A Reflection for Wednesday of the Fourth Week of Lent
Find today’s readings here.
“Amen, amen, I say to you, the Son cannot do anything on his own,
but only what he sees the Father doing;
for what he does, the Son will do also.”
I sometimes struggle to relate to Jesus. I’ve never walked on water. I’ve never turned water to wine. I’ve sinned.
But there is one thing I consider myself blessed to have in common with Jesus: having a father.
Reading today’s Scripture, I was inspired by the devotion to our fathers that Jesus evokes in these passages.
In many ways, my father is the hardest worker I know. He moved across the country to New York at a young age to begin his career, taking a risk to do what was best for his future.
When Jesus says “My Father is at work until now, so I am at work,” he is referring to the mystical reality that Jesus is a distinct person from God the Father, but of one substance, part of the same Trinity. This quote stirred something within me, and I thought that when it’s time for my father to retire, I hope that I will have developed as hardworking an attitude as he has. I hope that, like him, I will be able to provide for my own family when the time comes.
In processing Jesus’ words to God the Father, I realized that my feelings were likely more similar to Jesus’ relationship with Joseph than God. After all, Joseph raised Jesus to be a carpenter like he was, all the while not just being a symbolic father figure for Jesus; he was a very real, physical model of fatherhood as well.
So where can we find experiences in transcendence from our earthly fathers?
While my own father may not have possessed the ability to raise the dead, there have been multiple times in my life where I’ve felt connected to God through my relationship with my father.
My father has shown me so many ways to find joy in life, helping me develop passions for sports, music, theater and more. I can remember sprinting down the soccer field in the third grade and scoring a goal, looking over at him smiling at me.
Or when I became older and found an album I really loved listening to, immediately beginning to text my dad how I think he would enjoy it too, longing to share something together. I firmly believe that God was there in those moments.
My father taught me how to process the sorrows life provides as well.
He taught me how to process grief when he lost his brother when I was 13 years old. While I had experienced losing older relatives before, my godfather’s passing was a different type of loss that I had never been through.
I’m also confident that God was there in those weeks and months after his passing though my dad. While he had lost his brother, he attended to every tear I cried, promising me that things were going to be O.K..
Nobody in human history will ever have such a spiritual connection to their fathers as Jesus did. But while Jesus’ words of “Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him” relate to the Holy Trinity, it is also up to us to carry on the legacy of our fathers, who bring the sacred to life for us every day.
