Jesus answered the Jews:
“My Father is at work until now, so I am at work.”
The Judeans had accused Jesus of working on the Sabbath in a way that transgressed their understanding of the law. Jesus explained his own work on the Sabbath by pointing to the work that his Father did not cease to work "until now" including on the Sabbath. The Father's acts of giving life and judgment did not cease on the Sabbath for babies were still born and people still died and faced judgment for their lives regardless of the day of the week. The Judeans didn't really consider the argument, but instead got hung up on the unique relationship Jesus claimed in calling "God his own father, making himself equal to God." It wasn't that Jesus had merely a better interpretation of Scripture and the law to justify his actions. He claimed a unique authority on the basis of his relationship with the Father that gave him a unique insight into the Father's life and purpose. No mere interpreter of Torah was positioned to argue with someone who thought of himself of that light.
For this reason they tried all the more to kill him,
because he not only broke the sabbath
but he also called God his own father, making himself equal to God.
The authority by which Jesus explained his understanding of the Sabbath was something that was harder for the Judeans accusers to take than the initial crime of which they accused him. But Jesus did not back off. He did not, for instance, say that he was just describing an experience of God that was open to everyone. Instead he further explained the way in which his relationship to the Father was utterly unique.
“Amen, amen, I say to you, the Son cannot do anything on his own,
but only what he sees the Father doing;
for what he does, the Son will do also.
That the Son could do anything on his own ought in some sense to have given credence to his words. His was not a mission of self-promotion or self-aggrandizement. But to the Judeans, the only alternative to Jesus acting on his own was even less imaginable. To them his words could only be explained by madness and blasphemy. How else, they thought, could Jesus claim to have such a unique ability to see what the Father was doing? Unless of course he spoke the truth. But this was a leap that they were not yet prepared to make.
For the Father loves the Son
and shows him everything that he himself does,
and he will show him greater works than these,
so that you may be amazed.
The mission of the Son to reveal the Father was just getting started. He revealed his mission to give life to the world in a small way by healing the paralytic. But this was merely a prelude, a sign to make intelligible the still greater works than these with which he would amaze them.
For just as the Father raises the dead and gives life,
so also does the Son give life to whomever he wishes.
Nor does the Father judge anyone,
but he has given all judgment to the Son,
so that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father.
The greater works that Jesus would go on to perform included giving spiritual life to those who believed in his name, raising the bodies of the dead on the last day, and finally sitting in judgment over every human life, all works which he himself learned from his Father. The hinge of it all would be Jesus himself, since in responding to Jesus an individual also responded to the Father who sent him.
Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever hears my word
and believes in the one who sent me
has eternal life and will not come to condemnation,
but has passed from death to life.
We who have believed that Jesus is from the Father have life in his name. If we abide in him and he in us we will not come to condemnation. This exulted role of Jesus was too much for many who heard him in his own day but it is truth born out by his own resurrection from the dead, a truth on which we must now rely. There is no other source of life, no other hope in the face of judgment. When that life is within us and bearing fruit we can come forth from the tombs with confidence when his voice calls us on the last day. The resurrection of life will merely confirm those who have chosen to trust in God for life. The resurrection of condemnation will merely reflect those who have already rejected the hand of God outstretched in an offer of mercy.
“I cannot do anything on my own;
I judge as I hear, and my judgment is just,
because I do not seek my own will
but the will of the one who sent me.”
These are not the words of a crazy person, not like the emperors and their cults of divinity. These are not the words of a liar, speaking for his own benefit, trying to trick others in order to gain something himself. And that leaves no other option than that Jesus is who he himself claimed to be the Son who is "equal to God".
The purpose of Jesus in coming to us was that he might save us so that we would not face condemnation. He desired to "restore the land and allot the desolate heritages", to set prisoners free, to be a light to those in darkness, and to lead his sheep to green pastures. He himself would be the living reality that sealed the New Covenant with his people. He did in fact come, yet we still sometimes complain, claiming that the Lord has forgotten us, forgotten these promises and left us here unaided. To us who feel such temptation to despair the prophet calls us to greater faith.
But Zion said, “The LORD has forsaken me;
my Lord has forgotten me.”
Can a mother forget her infant,
be without tenderness for the child of her womb?
Even should she forget,
I will never forget you.
Let us listen for the voice of God that gives life. Let us see the works Jesus has received from the Father so that we might in turn have life in abundance and from that abundance bear fruit.
The Lord is gracious and merciful.
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