John 3:16 - God is willing to move to Seattle for us.
June 19, 2011 - The Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity
Reading 1 - Ex 34:4b-6, 8-9
Early in the morning Moses went up Mount Sinai as the LORD had commanded him, taking along the two stone tablets. Having come down in a cloud, the LORD stood with Moses there and proclaimed his name, "LORD." Thus the LORD passed before him and cried out, "The LORD, the LORD, a merciful and gracious God, slow to anger and rich in kindness and fidelity."
Moses at once bowed down to the ground in worship. Then he said, "If I find favor with you, O Lord, do come along in our company. This is indeed a stiff-necked people; yet pardon our wickedness and sins, and receive us as your own."
Responsorial Psalm - Dn 3:52, 53, 54, 55, 56
R. (52b) Glory and praise for ever!
Blessed are you, O Lord, the God of our fathers, praiseworthy and exalted above all forever;
And blessed is your holy and glorious name, praiseworthy and exalted above all for all ages.
R. Glory and praise for ever!
Blessed are you in the temple of your holy glory, praiseworthy and glorious above all forever.
R. Glory and praise for ever!
Blessed are you on the throne of your kingdom, praiseworthy and exalted above all forever.
R. Glory and praise for ever!
Blessed are you who look into the depths from your throne upon the cherubim,
praiseworthy and exalted above all forever.
R. Glory and praise for ever!
Reading II - 2 Cor 13:11-13
Brothers and sisters, rejoice. Mend your ways, encourage one another, agree with one another, live in peace, and the God of love and peace will be with you. Greet one another with a holy kiss.
All the holy ones greet you. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with all of you.
Gospel - Jn 3:16-18
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. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him. 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.
Reflection
Why does a 9th grade boy give his crush a box of chocolate hearts on Valentine’s Day, and why does an investment banker purchase a diamond solitaire for his law school fiancé to propose? Why would parents hand their high school graduate the keys to a new car, or shower their expectant daughter with blankets, pacifiers, and strollers? Why do we give gifts?
Certainly it’s a nice thing to do, but plenty of things are nice to do. Too, there might be a financial consideration—many times, we give items that the recipient either could not afford or would not buy for herself—but it can’t simply be that “it’s a nice thing to do,” and “the person could use it.” Using that logic, we’d presumably be compelled to walk around town gifting half the people we meet—it would be a nice thing to do to purchase a laptop for the young college student who lifeguards at the fitness center, or to hand the keys of that new car to a single mom who takes public transit to her job as a hotel maid each day.
The bottom line is that we don’t just go around giving out random gifts—so why do we give the ones we do?
We give gifts as a form of communication. The simple act of a man handing a woman a bouquet of flowers (to take one common example) is loaded with meaning. First of all, the gift itself is significant. Flowers symbolize life and vibrancy—the open blossom represents a moment of actualized potential, a moment in which the full beauty of the plant is on display. Too, the flower embodies beauty and epitomizes sensual appeal—its colors, aroma, and touch all elicit a potent response on the part of the recipient. The message, though implicit, is unmistakable—just as the flowers are thought beautiful, so too the man finds the woman beautiful and wishes for her to know his feelings.
But why flowers? Why jewelry? Why can’t the man simply TELL the woman about his love? Why the gifts?
At a certain point, words are insufficient. Where spoken sentences leave off, other forms of communication pick up. One such type of communication is body language, and another is the language of gifting. When a best friend has spent a year studying in Europe, or a parent returns from military deployment overseas, it is inadequate to express the depth of our emotion by simply walking up to that person and articulating, “I have missed you very much.” Instead, we run up, wrap our arms around the person, and squeeze her close in our embrace, for where the words, “I missed you,” fall short, this rib-crushing hug attempts to fill in. A hug is a form of nonverbal communication that seeks to convey what words cannot. The quarterback chest bumping his wide receiver following a touchdown in the endzone, or the dugout clearing to pile on top of a baseball player after his walk-off home run, are used to express an excitement and energy that simply saying, “Great job!” and “Gosh, this is exciting!” simply couldn’t do justice.
