Jesus answered the Jews:
"My Father is at work until now, so I am at work."
Jesus justified his work on the sabbath by appealing to the fact that it was consistent with his Father, since the Father did not cease to give life or to take it away even on the sabbath. But this argument was seemed to the Judeans to be blasphemous since they correctly understood that he was "making himself equal to God".
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.
Jesus clarified, lest they be confused and think that he was establishing himself as some rival alternative to the God of Israel. There could in fact be no competition between the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. The Father gave everything of himself, pouring himself out in love to the Son, and the Son could not help but respond by doing the works that the Father gave him to accomplish.
Whoever does not honor the Son
does not honor the Father who sent him.
The Son was about the business of fulfilling the desire of the Father, which was to raise the dead to give life. The Father was pleased to entrust this task to the Son, glorifying the Son who would in turn perfectly honor the Father. But the difficult part of this for the crowds was that this meant that it was now precisely their response to Jesus himself that could save them from condemnation and make them pass from death to life.
Amen, amen, I say to you, the hour is coming and is now here
when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God,
and those who hear will live.
The profound centrality of the person of Jesus in the destiny of every human being is indeed a lot to take in. It is properly his voice alone that will call the dead to life, his judgment that will determine their eternal destiny. Such claims far surpass any that a prophet or any merely human creature could make. But Jesus did not make these claims because he was a narcissistic lunatic, nor did he lie in order to fool others and get something for himself. Listen to the sober rationale that Jesus gave for saying these things:
"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."
Jesus is the one who was given the name above every name because he preferred the Father's will to his human will and humbled himself even unto death (see Philippians 2:6-11). That name, because it refers to the whole history, reality, and presence, of Jesus himself, is now the only name given under heaven by which we can be saved (see Acts 4:12).
Jesus has staked his rightful claim of lordship over the world and our lives. Do we sometimes balk at these claims as too extreme? Do we try to restrict the sphere of his rule in our lives or in our world? Whenever we do that we are implicitly, whether we fully realize it or not, denying life and asking for judgment without his mercy. Let us instead praise this name above all names, so that we too can look forward to his voice calling us to life.
The reign is Jesus is not one of a tyrant or a despot. It is the reign of a shepherd king, one who leads with the compassion about which we hear in the first reading from Isaiah:
Along the ways they shall find pasture,
on every bare height shall their pastures be.
They shall not hunger or thirst,
nor shall the scorching wind or the sun strike them;
For he who pities them leads them
and guides them beside springs of water.
Inspiration from:
Martin, Francis; Wright, William M. IV. The Gospel of John (Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture) (p. 105). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
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