God so loved the world

WEDNESDAY 22 APRIL (Jn 3,16-21)

How big is God’s love for man? It is infinite, eternal, without limits, without measure. God’s love is Christ Jesus: “Hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the holy Spirit that has been given to us. For Christ, while we were still helpless, yet died at the appointed time for the ungodly. Indeed, only with difficulty does one die for a just person, though perhaps for a good person one might even find courage to die. But God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us. How much more then, since we are now justified by his blood, will we be saved through him from the wrath. Indeed, if, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, how much more, once reconciled, will we be saved by his life. Not only that, but we also boast of God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation” (Rm 5,5-11). That of God in Christ Jesus, is a love which is up to death and death by the cross. God dies out of love.

For our love, Christ Jesus let himself be made sin by God in our favour. The innocent takes upon himself all the sins of the world and expiates them in his body consumed by the fire of his love on the cross: “For the love of Christ impels us, once we have come to the conviction that one died for all; therefore, all have died. He indeed died for all, so that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised. Consequently, from now on we regard no one according to the flesh; even if we once knew Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know him so no longer. So whoever is in Christ is a new creation: the old things have passed away; behold, new things have come. And all this is from God, who has reconciled us to himself through Christ and given us the ministry of reconciliation, namely, God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting their trespasses against them and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. So we are ambassadors for Christ, as if God were appealing through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who did not know sin, so that we might become the righteousness of God in him” (2Cor 5,14-21). The love of God for man in Christ Jesus is great, divine, human, eternal and perfect. But is such a sublime gift enough for the salvation of man? No. It is necessary that man makes it his own with faith. If man does not believe in the Only Begotten Son of God, he remains in his sin and it is eternal death for him. It is not non faith that condemns him. He is already in death. Non faith does not allow him to pass into 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. Whoever believes in him 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. For 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.

But what does it mean to believe in the Only-begotten Son of God? Faith is in the Word and in all that it says one must or must not do. The Word of Jesus, his Gospel is preached, one believes in its truth, he welcomes it as the one and only Word of eternal life, he lets himself be baptized, and becomes with Christ one life, one body; he lives as a true child of the Father, obeys his will, and enters into salvation. Eternal life is a gift. It must be accepted. To those who accept it, the obligation to produce every good fruit according to the Word of Christ. Christ is welcomed to live in Christ, with Christ and for Christ. If we do not live for Christ, the gift is accepted in vain. But we are accountable to God for this vain acceptance. We did not make the life of Christ Jesus bear fruit in our lives. We have not been saved. We have not produced salvation.

Mother of God, Angels and Saints, make us life of Christ’s life and light of his light.