Wednesday of the Fourth Week of Lent

Today’s gospel from the fifth chapter of John lacks the stories and pictures that Jesus uses so often to keep our attention, but His explanation of his relationship to God is as clear as clean water. It is so clear and simple the foolish might pass over it. As the Church Father Origen said of John’s gospel, “a mouse could wade through it; an elephant could drown in it.”


Or, perhaps, the problem is that this passage is about relationship and us guys don’t get relationship. We like the special effects scenarios of walking on water, water changed to wine, and resurrections with angels and earthquakes. But if you want to know why Jesus cannot change rocks into bread or come down off the cross, you’ll find your answer in John 5: 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.

This “obedience” is the essence of the Trinitarian relationship. The Father and the Son are one. Though they are separate – this is not one God with two names – they abide in deep respect and love and eager compliance to one another. They are of one will; there can be no disagreement between them for they know, love and are Truth.

I wonder if The Father has ever “seen” the Son. Perhaps the Father believes in the Son; and the Son – whom we have seen in our world – believes in the Father. And the essence of their relationship is not knowledge as we think of knowledge, but faith. They believe in each other; they are faithful to one another; they love one another. And that faith is the true knowledge which eludes us.

Moderns think that faith and knowledge are different. The Enlightenment set out to demonstrate one could know something without faith. The scientific method would prove things to be true regardless of God’s existence. It would explain every mystery of the human body, mind and spirit without recourse to the theory of God. Philosophically, that experiment began to crumble in the 20th century but it will be many years before a more integrated understanding of truth and faith rises from the rubble.

In the meanwhile, we have our joyous, eager, generous faith in Jesus Christ to guide us. He gives us knowledge of God which is intuitive, born of the Holy Spirit, and needs no further proof. He shows us what no human being can imagine, that God is obedient. While philosophers think of God as all powerful, doing whatever he pleases and answering to no one, Jesus advances with terrifying simplicity upon Jerusalem to place himself in the hands of torturers because:

…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.

Happy Saint Patrick's Day!