2018-3-11

朋友们，今天的福音包含了耶稣最著名和最受爱戴的话语。主的说话对象是尼苛德摩，祂说：“天主竟这样爱了世界，甚至赐下了自己的独生子，使凡信他的人，不至丧亡，反而获得永生。”

 

圣子为什么要来？是因为天主发怒？是因为天主要称霸天下？是因为天主有所需求？不是，祂纯粹因爱而来，天主渴望我们繁荣兴旺。“因为天主没有派遣子到世界上来，审判世界，而是为叫世界，藉着他而获救。”

 

圣父派遣圣子来不是为了平息怒气，而是为了修复世间的正义。天主救赎人类的意图在《圣经旧约》中到处可见，而这个意图就在耶稣身上圆满实现。

 

Friends, our Gospel passage today includes one of Jesus’ best-known and best-loved sayings. The Lord is speaking to Nicodemus and he tells him, "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, God’s 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.