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The Works of My Father
“Jesus said, ‘If I am not doing the works of my Father, then do not believe me. But if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, so that you may know and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father.’ Then they tried to arrest him again, but he escaped from their hands. He went away again across the Jordan to the place where John had been baptizing earlier, and he remained there. Many came to him, and they were saying, ’John performed no sign, but everything that John said about this man was true.’ And many believed in him there.”
John 10:37-42
This morning’s Gospel reading from ”The Book of Common Prayer” Daily Office features a heated confrontation between the Jewish leaders and Jesus. They saw correctly that Jesus was claiming to be divine, but they could not see that this was actually true. They were offended by what they saw as a blasphemous, outrageous claim and tried to have him arrested.
We may read this passage and think ourselves superior to the Jewish leaders who failed to believe in Jesus, but we should not be too hasty. How often do we see the works of Jesus and fail to see in them the works of His eternal Father? Jesus, after all, did some very strange things. He told us to forgive not seven times, but seventy times seven. He told us to turn the other cheek instead of seeking vengeance. He told us to be faithful in marriage, ‘till death do us part. He told us in all things to live by love of God and neighbor, and He told us that our neighbors include people like Samaritans and even our enemies.
What He showed us is even stranger than what He told us. He showed us that the fullest human life ever lived — His own — was one of material poverty, not abundance. He showed us that the fullest human life — His life — need not include marriage or romantic love, as good as those gifts are. And He showed us that the richest, most complete human life need not look like success in the eyes of the world, but may well look like the agony of defeat on the Cross.
The social reformer Dorothy Day once said that Christians are commanded to live in such a way that doesn’t make sense unless God exists. And she meant not just any old deity, but the eternal and only God who became incarnate in Jesus. What if we learned to see the works of Jesus as the very same as the works of His eternal Father? If we did, how would that change our lives?
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