"SEEING AND SHOWING GOD" Fifth Sunday of Easter (Mothers' Day) May 10, 2020 Bethel Evangelical Lutheran Church Glenshaw, Pennsylvania
TEXT: Philip said to [Jesus], "Lord, show us the Father and it is enough for us." Jesus said to him, "Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know Me, Philip? Whoever has seen Me has seen the Father. How can you say, 'Show us the Father'? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on My own authority, but the Father who dwells in Me does His works." John 14:8-10 (ESV)
Just a couple of weeks ago, we saw in the story of the two disciples of Jesus who were walking to Emmaus just how dense people can be at times--how slow to grasp what seems to be so plain and simple. This phenomenon can be especially frustrating for a person who is filling the role of a teacher--an appropriate subject for Mothers' Day, since Mom is the first teacher that a child has. What is a teacher to do when she repeatedly goes to great lengths to explain things in the simplest terms possible and gently encourages her students with the greatest patience, only to find that everything that she has attempted to convey has fallen on deaf ears and impenetrable hearts and minds? It makes you want to not only cry, but to give up altogether and to pursue more profitable endeavors.
If even patient mothers can get frustrated over the inability (or unwillingness) of children to understand and take to heart what they try to teach them, just imagine how frustrating it must have been for Jesus as He tried to teach His disciples. He is God incarnate--the almighty Creator of heaven and earth and everything in them. He has humbled Himself to the point of living in the world as a Human Being. He has developed and maintained a close personal relationship with twelve chosen disciples, gently and patiently and repeatedly revealing to them the great mysteries of His Person and work. And even after all of this, He is confronted with the request: "Lord, show us the Father." You can almost feel the Lord's frustration as He asks: "Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know Me?" Like Philip and the rest of the disciples, you and I need to listen with open ears and hearts to what our Savior has to say to us. In this text in particular He tells us that God's work has been accomplished in His life and ministry. It is also His desire that we are to proclaim the accomplishment of that work.
One way in which God's work has been accomplished in Christ is that in His life and ministry God Himself is revealed. One aspect of the incarnation that we don't dwell on much is that, in Christ, we see how God lives and acts in this world. Our God is not One who is so far removed from us that He can't relate to what we go through day in and day out. We don't have to speculate about what God would do if He ever found Himself in a situation like ours. Because of His infinite love for us, He has deliberately put Himself into that situation. We don't have to wonder about how God would handle the kind of temptations that we have to put up with every day, because there isn't a temptation in the world that He hasn't already faced and overcome. When we look at Christ we see God. That's why Philip's request is a ridiculous one, and that's why Jesus responded to it by saying: "Whoever has seen Me has seen the Father."
Of all the attributes of God that are made known to us in Christ, the most important and most comforting is His grace. The God we worship is not One who we have to worship in terror, fearful that He might turn on us in anger. He is instead a God of perfect justice who demands that sin be punished but chose to take that punishment upon Himself in the Person of His Son so that we--the guilty--might receive forgiveness and New Life despite all the evil we have done and the good we have failed to do. If we really want to see how God deals with our sin, all we have to do is look at the cross of Jesus. Here we see the perfect justice of God, punishing sin unmercifully without compromise. Here we see also the perfect love of God, enduring the death of the cross in order to spare sinners like us from the judgment that we deserve.
While the work that Jesus was sent into the world to do is finished, the work that He has commissioned His people to do in His name is not. We have been united with Christ in Baptism. Each time we seek the grace and power of God in our lives, we are claiming that union with our Savior as the reason why God should forgive us and bless us. Whenever we fail to use that forgiveness and that power to do the work that Jesus has called us to do, we are in fact denying our Baptismal union with Christ. Remember what the risen Christ said to His disciples: "As the Father has sent Me, even so I am sending you" (John 20:21). Just as Jesus was sent into the world to reveal God to all people, you and I have been sent into the world by Jesus to reveal Him to all people. The people who come into contact with us ought to see the values and priorities of Jesus in the choices that we make. They should see how valuable our Savior is to us by how committed we are to Him and His Church. They especially ought to see the love of Jesus in the way that we treat other people. When they do, Christ is proclaimed and our discipleship is affirmed; when they don't, Christ is not proclaimed and our discipleship is denied.
It has often been said that history repeats itself, so I'm going to repeat myself now. The most valuable attribute of God that Jesus revealed is His grace. So guess what's most important in our testimony about Jesus? Once again, it's grace--G-R-A-C-E--God's riches at Christ's expense. It is true that Jesus revealed God's will to us and taught us how to live and set the perfect example for us, but if there is one thing that sinners need to know about Jesus, it's that He reveals the redeeming grace of God--grace that is stronger than human sin and is therefore able to overcome it--grace through which God accepts sinners in spite of their sin because of the perfect righteousness of His Son. It is our responsibility as the disciples of Jesus to make this known to others not only in the words that we speak but also in the way that we treat others, especially those who have offended us. We who have been forgiven much are to forgive those who have wronged us--an act of grace that is nothing compared to what we have received from God in Christ. The Christ who reveals the grace of God to us has called us to reveal Him as the Personification of that grace of God.
The life and ministry of Jesus Christ reveals to sinners their God. He does not delight in condemning them, but instead glories in redeeming them from sin and restoring them as His own dear children. This is a source of the greatest comfort for us and for all sinners who seek forgiveness and hope. But the life and ministry of Jesus also empowers us for meeting a challenge, and that challenge is this: The Father is clearly revealed and proclaimed in Jesus, but how clearly is Jesus revealed and proclaimed in us? Does our commitment to Him let others know how precious He is to us? Do our lives reveal His glory and proclaim His love? God's Good News for us is that His Spirit, given to us in Baptism, daily moves us and strengthens us to be His witnesses, so that the grace that He has revealed to us may also be revealed in and through us. Amen. May the God of peace, who brought again from the dead that great Shepherd of the sheep, our Lord Jesus, by the blood of the everlasting covenant equip you thoroughly for the doing of His will. May He work in you everything which is pleasing to Him, through Jesus Christ, our Lord, to whom be honor and glory forever and ever. He who calls you is faithful, and He will do it. Amen. ~