Wednesday of Week 4 of Lent – Gospel

Commentary on John 5:17-30

Today’s Gospel follows immediately on yesterday’s story of the healing of the man who was unable to walk by the pool at the Sheep Gate. That passage had ended with the words:

Therefore the Jews started persecuting Jesus, because he was doing such things on the Sabbath. (John 5:16)

We might point out, as with some other Sabbath healings, that there was absolutely no urgency to do the healing on a Sabbath for someone who had waited 38 years. It is just another indication of the divine authority with which Jesus works.

Jesus’ reply is direct and unapologetic:

My Father is still working, and I also am working.

Because Genesis speaks of God resting on the seventh day (the origin of the Jewish Sabbath), it was disputed whether God was in any way active on the Sabbath. Some believed that the creating and conserving work of his creation went on, and others believe that he continued to pass judgement on that day. In any case, Jesus is claiming here the same authority to work on the Sabbath as his Father and has the same powers over life and death.

The Jewish leaders are enraged that Jesus speaks of God as his own Father, and they want to kill him. They understand by his words that Jesus is making himself God’s equal. Jesus, far from denying the accusation, only confirms it.

Very truly, I tell you, the Son can do nothing on his own but only what he sees the Father doing, for whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise.

This saying is taken from the model of an apprentice in a trade. The apprentice son does exactly what his father does. Jesus’ relation to his Father is similar:

The Father loves the Son and shows him all that he himself is doing, and he will show him greater works than these, so that you will be astonished. Indeed, just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whomever he wishes.

And, we might add, whenever he wishes. Such giving of life is something that belongs only to God—as does the right to judge, which Jesus says has been delegated to him.

Jesus is the perfect mirror of the Father. The Father is acting in him and through him. He is the Word of God—God speaks and acts directly through him. God’s Word is a creative Word. Jesus, like the Father, is life-giving, a source of life.

The right to judge has been delegated by the Father to the Son. And to refuse to honour the Son is to refuse the same honour to the Father. In everything, Jesus acts only according to the will of his Father and does what his Father wants.

Jesus, then, is the Way—the Way through whom we go to God. For us, there is no other Way. He is God’s Word to us and for us.

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Wednesday of Week 4 of Lent – First Reading

Commentary on Isaiah 49:8-15

The reading is part of a celebration of the people’s joyful return from their exile in Babylon to their home in Jerusalem. It comes from Second Isaiah, a book full of hope and consolation which looks forward to the end of the exile and the people’s going home again.

The Hebrews are still in exile, and though their lives are led in hardship and bitterness, the prophet assures them that better times are on the way. In response to the cry of God’s people:

Thus says the Lord:
In a time of favor I have answered you;
on a day of salvation I have helped you.

The reference is probably to the year of jubilee, but the return from exile will bring about the same restoration of land for the people as the jubilee did for those who, because of debt problems, may have had to sell their land.

So the Lord now calls on his people:

…to establish the land,
to apportion the desolate heritages,
saying to the prisoners, “Come out,”
to those who are in darkness, “Show yourselves.”

It is a time for the restoration of justice to all. The end of their sorrows is symbolised in phrases like:

…they shall not hunger or thirst,
neither scorching wind nor sun shall strike them down…

Their God is with them:

…he who has pity on them will lead them
and by springs of water will guide them.

The way will be made clear for their return:

I will turn all my mountains into a road,
and my highways shall be raised up.

He will give them back their land, seized by the foreign invader. He will bring freedom to the prisoners and light to those in darkness. They will be surrounded by fertile lands, untouched by heat or thirst, and will luxuriate in springs of fresh water. The ways to the homeland will be cleared and exiles will return from as far away as the “land of Syene” (or Sinim—now known as Aswan, the first cataract on the River Nile in Egypt).

It is a time for great rejoicing, in which the whole of nature should take part:

Sing for joy, O heavens, and exult, O earth;
break forth, O mountains, into singing!

Yet, Zion is still sceptical:

The Lord has forsaken me;
my Lord has forgotten me.

But they are wrong—utterly wrong. God does not forget his people. He is full of tenderness and compassion, as gentle as that of any mother, expressed in those extraordinarily gentle and affectionate words:

Can a woman forget her nursing child
or show no compassion for the child of her womb?
Even these might forget,
yet I will not forget you.

In our darkest moments, let us not forget the unchanging intensity of God’s love for us.

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