Everybody's Text

Homily for Wednesday of the Second Week in Easter

The text from today’s Gospel passage has been called “Everybody’s text.” Herein for every simple heart is the very essence of the gospel. This text tells us that the initiative in all salvation lies with God. Sometimes Christianity is presented in such a way that it sounds as if God had to be pacified, as if he had to be persuaded to forgive. Sometimes people speak as if they would draw a picture of a stern, angry, unforgiving God and a gentle, loving, forgiving Jesus. Others present the Christian message in such a way that it sounds as if Jesus did something which changed the attitude of God from one of condemnation to forgiveness. However, this text tells us that it was with God that it all started. It was God who sent his son, and God sent him because he loved us.

This text also tells us that the mainspring of God’s being is love. It is easy to think of God as looking at us in our heedlessness and our disobedience and rebellion and saying: “I’ll break them: I’ll discipline them and punish them and scourged them until they come back.” It is easy to think of God as seeking our allegiance in order to satisfy God’s desire for power and for what we might call completely subjective universe. The tremendous thing about this text is that it shows is God acting not for God’s own sake, but for hours. God cannot be happy until God’s wandering children have come home.

Finally, this passage tells us of the width of God’s love. It was the world that God so loved. It was not a nation; it was not the good people; it was not only the people who loved God; it was the world. The unlovable entity on the lovely, the lonely who have no one else to love them, the one who loves God and the one who never thinks of God, the one who rests in the love of God and the one who spurns it – all are included in this vast inclusive love of God. St. Augustine wrote: “God loves each one of us as if there was only one of us to love.”