Scripture Daily

Context No. 550 of 4322 · John

Context · Reflection

John 14:6-21: in context

6Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father, except through me. 7If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on, you know him and have seen him.” 8Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and that will be enough for us.” 9Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you such a long time, and do you not know me, Philip? He who has seen me has seen the Father. How do you say, ‘Show us the Father’? 10Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? The words that I tell you, I speak not from myself; but the Father who lives in me does his works. 11Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me; or else believe me for the very works’ sake. 12Most certainly I tell you, he who believes in me, the works that I do, he will do also; and he will do greater works than these, because I am going to my Father. 13Whatever you will ask in my name, I will do it, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14If you will ask anything in my name, I will do it. 15If you love me, keep my commandments. 16I will pray to the Father, and he will give you another Counselor, that he may be with you forever: 17the Spirit of truth, whom the world can’t receive, for it doesn’t see him and doesn’t know him. You know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. 18I will not leave you orphans. I will come to you. 19Yet a little while, and the world will see me no more; but you will see me. Because I live, you will live also. 20In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. 21One who has my commandments and keeps them, that person is one who loves me. One who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him, and will reveal myself to him.”

At the Last Supper, Philip voices a longing that lives in nearly everyone: Lord, show us the Father, and that will be enough for us. Just let us see God, and we will be satisfied. It is one of the most honest requests in the Gospels, the ache to see past all the uncertainty to God himself, to know for sure what he is really like. And Jesus answers with a gentle astonishment, almost a sadness. Have I been with you so long, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, show us the Father? The answer to the deepest longing Philip has is standing in front of him. He has been looking at God this whole time.

That is one of the most staggering claims in Scripture, and one of the most comforting. If you want to know what God is like, Jesus says, look at me. Not at your fears about God, not at the harsh or distant figure you imagine, not at abstractions, but at me, at how I speak and act and love, at whom I welcome and how I treat the broken and what moves me to tears. The Father is exactly like that. Jesus is the visible image of the invisible God, so that everything cloudy or frightening I project onto God gets corrected by the face of Christ. Philip wanted God shown to him; God had been showing himself all along in Jesus.

That confronts the God I actually carry around in my head, who is often not the God revealed in Jesus at all. When I imagine God, I default to something colder, more grudging, more disappointed in me than anything Jesus ever showed. Jesus says: stop imagining, and look at me; the Father is like this. When I want to know what God is really like toward me, do I look at the face of Jesus, or at some other picture of God I have assembled from my fears, and would seeing the Father in Christ be enough for me, as Philip hoped?

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