“Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.” Jesus replied, “Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and yet you still don’t know who I am? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father! So why are you asking me to show him to you? Don’t you believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words I speak are not my own, but my Father who lives in me does his work through me. Just believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me. Or at least believe because of the work you have seen me do.”
John 14:8-11 NLT
No-one has ever seen God, but because of humanity we try to conjure in our minds a mental image of who we think God is. Some people picture Him as an old man leaning over the bannisters of Heaven, with a flowing white beard, and an equally flowing white robe. Others see Him as a policeman with a truncheon, ready to beat them over the head if they do wrong. There are flippant stories that God is like the wizard in the film “Wizard of Oz”, standing in front of a machine of cosmic proportions, pushing buttons and pulling levers. Some see God in the natural world around them, in the beauty of a sunset or the complexity of a lily. But in all these mind-pictures, none can even begin to touch the reality of who God is and what He is like.
Of course, we can pick up the Bible and read it, because there we will find so many things about God. A new reader will immediately draw the conclusion that God is never introduced in the Bible – He is always assumed to be there. Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning God …”. And that was how John started his Gospel, “In the beginning the Word already existed. The Word was with God, and the Word was God”(John 1:1). Speaking here about Jesus, John described his view of God through Jesus, who was in a relationship so intimate with His Father that together they were God. And throughout the Bible, the character and works of God drip from every page. But in all of this Philip was still confused – he just hadn’t “got it”.
In answer to Philip’s request, “Lord, show us the Father”, Jesus replied, “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father”. Of course that was the case, but the Jewish view of God would have been skewed and bolstered by stories of the Exodus from Egypt, the first Passover, the parting of the Red Sea, of earthquakes and fires, of victories in battles, all building a God-image that seemed to be on a scale far greater than the Man standing before Philip.
We pilgrims are children of God, and we know and love a Father who loves us so dearly. John wrote “We love each other because he loved us first” (1 John 4:19). But more than that, Paul wrote, “But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners” (Romans 5:8). Rather than build a picture of a loving God only, there are many other facets of God’s character and it takes a lifetime and then some to really get to know Him. In fact it will take eternity. But before we reach for a pen and paper to write down a picture of God, we should pause. It has already been penned – written down in a Book we call the Bible.
Father God. We will never get to know who You really are in this life, but we know that everything about You is good. We worship You today, our loving Heavenly Father. Amen.
Being a Pilgrim 