John 3: 16-18

Jesus said to Nicodemus

“This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son.

And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life. God didn’t go to all the trouble of sending his Son merely to point an accusing finger, telling the world how bad it was. He came to help, to put the world right again.

Anyone who trusts in him is acquitted; anyone who refuses to trust him has long since been under the death sentence without knowing it.

And why? Because of that person’s failure to believe in the one-of-a-kind Son of God when introduced to him.

Gospel Reflection

An itinerant preacher from Nazareth breaking every rule that Nicodemus has lived by and doing it in God’s name; spending his time with sinners and criminals, healing, forgiving, loving. Asking him to do the same; to allow his image of God to crack and to crumble.

He must have felt that he was going out of his mind – out of his mindset of certainty and assurance.

An option would have been to deny what his heart was telling him; to retreat further into the Temple shadows. But the questions would have remained; his old image of God would no longer have all the answers.

The Holy Trinity, as hard as it is to understand, is what we need. Because we can never tie the Trinity down to just one idea, one expectation. God is beyond the rule books – we believe in the Holy Trinity not because we understand but because, as the Archangel Gabriel says – Nothing is impossible to God.