A good Sunday to all.

The text that we read today must be placed in the context of the dialogue between Jesus and Nicodemus. We remember this person who went to Jesus at night; he was a rabbi, a student of the scriptures and belonged to the sect of the Pharisees. He was certainly the most educated person Jesus knew, a connoisseur or specialist of the law, of theology.

What did Nicodemus want that night? Perhaps we are somewhat conditioned by sermons we have heard; we may imagine Nicodemus hiding by the walls so that his colleagues would not see him.

The Gospel does not present him this way. Let’s notice how he addresses Jesus … he speaks in the plural. He says: ‘Rabbi, we Pharisees know that you are a man who has come from God because nobody can carry out the signs that you do if he is not sent by God.’

And what were the signs that Jesus had done? When Jesus arrived in Jerusalem, he had made only one sign. We are at the beginning of the Gospel according to John. The sign was to drive the vendors out of the temple, a dramatic sign; and the religious authorities were, of course, outraged because of the desecration of the temple. And the Pharisees, to whose sect Nicodemus also belonged, were puzzled. They asked themselves: Who is this that has the courage to make such a gesture? Only one who is moved by the prophetic Spirit and is to give a sign could do that.

Therefore, Jesus is a person who begins to disturb the religious authorities because he does not conform with the established norms. This is, therefore, the need of Nicodemus to know Jesus and possibly to try to control him. I think that was the mission that Nicodemus had to carry out that night. It was to try to take Jesus back to the correct path, that is, according to the tradition of the Pharisees.

This Nicodemus represents all of us a bit; we are people linked to traditions, to conceptions … good and sincere, honest people, but when we encounter the novelty of Jesus, we try by all means to pigeonhole him, that is, to convince ourselves that, after all, what Jesus says is nothing more than confirming what we have always thought … No!

When Jesus arrives, he discards the traditions invented by people which are superfluous or wrong. We must enter the novelty that Jesus proposes. It is precisely the new wine that breaks old wineskins. Why did he go at night? Not because he was hiding so as not to be seen… No! He had a mission to carry out; he wanted to see if he could convince Jesus to accept the group and the ideas and belief of the Pharisees.

The rabbis considered the night to be the appropriate time to devote oneself to the study of Torah, of the law. Let’s remember Psalm 1: “The righteous find their joy in the law of the Lord and meditate on his law day and night.”

The night is the right time to reflect, to search for the meaning of our existence, to let those deeper questions speak; questions that we often try to silence, but the silence of the night makes them rise again. The night is time to think, to reflect. In fact, the two begin their dialogue, but Jesus immediately takes the floor and presents the theme of being born again, being born from above and Nicodemus begins to feel lost because he had not come for this reason. His objective was another. Jesus even begins to speak mentioning the Old Testament image of Moses who had lifted up the serpent and says that this is how the son of man should be elevated. At this point, Nicodemus had surely understood nothing; and, in fact, from this moment on, he is no longer spoken of; he leaves the scene. It had appeared at night and disappeared at night.

And Jesus continues speaking in what now seems to be a monologue in which he offers us a wonderful revelation. We are going to enjoy it because it speaks of the Father’s face.

Let’s listen:

At that time Jesus said: “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.”

Jesus spoke to Nicodemus about a new birth; then he said that the son of man had to be raised and at that moment Nicodemus must have understood absolutely nothing. He had come to speak to Jesus about something else; he wanted to clarify Jesus’ position regarding the Torah, about the observance of the traditions and, in the end, he probably was quite disappointed.

This will not end his relationship with Jesus because, later, the evangelist John reminds us that there was a discussion between Nicodemus and his Pharisee colleagues, and at one point Nicodemus says: “Can you convict a person according to our law, without having heard him first?” They will tell him: “Shut up, study and you will realize that the Messiah does not come from Galilee.” And they take him as an ignorant, he who was the leader of the Pharisees. And then Nicodemus will reappear on Calvary, at the time of Jesus’ burial, when he will bring those 100 pounds of myrrh and aloes to anoint the body of Jesus.

The monologue presented to us in today’s Gospel is probably a reflection of the primitive community that, enlightened by the Spirit, understood the revelation of the face of God that had been given by Jesus. They understood, after Easter, the truth about God, that the early disciples learned from Jesus, so the evangelist correctly places this revelation of the face of God in the mouth of Jesus.

Pagans imagined their divinity, rather, their divinities, as whimsical, jealous of their immortal life. The gods had destined people to death, but the life that never ends was reserved for them. Then they agreed to be served by people, and granted their favors to those who offered some sacrifices. This was the pagan conception of the face of God.

