Like Father, Like Son – February 16th, 2025, Congregational Meeting

Isaiah 40:27-31, John 5:1-24
February 16, 2025

I start with a quick disclaimer today.  I asked Google, and I found out that there was actually a movie with the title “Like Father, Like Son.”  It was a foreign film.  I never saw it.  Maybe you did?  But that’s not where I got the title for this sermon.  And it’s not how I’m using this phrase.  I’m using it in its more common way.

“Like Father, Like Son” is an expression that means that fathers and sons resemble each other, or that sons tend to behave like their fathers.”  We might also think of the phrase that says, “The nut doesn’t fall very far from the tree.”  That’s the same idea.  So, that phrase kept coming to mind for me as I read this.  “Like Father, Like Son.”

Our story for today begins with Jesus healing this man who was lame.  There was a pool in Jerusalem that had some kind of a geological anomaly.  Every once in a while, there was a stirring up, or a bubbling up within it.  And it was believed by the people to be caused by an angel.  And it was also believed that, when it happened, the first person who went into the water would be healed.  So this pool attracted a good number of infirmed people.  John says, there was “a multitude” of the blind, lame, and paralyzed.

Well, Jesus comes by, and he notices one of them, a man who had been ill for thirty-eight years.  And he asks the man, “Do you want to be healed?”  And the man explains that he has no one to put him in the water, and someone else always gets there first.  And at this point, he doesn’t know who Jesus was.  But, of course, we do!  And Jesus says to the man, “Rise.”  “Take up your pallet and walk.”  And the man does!  By the way, this was portrayed so well in the series we were watching called, “The Chosen!”  If you’ve seen it, do you remember this scene?

Well, we can only imagine – or maybe we can’t imagine – how this man felt after thirty-eight years of infirmity!  And this wasn’t just a matter of making nerves and muscles work.  Unused muscles need to be strengthened.  Before my ankle surgery, I hadn’t walked properly on my right leg for a good year or more.  And when I started to again, my calf muscle was very weak, it couldn’t hold my weight, and it hurt to use it again!  I’m sure any of you who had similar experiences know what I mean.  Physical therapy is tough, isn’t it?  This man’s healing was that complete!  It doesn’t say he was sore, or stiff, or off balance, or hurting.  He just walked!  It was amazing!

But, there was a problem!  It was the Sabbath!  And the religious authorities saw Jesus’ healing the man as “work” – which violated the Sabbath Law.  You’re not allowed to work on the Sabbath!  Not only that, but when he told the man to “take up his pallet and walk,” they saw that as making that man commit a Sabbath violation.  Both of those things were “not lawful” on the sabbath!

Again, we the readers always know more than the people in these stories.  You know I always say that.  But we have something else going for us.  We have a better perspective than they had.  We know the whole story of Jesus!  We look at the outrage of these religious leaders and it seems crazy to us!  Doesn’t it?  We see Jesus perform this great miracle, we see him heal a man who’s been an invalid for almost four decades, and what do they see?  A Sabbath violation!  And they criticize Jesus for it!  How can that not look crazy to us?

Well, the reason I wanted to look at this story today is to highlight Jesus’ response to them.  Because he doesn’t use the defense he used in other places.  You may remember the story of him healing the man with a withered hand in the Temple.  When they questioned that, he challenged their view of doing good on the Sabbath.  He said, “Is it lawful to do evil or good?”  “Which of you who has a sheep, if it falls down a well on the sabbath, would you not lift it out?”  “Why do you fault me for doing something good?”

Well, he doesn’t say that here.  This time his defense is different.  This time he speaks of his authority to do these things, and he tells them of his unique relationship with God.  He says, “My Father is working still, so I am working.”  “Like Father, Like Son!”  And this really “ups the ante!”  John then tells us that “This is why the Jews sought all the more to kill him.  Because he not only broke the Sabbath, but he called God his own Father, making himself equal with God.”  Jesus suggested that this was a matter of “Like Father, Like Son!”

This is also the first time in John’s Gospel that we’re told of their desire “to kill him.”  And those words also seem “other worldly” to us!  Don’t they?  “The Jews sought all the more to kill him.”  Again, as the readers, that sounds crazy!  But that was their perspective on Jesus.  And as I’ve said before, they were the “keepers of the faith.”  It was their job to protect the people from those who would corrupt the faith and lead them astray.  But, to seek his death?  That sounds crazy!  And, as I said recently, they couldn’t accept Jesus for who he said he was, no matter what they saw him do!

As I also said a couple of weeks ago, there have been people ever since who had the same problem.  They refuse to believe Jesus is who he said he was, no matter what they’ve seen him do.  They refuse to follow him because it’s too fearful.  Or it’s too threatening to their own authority for their lives.  My challenge was then, and is again today, don’t be like them!  Know that Jesus is who he said he is!  And maybe keep in mind this phrase, “Like Father, Like Son.”

Well, if Jesus “upped the ante” with his previous statement, he pushed in all his chips in the next paragraph!  He said, “Whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise.”  “And as the Father raised the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom he will.”  “Like Father, Like Son!”  Then these words, “Truly, truly, I say to you.”  And when you hear that in the Gospels, it literally means in the Greek language, “Amen, Amen, I say to you.”  And it always indicates something very important.  And what does he say?  “He who hears my word and believes him who sent me, has eternal life.  He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life!”  Wow!

In a lot of ways, John’s Gospel does the best of all of them in dispelling the idea that Jesus was “just a great speaker,” or “just a great ethical teacher,” or “just a great person who helped people.”  In John’s Gospel, there is no doubt that Jesus wasn’t “just a great anything!”  He was who he said he was!  And to such claims of him being “just a great… anything,” I believe we can respond by saying, “No!  Like Father, Like Son!”

And I for one am grateful!  I hope you are, too!  Because it is this Son who’s sacrifice we commemorate here.  Because ultimately that statement is true about Jesus, “Like Father, Like Son.”  And the Son is a reflection of the Father’s great love for us.  We see that here in this sacrament.  And this is at the heart of the Gospel!  And the word “Gospel” literally means the “Good News!”  And so we too can “believe his words, and have eternal life!”  And we too “have not come into judgment, but have passed from death to life!”

Prayer

Eternal God, your love for us is beyond our comprehension.  We are grateful for sending us your Son, and we are grateful for what you have done for us through him.  And so we give you thanks and praise, and we ask for your strength to show your great love to the world around us.  These things we pray in the name of your Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord, Amen.