Page 30 - 2018 AdventDevo-Flip book

The Third Sunday of Advent
The Impossible Truths of Christmas: Wrapped in Flesh

Scripture: John 14:1-10

At his last meal with his disciples, Jesus said:
“When everything is ready, I will come and get you, so that
you will always be with me where I am. And you know the
way to where I am going."

"No, we don't know, Lord," Thomas said. "We have no
idea where you are going, so how can we know the way?"

Jesus told him, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No
one can come to the Father except through me. If you had
really known me, you would know who my Father is. From
now on, you do know him and have seen him!"
Philip said, "Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satis-
fied."

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!”

Jesus brings an incredible, seemingly impossible, specificity to the issue
of belief.

For some of us, our faith is not very specific. Instead, it's pretty general.
We believe stuff like "the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of
humanity", "Be a good person.” For many people, being a Christian
simply means behaving decently, with prayer tacked on. How often have
you heard people say that it doesn't really matter what you believe as long
as you are sincere? But in our passage, Jesus doesn't let us get away with
these non-specific notions of faith. On the contrary—he gets incredibly,
almost blasphemously specific: "Whoever has seen me has seen God."
To the question of "What is God like?" Jesus answers specifically: "God is
like me—exactly like me."