3 May 2019 - face id

Today's Readings

(Audio)

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

We look at Jesus but we don't always (or perhaps even often) behold the Father. Philip helps us to grasp the importance of seeing the Father by his desire. Jesus in turn makes clear that he is unique on earth in that he reveals the Father just by who he is. He is the way to the Father, the truth of the Father, and the life from the Father precisely because his entire being is a gift from the Father and his way is the way of returning that gift and that love.

Do our hearts cry out, "Master, show us the Father, and that will be enough for us"?

Do we know how much we need that revelation? Moses saw only God's back as he passed by (see Exodus 33:18-20). We see the face of God in Christ Jesus.

For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ (see Second Corinthians 4:6).

Our hearts are all of them restless just like Saint Augustine. Yet we don't fully realize that seeing the Father is what we desire, much less that Christ offers us this revelation in Word and Sacrament. If we realized that the Father is what we truly desire and that Jesus is revealing him we would not hesitate to draw near when Jesus calls.

For I handed on to you as of first importance what I also received:
that Christ died for our sins
in accordance with the Scriptures;
that he was buried;
that he was raised on the third day
in accordance with the Scriptures;

James, Philip, and all the apostles are witnesses to the resurrection of Christ. It is through his resurrection that we see the fullest evidence of the Father's work in Jesus. It is this very resurrection power that fuels the Sacraments and which guides our minds when we open Scriptures. It is this power which shines forth from the face of Christ. It is the glory for which we long even as it is the power whereby we come unto that glory.

Just as the resurrection was the Father's answer to the Son so now anything we ask in his name will be granted that the glory of the resurrection, that truth of the Father's life in the Son and the Son's life in the Father, will be manifest.

And whatever you ask in my name, I will do,
so that the Father may be glorified in the Son.
If you ask anything of me in my name, I will do it.