"God so loved the world" - this is a tremendous statement that Jesus made, in the conversation he had with a Pharisee who came to talk with Him by night. God who created the world in the first place really cared so much and loved His handiwork so much that He even gave us His own Son too.

In other places Jesus seems to say the world is a place of darkness, of contradiction to God: the world that didn't recognize who this Son was. He spoke about light and darkness, of everlasting life and of faith. Perhaps too often we take from the Old Testament an image of God bringing judgement and being angry with His world and regretting He ever created it.

People question, in times of tragedy, suffering and distress, how God can be a loving God and yet "allow" such things to happen. We can easily enough see how our world is not always a beautiful place of justice and peace and harmony. We've also become somewhat more conscious of the damage and injury we humans have been doing to this world the Lord has given us to care for.

So, how deeply do those words resonate with us: "God so loved the world that He¡K"? Loved everything He made and saw was "good"...the huge and marvellous complexity of everything, the whole rhythm of coming to be and dying. And this despite all the chaos and conflicts that we've caused. God loves His world so that we could live life to its fullest, live in light.