John 3:16

Even though this verse is the most quoted one in the Bible, it is wonderful to read in context, because it comes in the middle of a strange, abstract, nightly conversation between Jesus and a leader of the world's most technical religion. Nicodemus starts with a roundabout statement-question. He is too polite to say to Jesus, "Look, are you from God, or what?" so he forms a declarative sentence: "No one can do these things unless God is with him." Jesus, characteristically, does not answer his question but instead leads the discussion into a series of bizarre metaphors about wombs and wind and serpents in the desert. His language has the esoteric flavor of a cult. But then, like the lightning that will pierce the sky at His Second Coming, Jesus flashes the truth into the room, a truth that shatters the religious rituals of Judaism, a truth that is radical enough to die for and practical enough to live your life by every day: "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whoever believes in Him will not perish but will have everlasting life."

This statement is unlikely to the point of ridicule, which is why no religion has ever thought to make such a claim. Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism all have us making sacrifices for Allah or Krishna or to make our way along the Nine-fold Path. Who would have thought there might be a God who would sacrifice for us?