Seeing the Father in Jesus

Text: John 14:6-21
         John 3:16 is without a doubt one of those key verses we keep close at hand. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life." We tend to read this verse as a conditional statement, an if/then statement which holds out the proposition that if one wants to have eternal life or rather go to heaven as opposed to hell after death then one must meet the condition of believing in the Son. Yet, there are some problems with this way of interpreting John 3:16 and believe it or not John himself is the first in line to point them out particularly by how he defines eternal life and how one gets it later in his Gospel.
         Chapter 17 of John's Gospel is Jesus' great prayer to the Father on behalf of his disciples. The first three verses read, "Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you. For you granted him authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him. Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent." As we see here eternal life cannot be attained by one's own personal decision to believe in the Son, but rather Jesus gives it to whomever the Father has given to him. This means that eternal life comes utterly by means of grace. Faith is the way we live it, not the way we attain it. Paul's key verse Ephesians 2:8 says, "For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God,..." Grace is the means. Faith is how we participate in what the Trinity has done for us.
         So, eternal life is a gift Jesus gives to those whom the Father has given him and, as we just heard from Jesus, eternal life is knowing the Father and Jesus the Anointed One whom the Father has sent. Therefore, eternal life is a relationship with God the Father and Jesus, God the Son, which we receive in the present from Jesus by the gift of the Holy Spirit. Faith, then, is our participation in this relationship.
         Adoption is Paul's word for this: by the gift of the Holy Spirit we are made one with Jesus so that in him we share in his own relationship with the Father. The implications for this are staggering. It means in the first place that the Father loves us each, the adopted ones, as much as he loves his own one true Son who is one with him. Ponder that. The Father loves us each as much as he loves Jesus his own Son. Speaking candidly, whenever my life, or should I say my interpretation of my life is out of kilter, this is the one thought I have learned to come back to in order to restore perspective. More over, I will be the first to stand and testify that when my life really has gotten out of kilter with the stuff that just happens and those bad things that happen to good people in a world governed by Murphy's Law and my own stupidity, God the Father has been unyielding and relentless in his faithfulness to me to work all those things to the good for no other reason than he loves me. Faith, then, is learning to live with the fact that God the Father loves me, each of us, as much as his own Son.
         So, who is this Father? Phillip's request and Jesus' response is an appropriate stop along the way for us to get out and have a Grand Canyon moment. You see, I think (I know) we all have our own ideas of who or what God is and couple that with how Western Christian culture has conditioned us to think of God in terms that are not so loving-fatherish. Speaking for myself, the God of this Western Christian culture that I was raised with in the Bible-belt in the southern United States is a hard one for me to accept as loving me as much as his own Son. The God I picked up from the “Christian” culture that I grew up in was this aloof old man exalted on a throne who sits as our judge...and he is impossible to please. He supposedly gets us if we go too far astray so we live in fear of him. He's patient to the extent of being altogether uninvolved. He helps those who help themselves and pick themselves up by their own bootstraps. He's all powerful. All knowing. He knows if I've been sleeping. He's knows when I'm awake. He knows when I've been bad or good. So, I better be good for goodness sake. But, I'm not good enough. Even when I'm doing my best to follow Jesus, I just don't feel good enough to be called a child of God with whom he is well pleased. As a husband, as a father, as a friend, as a pastor, as a neighbour, as a person I fail miserably. It's a good thing I got my “get out of hell free” card in believing Jesus died paying the penalty of death I deserve for my sins and made restitution to the Father whose honour I have so offended by my failure to be perfect as he is perfect and holy as he is holy and just as he is just. I'm sorry if I have offended anybody with that rant but is the God I grew up with.
         Philip had a similar almighty judge God image to deal with in his culture. The Pharisees were the dominant form of Judaism back then. They believed that the God who established them as a people and a nation was coming any day to kick out the Romans and return the land the righteous and establish his kingdom. He was an almighty God, holy, righteous, and just and was faithful to those the obedient. The Pharisees taught that if you wanted to be one of those still standing in that day then you had better start keeping the letter of the Law. They were so good at this that they had laws that kept them from breaking the Law yet allowed them to get around the Law. Jesus used to hammer them on that.
         That almighty, holy, perfect, just, get the wicked God that the Pharisees imagined was probably haunting around in Philip's mind and I think Philip just wants to make sure that there is no hidden God behind Jesus who ultimately is different than Jesus. Jesus had been telling them all along that he and the Father were one and that Father judges no one but has entrusted all judgement to the Son (Jn. 5:22) and that the things he was doing were the things that he saw the Father doing and the things that he was saying were the things the Father was saying. And that those who are his will do greater things than he has done because he will be in them.” So, in a last ditch effort of holding on to his false image of God Philip says, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.” “Jesus is there a God hidden behind you that is other than you are?”
         Well, Jesus comes back on Philip in a very personal way. “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'?” Sometimes when dealing with the New Testament things get lost in translation. In the Greek of the New Testament, Jesus asks Philip “Don't you know me” in such a way as there is an implied “yes” to it. Philip does know Jesus and for that reason has been with him through thick and thin those three years of Jesus ministry. In John's Gospel he was the third disciple and the only one to whom Jesus says, “Follow me” and he up and does. In a great act of assurance Jesus says “Anyone, anyone who has seen me has seen the Father, but Philip you know me. Philip, how can you say, 'Show us the Father'?”
         There is no unknowable God hidden behind Jesus that is other than Jesus in nature. There is no Deus Absconditus as is said in Latin and I throw that in here just because it sounds so cool. What this means is that the Father like the Son gets involved in the nitty-gritty of our lives in loving, gracious, and healing ways. Jesus befriended the outcast and the sinner, touched the leper, let a whore wash is feet at a proper meal, healed the son of a Roman centurion (the enemy), raised the dead. He was crucified and died for us all. Such is the Fahter. Jesus is our judge and as Paul asked at the end his magnum opus on the love and righteousness of the Father, “Who can condemn us? Only Jesus and he died for us.” He didn't even condemn a woman caught in adultery though he literally gave judgement and Hell to her good, church-going accusers. I have only found one instance in the Gospels in which Jesus brought up the topic of Hell that it wasn't directed at the self-righteous, religious people of his day.
         The Father and the Son are one. The way Jesus is and the things he does is the way the Father is and does. The is no unknowable God hidden behind Jesus. By the Trinity's gracious sharing of himself through the Holy Spirit, we share in their loving communion of unconditional love. You are a beloved child of the one true and living God with whom he is well pleased. You just better get used that fact. It is who you really are. Jesus lives in you. You are a beloved child of God. Go and do likewise. Amen.