3 May 2013 - absent minded confessors

3 May 2013 - absent minded confessors

Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you for so long a time

and you still do not know me, Philip?

Perhaps he asks to make Philip aware of his own weakness.  Jesus is always revealing himself.  But Philip does not always take advantage of it.  Neither do we.  When Philip tries to rely on his own abilities to understand that doesn't work either.  Only when he surrenders to Jesus's self-revelation does he begin to understand.  This is what faith means. But even then there is the danger that even that faith can be taken from him by the enemy if he doesn't rely on God to keep it alive in his heart.  

So much of what we need to hear as Christians is a reminder.  This challenges our humility.  In our pride we want to already know especially if we have already been told.  But we are finite and so God keeps his revelation alive in us by reminding us of it and drawing us deeper into it.

I am reminding you, brothers and sisters,

of the Gospel I preached to you,

which you indeed received and in which you also stand.

We would prefer novelty.  But the things we need to know are actually reminders.  That said, there is often more depth in the things of which we are being reminded than we understand at first.  This is why Jesus can teach that if we know him "then you will also know my Father" and yet Philip is so quick to respond as if he didn't hear Jesus at all.

Master, show us the Father, and that will be enough for us.

But Jesus is patient.  He is willing to restate what he has already told Philip.  And in doing so he sheds new light on it for Philip.

Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.

Jesus first mentions that knowing him means knowing the Father.  He explains now that it also means that seeing Jesus, in a spiritual sense, means seeing the Father.  Maybe for this to really sink in Philip needs to grow in faith.  Fortunately Jesus is a patient teacher.

The heavens declare the glory of God;

and the firmament proclaims his handiwork.

The heavens are tireless in declaring God's glory.  His glory is not new but there is always more of it to experience.  

They proclaim the one who is true.  They show forth the one his is light.  He himself is the way to the Father in whom our deepest desires are fulfilled and all our tears are wiped away.

Jesus said to Thomas, “I am the way and the truth and the life."

Let us never falter frm this way.