John 3:16-18
Dear Friends, There is no place in the teachings of Jesus where we will find a description of the Trinity as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It took the Church centuries of reflection, almost continual conflict and deep prayer to articulate the reality of Trinity as we have in our Creed today.
Jesus was the revelation of God. His was a message of love and mercy. As a Church we learned we cannot think our way into God. The only passage into the Divine Mystery is a way of love guided by faith that is open and searching obedience to love. Jesus taught us the way of love. It is love for God, for our neighbor and for our world.
Through Jesus, we have learned that our call to fidelity is mirrored in God’s fidelity to humankind. All through the painful and conflict-driven history of the human venture, God has responded well beyond our understanding in love and mercy. Our resistance and rebellion to the call of love has always received a Divine response of patience, compassion and merciful love. This is the only possible response from a Trinitarian God who is love.
We have an exquisite picture of what a true response to God’s love would look like. Aristides, a learned Greek philosopher, described the Christians in the second century this way: “They love one another. They never fail to help widows; they save orphans from those who would hurt them. If they have something, they give freely to the person that has nothing; if they see a stranger, they take him home and are happy as though he were a brother. They do not consider themselves brothers in the usual sense, but brothers instead through the Spirit, in God.”
Today’s Gospel passage has often been called a gospel in miniature. It describes in just a few lines the unlimited love of God. In Jesus, we have the continual unveiling of this love of the Father. Jesus is the ultimate gift that keeps on giving, keeps on calling and keeps on loving!
Today’s Gospel tells us why God has saved us. It is all about love. God has chosen to lay out the magnitude and power of this love through the saving acts of his Son and through the continuing action of the Spirit. This love knows no boundaries, has no conditions and needs no invitation. It simply engulfs all reality. As St. Therese, the Little Flower, declared, “Everything is grace!”
Today’s Gospel sets this divine love before us very clearly. God takes the initiative: “God so loved the world.” (Jn 3:16)
In loving the world, God shows us that all are invited into the mutual love that is the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Jesus fleshes out this totally inclusive love in the stories of the Good Samaritan, the publican, Magdalene, the father of the troubled sons and so many other expressions of acceptance and mercy.
Likewise, today’s Gospel tells us the purpose of God’s mission: “God did not send the Son…to condemn the world but that the world might be saved through Him and enjoy eternal life.” (Jn 3:16-18)
This divine love portrayed in John’s Gospel is beyond our understanding, hopelessly out our reach for us to merit, and outside the limits of our capacity to respond in kind. God has loved us first and with a generosity we will never be able to match. In the end, all we can do is to attempt to walk in the footsteps of Jesus and embrace the merciful love.
Jesus invites us into the mystery of love and life that is the Father and Son and Holy Spirit. The choice is ours. We can accept or reject.
The great joy of today’s feast of the Holy Trinity, like every proclamation of the Gospel, is that God never gives up on us. Jesus is constantly calling us to accept Him as the way, the life and the truth. Slowly, life tends to teach us that Jesus really does have a better plan both for here and hereafter. Our calling is rooted in this God of love and we are destined to be one with God, Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.
