Zenith and Nadir

 

Loving our parents like Jesus loves his Father

03/19/2026

John 5:17-30 Jesus answered the Jews: "My Father is at work until now, so I am at work." For this reason they tried all the more to kill him, because he not only broke the sabbath but he also called God his own father, making himself equal to God. Jesus answered and said to them, "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. For the Father loves the Son and shows him everything that he himself does, and he will show him greater works than these, so that you may be amazed. For just as the Father raises the dead and gives life, so also does the Son give life to whomever he wishes. Nor does the Father judge anyone, but he has given all judgment to the Son, so that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him. Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes in the one who sent me has eternal life and will not come to condemnation, but has passed from death to life. Amen, amen, I say to you, the hour is coming and is now here when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. For just as the Father has life in himself, so also he gave to the Son the possession of life in himself. And he gave him power to exercise judgment, because he is the Son of Man. Do not be amazed at this, because the hour is coming in which all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and will come out, those who have done good deeds to the resurrection of life, but those who have done wicked deeds to the resurrection of condemnation. "I cannot do anything on my own; I judge as I hear, and my judgment is just, because I do not seek my own will but the will of the one who sent me."

Our relationship with our parents is always a rollercoaster. There are ups and downs, peaks and valleys. Sometimes we love and admire our parents. We think my dad is Superman and my mom is Wonder Woman. At other times, though, we can’t stand them and wish we didn’t have them. And the funny thing is when we feel one way, we cannot remember ever feeling the other way. In other words, love makes us forget hate, and hate makes us forget love.

Let me give you an example of when we admire and adore our parents. It is summed up in a little poem, which goes: “A careful man I want to be, / A little fellow follows me. / I dare not go astray, / For fear he’ll go the self-same way. / I cannot once escape his eyes, / Whatever he sees me do, he tries. / Like me, he says, he’s going to be. / The little chap who follows me.”

“He thinks that I am good and fine, / Believes in every word of mine. / The base in me he must not see, / That little fellow who follows me. / I must remember as I go, / Thru summers’ sun and winters’ snow, / I am building for the years to be, / This little chap who follows me.” In other words, when we are in preschool and elementary school, we feel like that song, “Cat’s in the Cradle,” where the little boy said, “I’m gonna be like you, dad, I’m going to be just like you.”

But then when we get to middle school and high school all that changes. We feel frustrated and angry with our parents and can’t stand them. And that valley of our relationship with our parents was well described by Mark Twain. He said: “When I was 17 years old, I couldn’t believe how stupid my father was. But by the time I became 21, I couldn’t believe how much the old man had learned in just 4 years.”

Now, who had really changed and grown up: the father or the son? Obviously, the son. Nonetheless, as teenagers we still can’t stand our parents and roll our eyes as “dad jokes,” and think they are so stupid. And what’s more we have forgotten how we felt back in preschool and elementary school, when we thought, “my mom and dad hung the moon.” Our love for our parents has reached its nadir, its lowest point.

In the gospel today, Jesus gives us a glimpse into what his relationship is like with his Father. He says, “For the Father loves the Son and shows him everything that he himself does, and he will show him greater works than these, so that you may be amazed.” That is, the love between God the Father and God the Son was always at its zenith, and never dipped down to its nadir, not even while Jesus hung dying on the Cross. Jesus knew his Father loved him and he loved his Father.

Let me paint a picture of Jesus’ relationship with his Father. One day, Scott Hahn was jogging around his neighborhood. He saw a man mowing his front yard, and his little toddler son was imitating his dad with his toy mower. But the little boy kept crossing in front of his dad, and the father was getting frustrated. So, Scott Hahn decided to make another loop around the block to see if the father had found a solution to his diminutive dilemma.

On the second lap around the block, Hahn saw the man had picked up his son, and was holding him in his left arm. With his right hand and arm, he was guiding the mower. Meanwhile, the little boy had both his little hands on the real mower, and a huge smile across his face. Can you guess why he was smiling so big? The little boy thought he was actually mowing the yard! And that is how Jesus felt about his Father all the time, even on the Cross. He said, “the Son cannot do anything on his own, but only what he sees the Father doing.”

Boys and girls, our relationship with our moms and dads go through ups and downs, highs and lows, zeniths and nadirs. I go see my parents on every Friday and get to take them different places because they cannot drive and I do their grocery shopping. My dad is 92 and my mom is…No one knows how old she is. But as I carry them around town I feel like I’m paying them back in a small way for how they carried me around when I was a baby and a little boy.

At the beginning and the end of our lives, we have to learn the same lesson twice: because we are not very smart and we forget. And that lesson is we are the little boy with his hands on the mower, and someone else is really carrying us around, namely, God. So, when you get frustrated and angry and mad at your parents, try to think of how Jesus loved his Father, and try to love your parents like that, even if you feel you are on the cross.

Praised be Jesus Christ!