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.
The Gospel passage given for the Fourth Sunday of Lent is taken from the 3rd chapter of the Gospel of John. Scholars tell us that John’s Gospel was the very last one to be written. As to the exact author of this most beloved Gospel, scholars differ. Was it the beloved disciple? Was it one of the disciples of the original Twelve? We will never know with absolute certainty. What we do know is that it is the fruit of a Christian community that had already been established and had the relative luxury of pondering the sayings of Jesus that had been ever so carefully remembered and passed down orally from one generation of believers to the next.
In the Eastern Church, John is referred to as ‘the Theologian’ for his Gospel plunges the depth of the words of Jesus to capture the meaning of his life and sayings.
We probably have no more succinct summary of the entire meaning of Jesus and his New Testament than in the 16th verse of the 3rd chapter of John’s gospel quoted above. One could aptly say that the entire New Testament is merely a commentary on this one verse!
The message of Jesus is quite simply a message of liberating love that opens for you and me the hope of life eternal. That reality of life eternal is not just a ‘me and Jesus’ experience but, rather, is intimately tied to living in eternity the beautiful life of communion with God and all the holy ones – our families, friends and all those who have striven to love God, in a magnificent ‘we and Jesus’ experience.
During this pandemic year, we have been forced to ponder the stark reality of death that has haunted our lives reminding us of our essential mortality. How important it is, then, for us to be ever mindful that as Christians, death will never have the final say in 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.