In the desert the Israelites turned their back on God and suffered the consequences. Still, God loved them and offered them healing if they looked upon the serpent Moses raised up on the pole. We don’t just look at a crucifix and are saved. Looking, in biblical language, means more than seeing something with our eyes. It implies seeing with eyes of faith. What else do we see with those same eyes of faith? Because of Christ and the light he brings into our darkness, we can now see the way God sees: we see the unlovable and sinners with love; we see hope in situations that others call hopeless; we see Christ in the outsider and neglected.
We also see eternal life in seeming-ordinary rituals: the pouring of water, the breaking of bread, a cup of wine, an anointing with oil and a word of forgiveness. We can see because Christ has been lifted up and now a light has shone into our otherwise dark world.
The cross has revealed God to us, not as a distant divine observer, but as one who has shared our joy, pain and our death. God has joined us in our lowest moments to raise us up to life. Jesus, on the cross and then resurrected to God’s side, is our proof positive. He has been “raised up” and now we look upon him for “eternal life” — which has already begun for us.
God so loved the world
St. John said that God sent his own son into the world. Not for a visit, but for life. No wonder Jesus felt lonesome and even abandoned by his Father. Who usually feels estranged from God, distant, at odds, with no connecting link? People who are not in agreement with God’s will, people who don’t do what God wants, people who sin. Therefore, Jesus could not feel God because he was buried under the avalanche of evil that has been perpetrated by the human race.
But why would God let that happen to his Son? God sent his Son not only to make judgments about our world, but to save it from itself. And how could an innocent victim feel guilt for sins he never committed? Since Jesus was God, we can only guess. But since he was also human, we can make an analogy. By the way, all our knowledge of God is an analogy.
There is a lot of discussion these days about responsibility toward others. Can one generation of Germans apologize for the evil of a previous generation? And can this generation of Jews accept the apology for their ancestral victims? Or, on a more personal level, how responsible are parents for the crimes of their children? Parenthood creates a bond with a child that no one else has. Hence even if he is a perfect parent and an innocent victim, he/she is still an unwilling accomplice.
So, the Father and the Son mutually agreed that the Son would accept responsibility for all the sins of all his people. The fact that Jesus was not personally guilty may have eased the pain.
In the year 377, the future St Martin de Tours, then 21 years old, gave a gift that changed an entire country. Martin was unhappily following in his father’s footsteps. His father was an officer in the army, and Martin had been inducted and was stationed at Amiens. While there, young Martin came upon a poorly clad beggar in the freezing cold. The plight of the shivering man moved Martin to cut his own army cloak in half and give half to the beggar. That night Martin had a vision in which Christ was clad in his half cloak. The vision led to Martin’s conversion to Christianity, his refusal to fight and subsequent discharge from the army. Martin’s inspiring life saw the founding of many monasteries, and the spread of Christianity throughout Gaul, the future France. Martin’s zeal changed his world. He is the Patron Saint of France.
The gift of half a cloak became a gift to the world. The gift of our own little cloaks and treasures can help change the world. The gift of our own love can hold untold power. But there’s no gift to equal God’s greatest gift to the world – His own Son.
One of the most unfortunate things people sometimes say to parents of a large family at the time of the death of a child is that “at least you have all the others to love.” Every child is, of course, an only child – one and only in his or her uniqueness.
The language of the Gospel writer uses to describe God’s gift to the world is that of a parent giving up an only child. It is as apt as human language can convey, including the idea that such a child is that parent’s future, the bearer of the full family’s inheritance. No greater love is imaginable.
GOD LOVED THE WORLD
This isn’t just a saying. These words could not be taken out of the Gospel without causing significant changes. Such an affirmation contains the essential nucleus of our Christian faith. “God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son.” This love of God is the source and foundation of our hope.
“God loves the world.” He loves the world as it is – incomplete and uncertain. Our world is full of conflicts and contradictions and capable of the best and the worst. This world, as we know it, isn’t getting along alone by itself, lost and without a guide. God has surrounded it on all sides with his love and all its wonderful implications.
First, Jesus is, above everything else, God’s gift to the whole world, not only to Christians. Historians might discuss endlessly about any other aspects of Jesus as a historical figure. Theologians can go on developing their ingenious theories. However, only those who get closer to Jesus, as a great gift from God, will be able to comprehend His gestures with true joy and bring Jesus closer to every human person.
Secondly, the Church can only justify its presence in the world as a reminder of God’s love to everyone. This truth has been reinstated several times by the Second Vatican Council: the Church “has been sent by Christ to manifest and communicate God’s love to all people.” Nothing can be more important that this: God’s love must be communicated to every single person.
Thirdly, according to the evangelist, God has made such great gift of Jesus to the world, “not to condemn the world, but so that through him the world may be saved.” It is very dangerous to use the idea of God’s denial and condemnation of the modern world for a pastoral program. Only a heart full of love for everyone can inspire us to work for their conversion. If people feel that they are being judged by God, we are not conveying Jesus’ true message, but something else: probably, our resentment and anger.
Fourth and finally, at the present juncture in our world, in which everything appears confused, uncertain and discouraging, nothing should keep us from contributing with our love to the world. That was Jesus’ life and work. We shouldn’t wait for anything else. Why can’t there be today men and women of good will to show to the world the love, friendship, compassion, justice and help that so many suffering people need? Such men and women alone can build the Church of Jesus, the Church of Love.
