But Jesus answered them, “My Father is working until now, and I am working.”
I take a lot of comfort in this verse this morning. There are impossible situations at every turn, messy relationships, messy health, messy politics, messy everything. My heart and mind wake up feeling messy with other people’s strife. My email is messy with their pain. The season as a whole is messy and fraught with pain. All is not at rest, even when it should be.
When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be healed?”
The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, and while I am going another steps down before me.”
Jesus said to him, “Get up, take up your bed, and walk.” And at once the man was healed, and he took up his bed and walked.
Now that day was the Sabbath. So the Jews said to the man who had been healed, “It is the Sabbath, and it is not lawful for you to take up your bed.”
Sabbath? It is the Day of Rest, it’s not lawful for you to work. Christmas? It is the Season of Rest – it’s not right that things should be otherwise.
Yes, but –
The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had healed him. And this was why the Jews were persecuting Jesus, because he was doing these things on the Sabbath. But Jesus answered them, “My Father is working until now, and I am working.”
This was why the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.
Making himself equal with God. Oh Jesus!
Jesus is working. The Father is working. They never stop. That’s why we can rest.
Yes. Oh, yes.
My fists often are clenched unknowingly due to stress, fear, and messes as you mentioned. Upon finishing your piece Harmony my eyes were moist and my hands unclenched. I was resting.