This one verse

Today’s Gospel (John 3:16-21) begins with one of the most famous verses from all of Scripture. In our time it has been reprinted on innumerable T-shirts, bumper stickers, and even posters at sporting events.

It is repeated for good reason, for this one verse sums up wonderfully, well, everything.

God so loved the world. That is why He created it. That is why He continued to reach out to humankind all throughout history even after they chose sin and death again and again.

Most powerfully, that is why He gave his only-begotten Son: God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten – not made, consubstantial with the Father, through Whom all things were made.

He gave His only-begotten Son – in the Incarnation and most lovingly in the sacrifice of His Son’s Passion, death, and Resurrection – so that everyone who believes in Him might not perish, but might have eternal life.

We choose death when we choose sin, when we choose selfishness, when we choose materialism, when we choose the illusion of self-mastery.

God offers us eternal life through faith: not just an intellectual assent, but an embrace with our whole being – body, mind, and soul – of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, who was given for us.

There is so much more here, of course, than even this.

May God give us the grace to more and more fully appreciate, accept, and live in our everyday life what is contained in this one verse:

God so loved the world
that he gave his only-begotten Son,
so that everyone who believes in him
might not perish
but might have eternal life.