Demonstrations of physical affection serve the same purpose. A kiss is far more adequate for expressing, “I think you are pretty and I have romantic feelings for you,” than would be that same uttered sentiment, and the purpose of a honeymoon is for the newly married couple to go tell one another using body language what they’ve just declared verbally before family and friends.
The same with gifts. When a man says to a woman, “I want you to wear this ring,” he indicates that, not only does he love her, but that this particular instance of love is so profound that he desires to put her in a different category from every other woman he has ever met. Flowers and jewelry are a way of setting someone apart—we simply don’t go around giving people bouquets of roses, much less offering them diamonds. To give a woman flowers is to say, “As beautiful as I find the hundreds of women I come into contact with each week, YOU are the one I find most beautiful.” And to give a woman an engagement ring is to articulate, in a powerful and palpable manner, “Of all the women I’ve ever given flowers, you are unique. You alone are the person I wish to devote myself to in an unequaled and unreserved way.” Gifts elucidate what words cannot. In a sense, they answer a question that occasionally gets posed, but usually remains unspoken: “How much do you love me?” Or, “How proud of me are you?” Or, “How much have you missed me?”
Couples will sometimes engage in playful banter—“How much do you love me?” the one begins. It is then the other’s task to delineate some wildly exaggerative explication. “So much that I would drop out of grad school, marry you, and steal you away to an island in the South Pacific, forsaking friends and neglecting all earthly responsibility save to make you happy.” And, not infrequently, this fanciful exchange turns serious in the course of a lived human relationship.
“How much do you love me?” the recent grad may say to her groom. “Enough to move to Seattle, where I was offered a job?” At this point, words no longer suffice—attesting in spoken form, “I love you so much that I would move to Seattle,” is nice, but actually making that personal sacrifice and moving to Seattle demonstrates the full extent of that love.
Such is the point of today’s Gospel, of the famed Scripture passage John 3:16, of the Incarnation itself. The event of God-become-human is a gift to the human race, a palpable, embodied articulation of incomprehensible love. Throughout the Old Testament, God attested to the people how very much He loved them; in the Person of Jesus, God communicated the reality of that truth more fully in the form of a gift. Put another way—God’s words to the people in the Hebrew Scriptures were God’s verbal insistence that He loves us so much that He would move wherever for us. God becoming human in the person of Jesus was God actually moving to Seattle.
The gift of Jesus is like any other gift from one person in a relationship to another. It answers the question, “How much do you love me?” John here captures God’s response to our question in the famed verse: “God SO loved the world, that He gave His only Son.”
Young couples SO love their fiancés that they put aside a couple month’s salary for a ring, or agree to move to a new city, or make great personal sacrifices for the sake of the marriage.
Every day, throughout the world, parents SO love their children that they work long hours, neglect their own health, and go without many of life’s little luxuries, that their children might have a better life. God SO loved the world that… He took on our humanity and suffered for our sins. Each of these is a gift meant to demonstrate to us the depth of a person’s love for us.
If we are tempted to question a parent’s love for us, we might think back to the many times she picked us up at practice or made our favorite meal when we were sick. If we doubt how very much our girlfriend/boyfriend, fiancé, or spouse loves us, we may be able to call to mind the number of times when s/he has been patient with us, even as we had a complete meltdown and were probably pretty unbearable for a few days there. And if ever we find ourselves questioning how much God loves us—especially when He seems conspicuously absent from recent happenings in our life—we would do well to read John 3:16.
Questions for Reflection
1) Have you ever asked a parent, sibling, friend, or romantic partner, “How much do you love me?” What was his/her response?
2) Have you ever given or received a gift that you felt better captured the depth of your feelings for someone (or someone’s feelings for you) than words ever could? What was the gift? Who was it to/from, and what, precisely, do you think the gift communicated?
3) Do you ever question God’s love for you in your current life? Is this Scripture passage any consolation? If not, what do you think could serve as a message from God indicating how much He loves you?
