Wednesday of the Fourth Week of Lent
God always works
But Jesus answered them, “My Father is at work until now, so I am at work.” … 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 …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 … Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes in the one who sent me has eternal life …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 … “I cannot do anything on my own …I do not seek my own will but the will of the one who sent me. Jn 5,17-30
It is wrong to think that God, by the beginning of the time, created the universe and its laws and that everything is moving and it accomplishes itself due to that first divine impulse. God is always working in a continuous creation: “My Father is at work until now, so I am at work”. The Father and the Son – Jesus says – are operating in unison: “A son cannot do anything on its own, but only what he sees his father doing”. The Father acts, that is, as an entrepreneur who left the company to his son, remaining his consultant, but to work – Jesus says today – is the Son. “For just as the Father raises the dead and gives life – he adds then, referring to the resurrections of the gospel and to his future resurrection – so also does the Son gives life to whomever he wishes. The Father in fact … has given all judgment to his Son”. By this last statement Jesus refers to the resurrection and the spiritual life which he gives to those who believe in him: “whoever hears my word and believes in the one who sent me has eternal life”. Jesus, today, says that Father and Son work together: “I cannot do anything on my own … I do not seek my own will but the will of the one who sent me”. After the Pentecost, by the birth of the church, even the Son will not work directly anymore, but through the Holy Spirit, who, in his turn, will act in perfect communion with the Father and the Son. By this handover among Father, Son and Holy Spirit God, in his three persons, but one only will, has always worked and continues to operate in the history of the salvation of the world. This reassures us completely, because we feel in the hands of the one who gives the life and who loves us with an infinite love. In the heavenly corporation, although not acting in person, also Mary, as the bride of the Holy Spirit, plays a vital role, giving advice to her husband and tearing favours for us the sons, which are moving in the earthly sphere.