Second Chance
God so loved the world . . .
What does this phrase mean to you? I would imagine how you define love will help you define this phrase. And everyone has a different understanding of love and will define it based on their experience. It does not mean we are all equal, no it means we are all unique. And God loves each of us as that special human being.
. . . He gave His only-begotten Son . . .
It might seem redundant to ask this question, but why did He have to give His only-begotten Son. The simple answer – we have sinned. Each sin turns us away from God.
Looking at Adam and Eve, who only had one commandment to follow, we discover pride, envy, not trusting in God, and several other sins, entered our human nature. Through our free will we turned away from God. We lost our opportunity to enter eternal life with our Lord. There is no way on our own can we reconcile with God.
It will take God to establish a way for us to be reconciled. But it is not God’s fault that we sinned. God cannot help us because it is our responsibility to reconcile. In our human nature, we cannot do it. But God, becoming incarnate, both fully human and fully divine can. He would sacrifice His Son because He loves us.
In this sacrifice, heaven is opened to human beings. More importantly, we are given a second chance. And this second chance is needed quite often. Because even though we have been redeemed we still sin. Our second chance becomes frequent reception of the sacrament of confession. We have a God of second chances.
May the Lord bless you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen