Friends, the Gospel on this Fourth Sunday of Lent includes one of the most famous verses in the Bible: “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” (John 3:16). In many ways, this verse is the Gospel in miniature. But we can isolate this line too much and miss the real import of it when we don’t attend to what happens right before—namely, Jesus’ reference to the serpent in the desert.
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GOSPEL
Fourth Sunday of Lent
John 3:14–21
Friends, our Gospel passage today includes one of Scripture’s best-known and best-loved lines. The Lord is speaking to Nicodemus, and we read, “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.”
Why does the Son come? Because God is angry? Because God wants to lord it over us? Because God needs something? No, he comes purely out of love, out of his desire that we flourish. “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.”
It is not in order to work out his anger issues that the Father sends the Son, but that the justice of the world might be restored. Jesus is the fulfillment of God’s salvific intent, displayed throughout the Old Testament.