Fourth Sunday of Lent

Sunday, March 14th

Scripture

2 Chr. 36:14-16, 19-23
Ps. 137:1-6
Eph. 2:4-10
Jn. 3:14-21

Reflection

For God so loved the world. Jn. 3:16

As a teenager in the late 1970s, I remember watching various sporting events on TV. It seemed like every time there would be someone standing in the gallery of a golf tournament or a fan at a professional football game holding a very simple sign: John 3:16.  I guess I was the recipient of evangelization because after seeing these placards so often, I was intrigued enough to finally go find our family Bible and look up the citation: 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.  In my teenage naivety I thought, “What’s the big deal about this passage?”

Forty-some years later I better appreciate this passage coined by Martin Luther as “the heart of the Bible, the gospel in miniature.”

Through God’s self-emptying love, humanity was able to see and experience the visible face of the invisible God.  As we are imbued with the Holy Spirit, today we see and experience the visible face of the invisible God in and through one another.  God still SO LOVES this world!

Prayer

Loving God, in our imperfect humanity we continue to add “infidelity to infidelity” (2 Chr. 36:14), yet your love is more powerful than our sin.  Thank you for being so crazy-in-love with us that you would give us the gift of your Son to reconcile the world and all that is in it.

Personal Challenge

Before going to sleep tonight, recall how “God so loved me” today.

Sister Janice Grochowsky, CSJ
Dodge City, KS

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