Listen to the audio of today’s Reflection:
https://soundcloud.com/hapearce/reflection-for-april-8-2024
John 14:8-14
8 Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.”
9 Jesus answered: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? 10 Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you are not just my own. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. 11 Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the miracles themselves. 12 I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. They will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. 13 And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father.14 You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.
Today’s reading continues the account of the Last Supper we started reading and thinking about on Friday. You might remember that we said then that at that gathering on the last night of his earthly ministry, Jesus seems to have had a lot of important things he wanted to pass along to the disciples before he was taken from them. That seems pretty natural – we tend to say, “I love you” or other important things when we’re saying farewell to people who are important to us.
You might remember some of the other important things Jesus said on that last night with his disciples. He told them to love one another as an identifying mark of those who are his followers. He washed their feet and told them to serve one another with the same kind of humility. He promised the Holy Spirit would come. He instructed them to stay rooted in his commandments and his teachings. And he warned that they would face persecution.
That’s all important stuff, obviously. But Jesus also told them the things that are in today’s reading, and it seems like people sometimes overlook what he’s saying here. That seems like a shame. I say that because in this passage, he’s making a very important point: “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.”
We often refer to Jesus as “the Son of God.” That’s fine – after all, Jesus referred to himself that way. But I think we sometimes lose sight of the fact that it’s a metaphor. In our common understanding the order of things, a Son is born after the Father. But the New Testament tells us that Jesus was and is one of the three persons of the holy Trinity. So Jesus was a part of God from before the beginning of time – in fact, he actually played a role in the creation of the universe.
The point that we’re supposed to get through this metaphor of Jesus as God’s Son is that he shares in the very nature of God – that he shares ‘God’s DNA,’ so to speak. Jesus is not a creation of God or a person recruited to play a part in creation history. Jesus was and is God.
When you keep that in mind, it changes the way we think about God – and about Jesus. Lots of us have been raised with the habit of thinking of God as an angry and vengeful judge looking for an excuse to send us to hell. According to this way of thinking, Jesus was a nice guy who went to the cross to protect us from this angry God.
But when you read what Jesus says in this passage, it kind of blows up that perception. The point Jesus is making here is that he is God. When Jesus was born into the world and died on the cross, it was God himself making that painful self-sacrifice on behalf of humankind – out of love for us. So that changes things. Instead of an angry and vengeful God, our God is shown to be a loving and self-sacrificing God.
Jesus seems to be making the point that his words should be understood as evidence that he is in fact God. It’s not uncommon to hear people talk about “the Old Testament God” as compared to “the Jesus God” of the New Testament. But when you really compare the teachings of Jesus to the way God has revealed himself throughout history, it’s ‘way more consistent than we usually think. Our God has revealed himself throughout history as a God of gracious love caring and providing for his people.
(And by the way, a lot of the parts of the Old Testament that are cited as evidence for this angry and vengeful God are probably historical accounts written centuries after the events they describe, and probably represent the thoughts of Hebrew scribes interpreting their own history, rather than accurate accounts of God’s thoughts about those events.)
I’m sure there are many Christians who would argue that we’re supposed to think of God as angry and judgmental, and that we’re supposed to be afraid of God’s punishment for our sins. They would say that portraying God as gracious and loving makes the Christian faith “too easy.” But I’m not sure I see how following a God who sacrificed himself for us and calls each of us to ‘take up our cross and follow him’ could possibly be considered “easy.”
In today’s reading, Jesus also points to his many miraculous acts as signs that he was exercising divine power – as evidence that he was and is God in human form. It seems pretty clear from the gospel accounts that many of the people who saw Jesus perform those miracles came to that very conclusion. It also seems clear that those miracles were intended as signs of the kingdom God was in the process of establishing – as “previews” of that kingdom when it comes to fulfillment.
One of the most important beliefs of the Christian tradition, it seems to me, is that Jesus was and is God, and that nothing that has happened in history has revealed God’s character more clearly than his incarnation. Today’s passage is one than emphasizes that understanding, and one that invites us to reflect on all that it means to our lives as believers today.
Let’s pray. Lord, we thank you for coming into the world in the form of Jesus, and for teaching us by his words and his actions what you are truly like. As we reflect on the loving and self-sacrificing nature you have revealed, let us be led to imitate him so that we can join in revealing your character to the world. Amen.
Grace and Peace,
Henry
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