Bible Passage: John 5:19-24
Pastor: Joel Jenswold
Sermon Date: November 7, 2021

Bulletin November 7, 2021

In the name of, and to the eternal glory of, Jesus,

Have you ever seen a business that had a name ending with “& Son”?  I grew up in Watertown and I can remember the paint store called David & Sons.  It’s a common thing to do.  It’s a business name that calls attention to the fact that this is a business where a father and son are in business together.  The son likely learned the trade from watching the dad.

Now, I want you to think about the 12-year-old Jesus.  After a Passover celebration in Jerusalem, Mary and Joseph sort of lose track of Jesus when they start out for home.  After three days of searching, Mary and Joseph find Jesus in the Temple.  And young Jesus says something very peculiar to his parents.  He says, Did you not know that I must be taking care of my Father’s business? (Luke 2:49)  Indeed, the Father and the Son are “in business” together!  They are on the same page, doing the same work, working toward the same goals.  They are in complete harmony.  They are equal, dare we say, “business partners.”

Claims like this bothered some of the Jews.  And that is the setting of our text this morning.  The Jews have just heard Jesus claim to be equal with the Father, and they are pushing back, even beginning to feel the impulse to kill Jesus.  Against this backdrop, Jesus does not back off or back down.  On the contrary, he doubles down!  Our text is Jesus driving the point home that he already knew when he was just a twelve year old in the Temple:  Like Father, Like Son.

At issue is Jesus’ healing of a man on the Sabbath day.  To the law-obsessed and merciless leaders, Jesus had done work on the Sabbath day!  When they harass Jesus because he did this on the Sabbath, his reply was, My Father is working right up to the present time, and I am working, too. (John 5:17)  The Jews understood very well what Jesus had just done!  He had just put an equal sign between the Father and himself.  The Jews understood that God has to work on Sabbath days.  As God, he still has to run the entire universe on Sabbath days.  Jesus in effect has said, “I am just like my Father and can work on Sabbaths.  Like Father, like Son.”  Jesus is God, just like the Father!

Jesus expands on the topic:  Amen, Amen, I tell you:  The Son can do nothing on his own, but only what he sees the Father doing.  Indeed, the Son does exactly what the Father does.  For the Father loves the Son and shows him everything he is doing. (v. 19)  Jesus is doing nothing on his own.  Jesus is not a prodigal son who leaves his father to make his own way, to get out from his father’s shadow, to be his own man, to start his own business.  No!  There is a perfect, beautiful, happy harmony between the Father and the Son.

Did you like the way Jesus described their relationship?  He talks about “seeing” what his Father does and the Father “showing” him the “trade.”  Can you picture a workshop?  Over here a father is working at his trade.  Yonder stands his son, watching carefully what his father is doing, as sons often do.  The father looks at the son and says, “Come over here, son.  I want you to see what I am doing.”  That is an invitation to the son to watch and learn, so that he can one day DO.  The God-Man Jesus has learned the trade in the workshop of his Father.  Like Father, like Son!

There’s more!  The Jews are upset that Jesus has healed a man.  Jesus had seen his Father do such things.  Jesus goes on, He [the Father] will show him even greater works than these so that you will be amazed.  For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to those he wishes. (v. 21)  The Father is in the business of raising spiritually dead people to spiritual life.  Well, like Father, like Son!  They are going to see the Son of God give spiritual life to many, many people!  Jesus even says in the final verse of our text:  Anyone who hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life…He…has crossed over from death to life. (v. 24)

I wonder if we always appreciate the “greater” miracle that faith is.  Absolutely, the miracle Jesus performed by the pool of Bethesda when he made a man able to walk was great!  But a greater miracle is that you, a person who came into this world a spiritual corpse, now have spiritual life and breath in you!  It is one of Jesus’ “greater” miracles!

There is another “greater” thing than the miracle of healing by the Pool of Bethesda.  Jesus says:  [T]he Father judges no one, but has entrusted all judgment to the Son. (v. 22)  There is a lot here to unpack.  The Father has entrusted  judgment to the Son.  It has been “given” to him.  The Father has given Jesus Christ the authority to come back on the Last Day, riding on the clouds of heaven with all the holy angels as his escort.  The Father has given to the Son the authority to do what Jesus said would happen on the Last Day in Matthew 13.  Jesus will send out his angels (13:41) and they will separate the wicked from the righteous who are among them (13:49).  Jesus is the one who will be calling the shots, and judging mankind on that day.  Jesus is the one who presides at the separating of sheep and goats.

The Father has entrusted judgment to the Son for good reason.  You see, he wants the entire world population of all time to know who Jesus Christ is.  When Jesus was on trial before the Jewish high court, he was asked if he was the Son of God.  He sure didn’t look like it at that moment.  He was bound with rope and standing alone before the court without friend or defender.  Tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God! (Matthew 26:63) the high priest ordered.  Jesus answered, It is as you have said.  But I tell you, soon you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of power and coming on the clouds of heaven. (Matthew 26:63)  Jesus is saying, “I may not look like the Son of God now, but I will when you see me coming as judge!”

The Father wants the world to see Jesus for whom he truly is!  And he wants the world to honor Jesus as he truly is!  Jesus says the reason the Father has entrusted judgment to the Son is so that all should honor the Son just as they honor the Father who sent him. (v. 23)  Now, these words of Jesus were meant to rattle those who heard him.  Like Father, like Son!  Worship the Son like you worship the Father!  When you see him coming back on the Last Day as judge, then it will be too late.

But Jesus’ words need not frighten us.  We don’t need to fear “Judge Jesus” because we have come to know “Crucified and Risen Jesus.”  We know the Jesus who said, I did not come to judge the world, but to save the world (John 12:47).  And save it he did!  He came to be about his Father’s “business.”  He bowed his will and obeyed his Father’s will every moment of his life.  He bowed his head and died, facing the Father’s just wrath over the world’s sin.  And the Father accepted his beloved Son’s death in exchange for ours.  And he rose again, the proof and evidence the Father was well-pleased with his Son’s work, as he always was!  The whole thing, the whole plan, the Father and the Son in perfect unity of will and purpose and execution!

And so we worship and honor and glorify and adore the Father and the Son.  Equal honor, equal glory, equal credit, equal praise!  Like Father, like Son!

Amen.

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