LIFTED UP ON THE CROSS
John the Evangelist tells us about an unusual encounter with a leading Jew, Nicodemus, who came to visit Jesus by night. This Pharisee confessed that Jesus was believed to “be a teacher who came from God.” He himself was to be led from darkness into the light.
In John’s story, Nicodemus represents anyone who sincerely seeks to meet Jesus. In fact, somehow along the story, Nicodemus disappears from the scene and Jesus finishes his address inviting everyone “who does wrong and hates the light…to live by the truth and come out into the light.”
According to Jesus, the light that will enlighten everything can be found in the Crucified. “Yes, God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son so that everyone who believes in Him may not be lost but may have eternal life.” Are we able to see God’s love in that man hanging from a cross?
Accustomed as we are, from childhood, to see the cross everywhere, we haven’t really learned to look at the Crucified with faith and love. Our
casual looks are not able to see in that face the light that could guide our lives in the most difficult and tragic moments.
Jesus, however, keeps sending us from the Cross all messages of life and love. Those outstretched arms, now unable to embrace the children, and those pierced hands that can’t heal the lepers or bless the sick, represent really the open arms of God the Father who continues to welcome, embrace and sustain the lives of all the people who are broken down by so much suffering.
From that face, shut down by death, and those eyes no longer able to look with tenderness to sinners and public women; and from his mouth, no longer able to pronounce His indignation at so much injustice and abuses against helpless victims, God is still revealing His unfathomable love for humanity.
“For God sent his Son into the world not to condemn the world, but so that through Him the world might be saved.” We remain free to accept this God or to condemn him. No one will force us into it. It is our choice. But
“the light has come into this world.” Why is it that we keep rejecting this light that comes to us from the Crucified?
He alone will be able to throw some light into our unhappiness and
continued failings; still “everyone who does wrong hates the light and avoids it.” When we live in an unworthy manner, we avoid the light as we feel exposed before God. We cannot look at the Crucified. On the other hand,
“any man who lives by the truth comes out into the light,” as he has nothing to hide. He looks at the face of the Crucified.
We Are God’s Work of Art
I was blessed as a child to be exposed to good art. My Mom worked for a book distributer who dealt with Harry N. Abrams among other publishers. Abrams was then and still remains one of the main publishers of books on art and artists. When I went to high school, I took a course on art appreciation and as part of the class went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, where I still hold a membership.
I fell in love with art as a kid and have continued loving art. I have visited many of the major museums of the world many times including the Louvre in Paris, the Vatican Museum in Rome, the Uffizi in Florence, the Van Gogh in Amsterdam, and the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, just to name a few. One of the highlights of a trip I took to Norway was spending a full day just admiring the statues in the Vigeland Statue Park in Oslo.
To me art, which is true art, expresses God’s hand in creation. I do enjoy landscapes, but for me most beautiful expression of God’s art contains people. There is no more beautiful handiwork in all of creation than human beings. “We are God’s masterpieces” one translation of the second reading proclaims.
God’s artistry is deeper than the eyes of Hans Holbein’s Thomas Moore, more beautiful than Botticelli’s Venus, livelier than Dali’s Ecumenical Council, and more serene than Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa. God, the infinitely talented artist, found a way to make his image real in the world, yet unique in each individual.
But man threw mud on the painting and took a sledge hammer to the statue. The Book of Chronicles, today’s first reading describes the destruction of God’s work:
In those days, all the princes of Judah, the priests, and the people added infidelity to infidelity, practicing all the abominations of the nations and polluting the LORD’s temple
which he had consecrated in Jerusalem.
Early and often did the LORD, the God of their fathers, send his messengers to them,
for he had compassion on his people and his dwelling place.
But they mocked the messengers of God,
despised his warnings, and scoffed at his prophets,
God endowed man with wondrous gifts to use to find him, but instead mankind hid behind the gifts and refused to see or seek the Creator behind the creation.
The extent of man’s suffering the result of his own actions still effects us as we experience the horrors that man inflicts upon man, be they dictators or liberators, as we silently witness the death of children from sickness and famine, as we experience the destruction of marriages due to the impact of selfishness and materialism.
We call upon God during Lent to restore beauty to his world. We call upon God to teach us once more what true love is. And God answers with the simple sentence that Jesus gave Nicodemus: “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.” Love is experienced, beauty is restored, order defeats chaos, and goodness conquers sin through the Cross of Jesus Christ.
The power of God is greater than the machinations of man. In today’s second reading Paul tells the Ephesians and us that God is rich in mercy. He has tremendous love for us. Even when we were dead in our transgressions, he brought us to life with Christ.
The awesome love that was displayed on the cross is the continual means of our salvation. God has not thrown out his canvas. He is still completing his artwork. Only, we must now be his paint brush. We have to paint over the smudge marks of hatred with the Love of the Lord. We have to fill in the empty spots of selfishness with sacrificial love. We have to turn from the glorification of materialism to the determination to live the spiritual life given to us by the Passion, Death and Resurrection of the Lord.
The restoration of God’s artwork began with Jesus, but it must continue with us.