Second Sunday in Lent, 2026
GENESIS 12:1-4A; PSALM 121; ROMANS 4:1-5, 13-17; JOHN 3:1-17
For God so loved the world
“Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world but in order that the world might be saved through him.”
John’s Gospel does not read: ‘For God so loved the Son.’ It reads, “For God so loved the world.” Is there something special about the love of God for Jesus? Indeed there is. Jesus, in John’s Gospel, tells us that “The Father and I are one … the Father is in me and I am in the Father.” The Father and the Son, in John’s Gospel, have a deep connection, a deep sharing— we know this from the first words we hear in John’s Gospel: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God, and Word was with God.” Does God love the Word, Does God love the Son? Indeed—there’s a way that this mutual love, the mutual indwelling of Son with Father is the love that makes the whole of the world. So yes, ‘For God so loved the Word, God so loved the Son, God so loved Jesus’; but this is far from the end of God’s love. “For God so loved the world.”
Neither does John’s Gospel read “For God so loved Jesus’s disciples.” Of course God does love Jesus’s disciples, even Judas, whose feet Jesus washed, when he washed the feet of the disciples. And imagine what it would have been like, to be there, to be witness to Jesus, his life, his teaching, his death, his resurrection. But John does not say, for God so loved the disciples. God’s love is far bigger than this. “For God so loved the world.”
Neither do we read ‘for God so loved Christians.’ It does appear that there is some benefit to being a follower of Jesus, or perhaps closer to John’s idiom, there is benefit to believing, to trusting, in Jesus—in John’s Gospel, it’s right there in John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him [everyone who trusts in him,] may not perish but may have eternal life.” But this isn’t so much a reward, in John’s Gospel, that we who believe in Jesus get everlasting life. Instead it’s a description of a state of affairs, and has as much to do with living life to the fullest now, rather than being given life after death (though it does include this, in John).
Instead, “eternal life” here describes the life-giving benefit that comes with trusting Jesus in this life—in trusting Jesus, in believing in him, we learn how to truly live, in the here and now—living a life in community, in the trust of others, a daring life in the Spirit that gives us life, a daring life in which God surprises us through that Spirit that blows where it will, leading us deeper and deeper into the life that the Father and the Son share—here, and now, we are welcomed into the very life that the Son and the Father share, their mutual indwelling. So yes, we could say ‘For God so loved Christians,’ but that isn’t what John writes, is it. Instead, John tells us, “For God so loved the world.”
Neither do we read “for God so loved Canada and Canadians,” or ‘for God so loved America and Americans,” or “for God so loved the British Empire.” That way lies the madness of Christian Nationalism, and the false notion that God loves some groups of people more than others, and sees certain people as natural rulers over others. Madness. There is only one nation that could vie for this placement, and that is Israel: the nation that begins with Abraham and Sarah, the people that are delivered out of slavery in Egypt, the people that are given the law on Sinai and led through the desert, the people that are given a homeland, the nation that is sent into exile, the people to whom were given the prophets and who were delivered out of exile. Israel is the chosen people of God; but as early as God’s calling Abraham and Sarah, we know that God’s choosing of one nation among others has, as its end, the choosing of all the nations of the world.
“[I]n you all the families of the earth shall be blessed,” says God to Abraham; and Paul affirms this when he says that “Abraham … is the father of all of us, as it is written, ‘I have made you the father of many nations.’” In Abraham, in Israel, all the nations of the world are blessed. “For God so loved the world.”
Neither does John read, ‘For God so loved you.’ Of course, don’t get me wrong, God loves you. But it’s not a bad idea to push back a little against how this passage about Nicodemus is used sometimes: we ought not to think of being “born again” as an expression of the life of faith being about ‘me and Jesus;’ I am not the centre of the Christian faith, and neither are you—as an individual. Indeed, I do hope that you have a personal relationship, especially through prayer in the Spirit, with God and Jesus. But we cannot say that this is the fullness of faith. “For God so loved the world.”
The world mentioned here in John 3:16, when we hear “for God so loved the world,” calls us back to the opening of John’s Gospel, which itself calls us back to the beginning of all things in creation. In John’s prologue we hear, “All things came into being through [the Word], and without [the Word] not one thing came into being.” The Word, the same Word that becomes flesh in Jesus, was present at the beginning, and the formation, of all things—of the world that God so loves. The world, this “all things,”
is what John will say later is being drawn to Jesus on the cross. “ … when I am lifted up from the earth,” that is, when Jesus is lifted up on the cross, “[I] will draw all people [or all things] to myself,” says Jesus; on the cross ‘all people,’ ‘all things’—all the world—takes a decisive step into the wholeness offered in the life of Jesus. “For God so loved the world.”
John’s Gospel doesn’t speak of the future the same way the other Gospels do; instead, there’s a sense that what Jesus offers in his life, and on the cross, and then in the empty tomb, continues to extend, by the way of his life, and the giving of the Spirit, into the future. Jesus will say in John, “Those who believe in me will not die, but will have everlasting life,” so there is a promise made here about life after death. But John’s emphasis is not there. John’s Gospel ends in a locked room, with Jesus sending his disciples into the world as the Father had sent him, and giving to his disciples the Holy Spirit; it ends with Jesus on the beach, sharing a meal with his friends; it ends with Jesus telling Peter to tend and feed his sheep. That is, it ends with an ongoing presence, and a commission: for us to care for the world that God loves in Jesus’s name and in the power of the Holy Spirit, in order that we might live and that the whole world might be drawn into God’s transforming love: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world but in order that the world might be saved through him.”
Angus Sinclair was appointed Director of Music of St. John the Evangelist on February 1, 2023. Having graduated in 1981 (Honours B.Mus.) in organ performance from Wilfrid Laurier University, he went on to distinguish himself as a church musician, recitalist and accompanist touring in both Canada and the UK. For over 40 years Angus has served parishes and congregations throughout Southwestern Ontario as director of music. He experiences his present appointment to St. John’s as a welcome homecoming, both spiritually and musically.
As our parish musician, he provides both support and leadership so that a variety of parish programs can find musical expression and attract participation. When our handbell choir is in season, he is one of our ringers. At parish dinners, he provides popular piano music for the guests to dine by. For both worship services and concerts, he will rehearse and accompany vocal and instrumental soloists from our congregation on piano, organ, or even accordion.
Angus Sinclair was appointed Director of Music of St. John the Evangelist on February 1, 2023. Having graduated in 1981 (Honours B.Mus.) in organ performance from Wilfrid Laurier University, he went on to distinguish himself as a church musician, recitalist and accompanist touring in both Canada and the UK. For over 40 years Angus has served parishes and congregations throughout Southwestern Ontario as director of music. He experiences his present appointment to St. John’s as a welcome homecoming, both spiritually and musically.