Greek has a way of saying things that we lack in English. The grammar in today’s gospel bears special attention because it tells us that God’s love is always a concrete act, something real and tangible. There is nothing abstract about it. God loves Jesus. Jesus loves the Father. The Father sends the Son to us and Jesus comes to us in love. Jesus tells us to love one another. In today’s gospel St John is not speculating about God’s love but telling us what actually happened. Jesus came to us because of love and then lived that love in concrete ways. Our challenge is to make our loving action concrete in the world, to make it something real in real deeds. Friends of Jesus first, touched by his expansive love, we have the power to befriend the cosmos. In just such ways practical love reveals transformed hearts, spacious hearts as open as the heart of Jesus, hearts with the creative imagination for deeds that are concrete and real. Can we make that love real where we are? Resurrection love is real. It flows into action. Are we up to the challenge?