For their part, the Hebrews believed, especially, in a legislating God, a just judge, who separated the good from the bad, the righteous from the unjust, loved some and hated others. I think that these conceptions of God, a little like the pagan, a little like the self- righteous, it is still largely present even in the Christian conception of the face of God. The hearts of these Christians have not yet been purified by the revelation of God that Jesus brought to us. Just think about how many Christians still think that sacrifices must be offered to God and that one can and must give something to Him… No!

We cannot give anything to God, at least to the God of Jesus of Nazareth. From the God of Jesus of Nazareth, we receive everything freely. And some Christians still have the Jewish conception of seeing in God as a righteous God; a perception that still many Christians have. It is difficult to erase this mentality in many Christians for whom the just God is the one who rewards the good and punishes those who have made mistakes in life. It is not the God of Jesus of Nazareth who does these things. Jesus introduces us to the Father.

And he presents Him with two verbs that describe him. The first one: Love. The God “who loved the world so much” … the Greek word is “agapán”, it is the first time that appears in the Gospel of John. Then it will appear another 35 times. To love = “Agapán” means: totally free love, which is born from within, an inner need to do good and only good; willing, even, to give everything, even the life to make someone happy, to give life. This is ‘agapán’. ‘God loves the world so much’. The word, the verb that defines him is ‘love’. “Loved the world”: This term ‘world’ appears 78 times in the Gospel of John and has several meanings.

It can mean the world we know, humanity, but in the context of today’s text indicates humanity marked by sin, an enemy of God, rebellious. God loves the world immensely, this humanity, as it is. We remember what the book of Genesis says in chapter six when it describes the wickedness of people that was great on earth and the conduct of people was nothing but wickedness. The earth was corrupt before God, full of violence.

And there is a text in Genesis that is an anthropomorphism that scares us a bit because it says: “The Lord regretted making human beings on the earth, and his heart was grieved” (Gen 6:6). This ‘anthropomorphism’ is a very bold expression, but it is to give an idea how far humanity had distanced itself from the Lord. This is the world, this is the humanity that God loves, whom God has loved so much … this humanity. God loves this world, this humanity that rejects, even today, the Father’s plan of love and God has always loved it, even when this humanity has taken possession of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Humanity did not trust Him; decided on its own because it was self-sufficient; it didn’t need God … people could do without God … And God has always loved this humanity, even when this humanity considered God as their enemy. And people did not interpret the Torah that God gave them as the way of life, but as an impediment to the realization of their own freedom, of their own joy.

The God of Jesus has always loved this humanity and has done nothing but love it. All the other things that people wanted God to do are outside of this love, which is His only life. God loves this humanity! Then we have the second verb: “gave”, gave the greatest gift he had … his Only Begotten Son… The verb “to give” used here indicates the free gift God has made. The objective: “So that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.” Let us try to understand well what Jesus is saying to us. It is necessary to believe in this Only Begotten, because he was sent for this purpose: so that we may have eternal life, to receive it as a gift.

Believing in the Only Begotten Son does not mean believing only that Jesus existed, or that he was an extraordinary person. Believing means accepting him as a model of man, to accept being part of this project of new humanity, which has love as its goal. Believing in Jesus means living like him; letting the divine life that was given to us manifest as it has been fully revealed in Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus was driven by this divine life that is love and fully manifested throughout his life.

And this life was also given to all of us. Believing means accepting it and letting it manifest in the concreteness of our existence. This divine life that is called eternal life, is not the ‘bios’, the biological life; it is another life, it is the life of the Eternal. It is not eternal in the sense of duration (time). Sometimes we imagine eternal life as a continuation of this life: ‘yes, we die, but then we recover our life’ … No! This life is over.

What Jesus gives us is the life of the Eternal, the divine life and this is not eternal in duration but because it is indestructible, because it is of a totally different quality from the biological life. Maybe we imagine eternal life as a reward given to us when we die, if we have behaved well … No! Eternal life is given to us today, immediately. When the biological life ends, we are immortal because this ‘eternal’ life is not touched. It is what Jesus says: “Whoever believes in me does not die.” It is the realization of what Jesus has just told Nicodemus: it is necessary to be born again, not to return to the mother’s womb, as Nicodemus thought … No! it is necessary to be born from above, that is, to accept this divine life. This means believing in the Only Begotten Son. He was sent by the Father to give us this life.

Therefore, this is the face of the Father, the one who loves, the one who gives. And let’s not add anything else because we have invented many things that we have attributed to the Heavenly Father and that have nothing to do with him. This is the only face of God. All the other images we made up are pagan.

