My Father is at work until now, so I am at work

13 MARCH (Jn 5,17-30)

What Jesus works is calculated with divine wisdom, intelligence, prudence and utmost understanding in the Holy Spirit. He left nothing to chance. His divine charity is also governed by his foresight in the Holy Spirit.

Jesus wants to assert his divine and human truth before the Jews. He works the great miracle of the healing of the paralytic at the pool of Bethesda and orders him to take up his stretcher and to return to his home. It is not the miracle that raises the discussion or dialogue with the Jews, but the order of taking and carrying the stretcher away. That day was a Sabbath and according to the Jews it is forbidden to any job.

Anyone familiar with the Old Testament knows that the whole Moral law was based on the perfect imitation of God “Be holy, for I the Lord your God, am holy.” Each of the children of Israel drew from the contemplation of God in history his most perfect moral rule. God loves every man and he must also love every man. God has compassion on all he must be compassionate towards all. This rule must always be applied. What God does, man can and must also do it.

Today Jesus applies the same principle. He sees the Father who works on the Sabbath, and he also operates. If God works on the Sabbath the Son also works. The supreme moral rule is not the law given and interpreted by the Jews; on the contrary, it is the perpetual contemplation of the Father, of God This principle gives the law a very relative value. The law is absolute in itself. However, the true interpreter is not man. It is the Lord. If man does not contemplate, does not see the Lord, how can he give true interpretation of the Law.

But Jesus answered them, “My Father is at work until now, so I am at work.” For this reason the Jews 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. Jesus answered and said to them, “Amen, amen, I say to you, a son cannot do anything on his own, but only what he sees his father doing; for what he does, his son will do also. For the Father loves his Son and shows him everything that he himself does, and he will show him greater works than these, so that you may be amazed. 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 his Son, so that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor 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. 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. For just as the Father has life in himself, so also he gave to his Son the possession of life in himself. And he gave him power to exercise judgment, because he is the Son of Man. Do not be amazed at this, because the hour is coming in which all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and will come out, those who have done good deeds to the resurrection of life, but those who have done wicked deeds to the resurrection of condemnation. “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.

The Son is the perfect, the one, the only true interpreter of the Law of God, because He is the only one who always contemplates his Father. That is how the Apostle John manifests this truth in the Prologue of his Gospel: “And the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us, and we saw his glory, the glory as of the Father’s only Son, full of grace and truth. From his fullness we have all received, grace in place of grace, because while the law was given through Moses, grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God. The only Son, God, who is at the Father’s side, has revealed him.” (Jn 1.14 to 18). This eternal inhabitation of Jesus Christ in the bosom of the Father ensures that every word, every action, every order and command given by him, are in perfect synchrony with the will of God and his actions that he always carries out in favour of men. This same rule should apply today for every disciple of Jesus: everything he does is the result of the contemplation of Jesus Christ that he has of Jesus Christ. He sees Jesus and acts and works with Him.

Virgin Mary, Mother of the Redemption, Angels and Saints make us true contemplators.