Father Koch: Yes, God loves us, but what does that mean for us?
March 8, 2024 at 11:14 a.m.
Gospel reflection for March 8, 2024: Fourth Sunday of Lent
Perhaps the most famous dialogue in the Gospels is that between Jesus and the Pharisee Nicodemus found in John 3:16. We see this on signs and it has become so familiar that the passage can end up being easily glossed over and taken for granted. Jesus leaves us with a powerful message that we need to consider. "God so loved the world," Jesus tells Nicodemus, "that he sent his only Son." We can easily take God's love for granted -- a presumption which can be perilous. We are so used to the idea that God loves us that we do not think about the implications of that love in the midst of our daily lives.
The First Reading, the end of the Second Book of Chronicles, points out that God, ever-faithful to the covenant with Israel, sent them a consistent stream of prophets to preach to the people and to bring them back to the covenant. Yet, in their stubbornness they resisted the prophets. In doing so they set themselves up for failure as a nation, took the wrong side in a wider conflict in the levant, and suffered the loss of nationhood, homeland, and the destruction of the Temple.
Viewed by some as punishment, the author instead sees the devastation of 586BC as an avoidable consequence that the people brought on themselves. They did not heed the prophets, thus rejecting God and his covenant.
As soon as the people went into exile God promised that he would remain faithful to them and would restore them to the land and the promise. Within 70 years the Emperor Cyrus I of Persia granted the people a right to return and to build a new Temple and practice their faith without restriction.
Nicodemus, a Pharisee comes to Jesus at night to ask a question about eternal life. He comes at night probably because he does not want to appear to other Pharisees and the people to be interested in what Jesus has to say. John, in his Gospel, also likes to use night/darkness to indicate someone not yet being in the light, the rejection of Jesus, or even the presence of evil.
Jesus responds with the well-known “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.”
Going now beyond the constrictions of the covenant, Jesus emphasizes God’s love for the world. Yet, throughout John’s Gospel this same world stands in opposition to Jesus, and therefore thwarting the action of God. God loves the world, but the world does not love God.
Jesus knows that the world not only doesn’t love him but that the world hates him. In the Last Supper discourse (ch 15) Jesus says to his disciples: “If the world hates you, realize that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, the world would love its own; but because you do not belong to the world, and I have chosen you out of the world, the world hates you.”
That is strong language and a heartbreaking message.
Jesus commands us to love God with “all our heart, soul, mind, and strength and to love our neighbor as ourselves.” This means that in some way we must be separate from the world — we cannot love the world and love God. For while God loves the world, the world continues to not love God and, indeed, to hate the very idea of God.
What do we do? We must demonstrate our love of God and of our neighbor in ways that challenge the world, and make the world uncomfortable.
We might take God’s love for us for granted, but we also presume that God knows we love him. While, of course, he does, as the omniscient being that he is, like everyone else God likes to hear it from us, see it demonstrated in our lives, and have that sense that we desire to be with him.
Likewise, we need to authentically love our neighbor in the stranger, the unlovable, the poor, the lost, and the unrepentant sinner.
So, it is not enough that God loves us we must actively and intentionally love God and love our neighbor, so that we can lead the world to love of God.
Father Garry Koch is pastor of St. Benedict Parish, Holmdel.
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Gospel reflection for March 8, 2024: Fourth Sunday of Lent
Perhaps the most famous dialogue in the Gospels is that between Jesus and the Pharisee Nicodemus found in John 3:16. We see this on signs and it has become so familiar that the passage can end up being easily glossed over and taken for granted. Jesus leaves us with a powerful message that we need to consider. "God so loved the world," Jesus tells Nicodemus, "that he sent his only Son." We can easily take God's love for granted -- a presumption which can be perilous. We are so used to the idea that God loves us that we do not think about the implications of that love in the midst of our daily lives.
The First Reading, the end of the Second Book of Chronicles, points out that God, ever-faithful to the covenant with Israel, sent them a consistent stream of prophets to preach to the people and to bring them back to the covenant. Yet, in their stubbornness they resisted the prophets. In doing so they set themselves up for failure as a nation, took the wrong side in a wider conflict in the levant, and suffered the loss of nationhood, homeland, and the destruction of the Temple.
Viewed by some as punishment, the author instead sees the devastation of 586BC as an avoidable consequence that the people brought on themselves. They did not heed the prophets, thus rejecting God and his covenant.
As soon as the people went into exile God promised that he would remain faithful to them and would restore them to the land and the promise. Within 70 years the Emperor Cyrus I of Persia granted the people a right to return and to build a new Temple and practice their faith without restriction.
Nicodemus, a Pharisee comes to Jesus at night to ask a question about eternal life. He comes at night probably because he does not want to appear to other Pharisees and the people to be interested in what Jesus has to say. John, in his Gospel, also likes to use night/darkness to indicate someone not yet being in the light, the rejection of Jesus, or even the presence of evil.
Jesus responds with the well-known “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.”
Going now beyond the constrictions of the covenant, Jesus emphasizes God’s love for the world. Yet, throughout John’s Gospel this same world stands in opposition to Jesus, and therefore thwarting the action of God. God loves the world, but the world does not love God.
Jesus knows that the world not only doesn’t love him but that the world hates him. In the Last Supper discourse (ch 15) Jesus says to his disciples: “If the world hates you, realize that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, the world would love its own; but because you do not belong to the world, and I have chosen you out of the world, the world hates you.”
That is strong language and a heartbreaking message.
Jesus commands us to love God with “all our heart, soul, mind, and strength and to love our neighbor as ourselves.” This means that in some way we must be separate from the world — we cannot love the world and love God. For while God loves the world, the world continues to not love God and, indeed, to hate the very idea of God.
What do we do? We must demonstrate our love of God and of our neighbor in ways that challenge the world, and make the world uncomfortable.
We might take God’s love for us for granted, but we also presume that God knows we love him. While, of course, he does, as the omniscient being that he is, like everyone else God likes to hear it from us, see it demonstrated in our lives, and have that sense that we desire to be with him.
Likewise, we need to authentically love our neighbor in the stranger, the unlovable, the poor, the lost, and the unrepentant sinner.
So, it is not enough that God loves us we must actively and intentionally love God and love our neighbor, so that we can lead the world to love of God.
Father Garry Koch is pastor of St. Benedict Parish, Holmdel.