Liturgical Colour : White
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we listened to the words of the Scripture, speaking to us about the sending of God’s only begotten Son, His most Beloved One, into the world, for the sake of the salvation of the whole world. This is a very renowned passage of the Scriptures, the sixteenth verse of the third chapter of the Gospel of St. John, which summarised exactly what the Lord had done for the sake of our salvation and His reason for doing so.

God indeed loves each and every one of us so much, that He was willing to do such an extraordinary deed beyond any other good deeds. He did not hesitate even to enter into this world as a humble and lowly Man, to suffer and to die for the sake of us all, by bearing all of the sins we have, and all of the punishments and consequences intended for those sins, upon Himself.

When He came into this world, He found that all have been covered and tainted with the darkness, that came from our sins and disobedience against God. Therefore, He showed all those who lived in darkness the joy of the true Light, as He is the Light of the world. All who saw Him and witnessed all of His actions found the light of God, and many were touched by the light, and came to conversion before the Lord.

But as mentioned in the Gospel today, that many did not like the light and instead chose to be with the darkness. That is because many of the people had committed sinful actions and deeds, and they were afraid to reveal the truth about themselves. Many of them tried their best to hide their shortcomings and weaknesses, all the faults and sins they had done, and they were too embarrassed and proud to acknowledge them.

Thus, we come into the problem with our ego, the pride present in our hearts and minds. Pride is the most dangerous of all sins, and indeed have become the greatest of the obstacles in our path towards the Lord. It was pride and human arrogance that had prevented many from believing in God, including the chief priests, the elders and the Pharisees, because they saw Jesus and His teachings as threats to their own worldly authority and privileges.

They wanted to preserve their own privileges and power, and all the dealings that they had done. All the things which were done in the darkness, no one will want to reveal them, and that was exactly what we heard in the Gospel today. If we place our trust in worldly things, such as power, money, fame and other forms of temptations, then slowly but surely, these will lure us in and corrupt us, our minds, hearts and souls.

That is why we ended up closing our hearts against God, slamming the doors of our hearts shut before the Lord, Who actually wanted to come in and transform our hearts. This is why, there is a need for all of us to realise just how stubborn and unreasonable we had been, as we walked in the same path as the chief priests and the Pharisees who continued to refuse to believe in the Lord Jesus, even after witnessing the truth many times, and even after His resurrection had been accomplished as He said He would.

Let us therefore make use of this opportunity given to us this Easter, as we reflect on the Lord’s glorious resurrection, that we should break free from the chains of our ego, our pride and all the things that thus far had hindered us from finding our way to Him. Let us all open our hearts and minds to the Lord, and allow Him to come into us. Let the light of the world shine in our hearts and enlighten our hearts and the eyes of our bodies and minds which had been darkened for so long by sin and wickedness.

Let us have a change of heart, that our hearts of stubbornness, the heart of stone and arrogance, our ego-filled hearts and minds are turned into hearts of love, of compassion and mercy. Let us all renew our faith in the Lord, and strive to follow Him in all things, and deepen our faith in Him, doing all that we can in order to obey Him. May the Lord help us all, and may He strengthen us in our faith, so that we shall not fall into the temptation of pride, of power and all other obstacles the devil has placed in our path. God bless us all. Amen.