John 3: 16-21
For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.
Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God.
New Revised Standard Version, copyright 1989, by the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved. USCCB approved.
We Must Choose Love
John, the beloved disciple, spends a lot of time focusing on redemption and condemnation or judgement. His basic premise is that God gives us a choice to love and be loved by God. We can choose to believe that the God of the universe loves us, loves us so much that God became one of us to die for us, or we can choose not to believe. We can live in disbelief and thus live in self-condemnation outside of God’s love. Self-condemnation because Jesus makes it very clear in the scripture that he came to save not to condemn. Jesus repeats this later on in John 12: 47 “But if anyone listens to my words and fails to observe them, I will not pass judgement on him, for I did not come to judge the world but to save the world.”
Many of us condemn ourselves for the choices we make to live in darkness in order to hide our sins. Jesus knows about our sin and loves us anyway. We must choose every day to believe God loves us so much that he would choose the cross to save us. St. Ignatius teaches us in the First Principle and Foundation that our purpose is to know, love, and serve God to achieve eternal life. When we choose to believe that God loves us in all our brokenness, we choose the gift of eternal life.
—Terresa Michele Ford is an Ignatian spiritual director, palliative care chaplain and artist who has written for Ignatius House Jesuit Retreat Center, Catholic Women Preach, and the Black Catholic Messenger. She holds an M.Div. from the Candler School of Theology at Emory University and an MFA in painting from the Maryland Institute College of Art and serves as a Reflector for the Ignatian Volunteer Corp.
Prayer
Gracious and loving God, we thank you for the path to eternal life, life within your love. We thank you for giving us a choice to live in the light. We pray for the courage to choose your love over darkness every day. We pray all this in the merciful name of your son, our Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
—Terresa Michele Ford