Unity Between Father and Son

Homily for Wednesday of the Fourth Week in Lent

Simply put, Jesus and the Father are one, and belief in Jesus leads to eternal life. This is part of the message in today’s Gospel passage from John which gets us to that message in a rather enigmatic landscape of philosophy and theology. John’s gospel differs from the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke in that John begins with and focuses on Christ’s divinity rather than recounting events of Jesus’ ministry.

Together, the four Gospels help us to understand who God is and what God has done for us in sending his Son to redeem us. Sometimes the words and events are straightforward, and sometimes we have the poetry of John to help us see the magnificence of the redemptive mystery.

We can unravel that mystery a bit by looking at Jesus’ opening words which provide the foundation for everything else he says in this passage: “My Father is at work until now, so I am at work.” In calling God “Father,” he signifies his equality and unity with God, and then proceeds to distinguish the many ways in which this is a reality. As the Father does, so does the Son; judgment, honor, belief, and possession of life itself all belong to the Father and the Son in equal measure. Since God had promised salvation to the people of Israel for countless generations, Jesus, as one with the Father, could deliver that salvation: “Whoever hears my word and believes in the one who sent me has eternal life and will not come to condemnation.”

All who were awaiting the fulfillment of God’s promises could rejoice that the fulfillment had come in Jesus Christ who stood before them. So, too, can we rejoice as coheirs to the promise and adopted sons and daughters of God.

“The Lord is gracious and merciful.”
“The Lord is faithful in all his words and holy in all his works.”
Thanks be to God for all of it.