And now Jesus continues to tell us the reason why he, the Only Begotten Son has been sent into the world:

“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.”

Why did the Heavenly Father send His Only Begotten Son into the world? First of all, always keep in mind that when in the Semitic world it is said that someone is the son of a father, rather than begotten by, it is understood ‘similar to’, the father recognizes his traits in the son, not only in the external traits, but in all values that were cultivated by the father and that were instilled in the son.

When we speak of the Only Begotten Son, whom the Father sent into this world, we understand that the Father sent his perfect image. And how was this Father revealed in the Only Begotten Son? In love; just out of love. That is why he says that “He was not sent to the world to condemn the world.” Therefore, any idea about condemning an evil humanity is removed. Let us not confuse condemnation of something that was done wrong, with the condemnation of evil people.

People are never condemned. It is not the God of Jesus of Nazareth who condemns; that’s the pagan god … the God of Jesus of Nazareth now tells us what he does, but first of all he says what he doesn’t do … so let’s get out of our heads the idea that God condemns people. We are all his sons and daughters.

Perhaps we have a very disfigured image of God-Father; we always remain His sons and daughters. What is condemned is the evil that this humanity does; this is what is condemned because this evil destroys the divine life, disfigures it in His sons and daughters and therefore, God is the first to hate this evil, but He does not hate or condemn any of his sons and daughters. God is not a judge who condemns humanity but a Love that communicates life. I suppose Nicodemus was not present when Jesus said these things, because he would have passed out!

The God who revealed himself in Jesus was not in the least like the God to whom rabbinical catechesis had instilled in the mind and in the heart of a Pharisee. The Only Begotten has been sent into the world so that the world can be saved through him. No condemnation; salvation … only salvation. What does this verb ‘to save’ mean? This verb appears very often in the Bible. In the Old Testament the name is ‘iashá’. From this word comes the name of Jesus ‘Joshuá’ = the one who saves. It appears 241 times in the Old Testament and more than 100 times in the New Testament.

In the bible ‘to save’ means: to protect, to free from what prevents you from living; it means being saved from oppression, saved from the conditions that make us slaves because whoever is a slave cannot live fully, its existence is conditioned. Israel was in Egypt, it had meat, onions, but Israel was not free, therefore could not live well. God set them free. And when Israel was slave to Babylon God set them free. So here we have the verb ‘to liberate’, ‘to save’. To save is precisely to liberate of any form of slavery.

The Only Begotten Son came to save us from this slavery, and sets us free. We know these enslavements very well; they are all those that prevent us from living as sons and daughters of God, that is, to let us express the divine life that He has given us, and it is the life of love. What is spoiling this life? They are, for example, the attachment to money; if we think only about money, in accumulation, we are slaves to money, we cannot love. We do not give everything to those in need. If we think only of ourselves we are slaves to our selfishness where we cannot live, because living is loving! Jesus came to free us from all these enslavements. If I only do what I like … Am I free?

We often think that freedom is being able to do what one wants … No! If I am a slave to my greed, I want to impose myself, I want to dominate, I am not a man, I do not express the life that characterizes a person, which is love. The Only Begotten Son came to save us, but not to save us at the end of life by introducing us to paradise, perhaps after we repent and have made a good confession. No!

Salvation is today because otherwise, if we do not allow ourselves to be saved, we do not allow ourselves to be liberated of all our idols, we don’t live as people. “And those who believe in him are not condemned and those who do not believe are already condemned, because they did not believe in the name of the Only Begotten Son of God.”

What is meant by this condemnation? Because Jesus has already said that he does not condemn anyone. Whoever believes in him is not condemned. That is, if one trusts and welcomes this life and lets it express itself as expressed fully in Jesus, that person lives. If, on the other hand, you do not trust and do not accept Jesus’ proposal of man is not that God condemn him; he or she is condemned, that is, he or she is condemned to non-life. Jesus does not say that they will be punished by God.

Please be aware of this: Jesus says that if we do not accept the proposal of man that he makes us, we condemn ourselves to non-life. And so, let’s keep this in mind, it’s not that ‘you will be condemned,’ but that you are condemned today if you don’t accept the proposal made by Jesus, therefore, there is no condemnation from God. There is a positive proposal for life and who welcomes it is in the fullness of life; whoever rejects it rejects this fullness of life and therefore, goes against his or her interest, it goes against their deepest aspirations because it suffocates the divine life that has been given to us.

After joyfully welcoming this revelation from God, who is unconditional love, I wish you all a good Sunday and a good week.