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.
Saint John Henry Newman was probably influenced by Darwin's doctrine of evolution when he showed how the doctrines of the church survive through innumerable obstacles and heretical challenges. In a sense, they survived because they fit our experience of the Lord and his Gospel.
Today's gospel suggests that it was Jesus's opponents who first recognized his equality with God the Father. The evangelists, both those who wrote and those who preached, would work with that principle as they announced the life, death, and resurrection of the Lord to the world. The teaching didn't fit Greek notions of a supreme being, but the Lord's relationship as the Only Begotten Son of God was too solidly anchored in every writing of the New Testament to be denied.
In today's gospel from John 5, Jesus describes his work as identical to the Father's. When he speaks of the authority to judge he has received from the Father, we should remember the two judgment seats as described in John 19. First there is the seat on which Pilate placed him while the mobs shouted for his crucifixion. Although he is our divine judge and savior, in that moment the mobs judged him while Pilate washed his hands of the whole business. And then there was the cross, which was a throne of pain. Although the Lord is both innocent and helpless, those who prefer the darkness condemn him and thereby bring condemnation on themselves.
When we speak of doctrines like Trinity and Incarnation our conversation can become pretentious and erudite. Such notions seem like grand ideas for late night, college dorm conversations but irrelevant in the "real world." It helps to remember we're speaking of existential matters like condemnation and death. Our beliefs would be more palatable to God's enemies if we didn't insist on the divinity of Jesus, the Trinity, and the Eucharist. But they would not be worth dying for either.
Jesus calls us to be obedient children of God because he is the Obedient Son of God; he invites us to serve because he came not to be served but to serve. Our life begins not in the distant past when our mothers bore us, but in this moment as we serve the Living God. He summons us to worship God within the same House of the Holy Spirit which unites the Father and the Son in mutual love.
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I love to write. This blog helps me to meditate on the Word of God, and I hope to make some contribution to our contemplations of God's Mighty Works.
Ordinarily, I write these reflections two or three weeks in advance of their publication. I do not intend to comment on current events.
I understand many people prefer gender-neutral references to "God." I don't disagree with them but find that language impersonal, unappealing and tasteless. When I refer to "God" I think of the One whom Jesus called "Abba" and "Father", and I would not attempt to improve on Jesus' language.
You're welcome to add a thought or raise a question.