God So Loved the World

Homily for Wednesday of the Second Week in Easter

Today we hear what are perhaps the most well-known verses in sacred Scripture. “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.” While it is God who has given us this gift, we must also remember that it was Jesus who chose to undergo the sacrifice of his own life in order to save us. It is through the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross that we have eternal life.

However, we cannot afford to allow that sacrifice to be considered an historical event that happened two thousand years ago; it is ever present today. The light of Christ still shines in the darkness. Consequently, while God gives us his only begotten son and Jesus makes the tremendous sacrifice, we have the responsibility to make sure that the light of Christ still shines in our darkness.

Just three verses after this very famous passage from St. John’s Gospel, we also here: “And this is the verdict, that the light came into the world, but people preferred darkness to light, because their works were evil.”

Now I am fairly certain that none of us here would consider ourselves evil. For the most part, we are people who are good and who do good. Yet, we are also aware of the fact that evil exists in our world even among those who claim to be ministers within the church. It does not take a very bright light to bring out the dark shadows that exist within the church. It would be easy for each of us to simply put those shadows behind us and claim that we have nothing to do with evil. At the same time, we all know that we are sinners. And just as evil prefers darkness, so too our sins prefer darkness.

Jesus came into the world to show us the light, to show us the true goodness of God’s love – the depth of God’s love for each of us. Every time we come before our Lord in the Eucharist, his light transforms our hearts with God’s eternal love. Through this transformation, we come to live in the light of Christ as a beacon of hope to all we encounter.

Let us remember that while God sent his only son into the world to be our light, God also sent us into the world to reflect that light so that others might find their way out of the darkness.