‘Do not let YOUR heart be disconcerted. YOU believe in God, believe also in me. · In my Father's house [Gr. oikia] are many places to reside... I go to prepare a place for YOU. ·If I go and prepare a place for YOU, I will come again and receive YOU alongside myself so that YOU also may be where I am. ·YOU know the way to the place where I am going.’

Thomas said to him, ‘Lord, we do not know where you are going, so how can we know the way?’ Jesus answered him, ‘I am the way, the truth [Gr. aleetheia] and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. ·If YOU know me, YOU will know my Father also. Even from this day YOU know him and have seen him’.

Philip said to him, ‘Lord, show us the Father, and that is enough for us.’ Jesus answered him, ‘For such a long time I have been with YOU and yet you{ƒ}, Philip, do not know me? He who has seen me has seen the Father.’ (John 14:1-9a GH[i])

When many Christians confess their belief in “God the Father Almighty…and in Jesus Christ his only Son, Our Lord”, they only see God as Father to Jesus. The only concrete relationship they have with an otherwise still distant God is with Jesus as their Lord. Now, in the above passage Jesus does indeed call God ‘my Father’. Yet he does not treat this relationship as exclusive. There were also ‘many places to reside’ in his Father's ‘house’ (or 'household' [Gr. oikia]) for all his disciples, so that ‘alongside’ him they too would be sons and daughters to the Father.

These Jewish disciples had grown up learning that they as a nation were elected as God's ‘son’ when God brought them out of Egypt (Med.#C){r}{√}. Even some ‘gentiles’, like the Greek poet quoted by Paul in Athens, spoke of human beings as being ‘God's offspring' [Gr. genos] (Act.17:28) {m}. Yet knowing God as ‘Father’, through Jesus, is not just about knowing that we come from him as our Creator (Med.#A) {r}.

Similarly, most people only think of human fatherhood in terms of ‘origins’. Their ‘father’ is the man out of whose sperm they were conceived. Or it is about the man who provided for me, disciplined and cared for me as a child—or should have done so instead of abusing, neglecting or abandoning me. Fatherhood is thus about a past action that still haunts their present. Seldom if ever do human conceptions of fatherhood include the idea of a present and future relationship—one in which a father builds a new adult relationship with his son or his daughter (Med.#4) {r}.

Like Philip and the other disciples, many people haven’t yet seen this full revelation of ‘the Father’ that Jesus came to bring {r}{m}, because it is still hidden to them. In bringing us to the Father in this way, Jesus is more than just the ‘way’ {r}{m}{√}. He is also the 'truth' [Gr. a-leetheia] and the 'life'. The Greek word for ‘truth’ is formed from the words 'not' [a-] and 'hidden' [lanthano].{r} Jesus is the revealed truth of the Father's destiny for human beings. He did not come to take us back to some idealized past relationship with the Father.{r}{m}{√} Instead, now that he has ascended to heaven, he is able to draw all believers into his life with the Father—through his presence with the Father in heaven, and through the Holy Spirit in our hearts.{r}{m}{√} Jews did not yet enjoy this level of relationship with the Father. This was why Philip and the other disciples didn't recognize it, though it had been staring them in the face for three years. Likewise today, it is possible for people to believe in God, as the Jews did, and walk with Jesus, as the disciples had done, and still not know or walk confidently in the new relationship with the Father that Jesus demonstrated.{r}{√}

Yet there was another reason the disciples couldn’t see this. Their hearts were ‘disconcerted’ and full of grief. Jesus was leaving them. He spoke of being unjustly rejected and betrayed to death. Perhaps this meditation reaches you at a ‘down time’ in your life, and you don't feel ‘up’ to thinking about a new perspective about God as your Father.{r}{√} Yet it was in just such a context that Jesus spoke these words to his discouraged friends—words of comfort about a new relationship with God, as their real Father. With Jesus, you too can begin building this present and future relationship with your Father. Are you beginning to see it?

I choose to stop being disconcerted (from my own experience with human fatherhood). I believe in God; and, Jesus, I also believe in you. You returned to the Father's side to prepare a residence for me in his household. (Jn.14:1-2)

I don't know exactly where this is taking me, but I know you are the way to the Father. (14:5-6)

Come and receive me alongside yourself—where you are, so that by really knowing you, I may also really know my heavenly Father. (14:3,9)

[i] J.K. Mellis, The Good News of the Messiah by the Four Witnesses, pp.237-238.