The whole Bible is an account of how everything that exists is based on God, a God we call our Father. Everything from the creation of the cosmos, to the sparrows in the sky, to each of us individually. In that sense everything belongs to God and everything is under His power.
So where does Jesus fit in?
This question occupied the great thinkers of the church for at least 500 years. Peter in his explanation to the Jewish leaders for where Jesus fits in used the analogy of a building and Jesus being the “corner-stone”, the starting point and visible foundation of a building. Paul uses many other analogies, the most famous is from biology or medicine – Jesus is the head of a body. John makes great use of the metaphor of the shepherd, one who guides and protects those under his care.
Jesus emphasizes over and over that he has come to do the will of the Father. In that sense he is subservient to the Father. The most striking illustration of this is in his prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane: “Not my will, Father, but yours be done”. But Jesus isn’t simply acting out the instructions of the Father, he does indeed have his own will. That point is brought out in John’s account when Jesus says: “No one takes it [my life] from me, but I lay it down on my own. I have power to lay it down, and power to take it up again.” He adds “This command I have received from my Father”. Jesus agrees to do the will of the Father and says “This is why the Father loves me”.
The reason all this is so important is not because of some complicated theology that scholars can still debate, but because it tells us something about ourselves. Yes Jesus has this intimate relationship with the Father, even to the point where he agrees to die and the Father raises him up – but so do we!
John in the letter we read today says “See what love the Father has bestowed on us that we may be called the children of God. Yet so we are.” We are children, independent beings, not slaves (as Paul says), or in a more modern way of thinking, not just robots programed to do what God wants. We can and must make decisions for ourselves, as Jesus had to.
All this is because of love – the love between Jesus and the Father, the love between the Father and Jesus and us. As John has Jesus tell his disciples before his death:
Whoever has my commandments and observes them is the one who loves me. And whoever loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and reveal myself to him.”
John 14:19,21
Love is only possible between people who are free. You cannot force someone to love.
We are invited into this relationship between Jesus and the Father, his Father, our Father. We can do whatever we want, but if we choose to follow the commandments that Jesus gave us, that he got from the Father, then we are as close to the Father as Jesus was and is. We even chose to die, as Jesus did, because he went there before us. We know that in laying down our lives, in accepting God’s power, we will live with Him. Choosing to die might still sound scary but we really don’t need to be scared, we can let go and allow ourselves to be saved, to live in the love of Jesus and the Father. What could possibly be better.