Today, the 4th Sunday of Lent–Laetare Sunday we here from the gospel of Saint John (3:14-21). One among several sentences from the gospel stand out: “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.” It is the Son of God who saves me from me and offers me a terrific gift: heaven.
A reflection from Saint John Chrysostom gives persepctive: “The text, ‘God so loved the world’, shows such an intensity of love. For great indeed and infinite is the distance between the two. The immortal, infinite majesty without beginning or end loved those who were but dust and ashes, who were loaded with ten thousand sins but remained ungrateful even as they constantly offended him. This is who he ‘loved’! For God did not give over a servant, or an angel or even an archangel but ‘his only begotten Son.’ And yet no one would show such anxiety even for his own child as God did for his ungrateful servants.”