Friday, March 10

Jesus gave them this answer: “Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.” (John 5:19)

In preparing this meditation, I read John 5:19 over and over and kept coming to the conclusion that this would be pretty simple; a clear case of “like father, like son.” Parents teach children a lot of things, sometimes intentionally, sometimes not. A father teaches a son how to drive a car by having him practice starting, stopping, and turning, and the son also picks up driving habits by observing how the father makes judgments behind the wheel. Like the verse says, “whatever the Father does the Son also does.” All done. That was easy.

Wait a minute....not so fast. We’re talking about a different kind of son, aren’t we? But wasn’t Jesus human? Yes. And no. We were all begotten of our human fathers. But Jesus was the only begotten son of God, begotten, not made, of one Being with the Father, God made manifest in human form. Jesus experienced all the same emotions that we do, joy and sorrow, pain and pleasure, friendship and loneliness, but unlike us, Jesus is one with God. So perhaps it would be more appropriate to say, “like father, like son... like father.”

As the Son can do nothing by himself, and he can do only what he sees his Father doing, may we remember that we too can do nothing by ourselves, and must rely upon God to guide us on our walk through life. May we understand that Jesus IS the word of God, and may we always stop and think about what Jesus would do as we face decisions on our journey through each day.


Les Hunton