Recognizing Jesus (Janet Taylor)

“Have I been with you all this time, and you still do not know me?” That’s the question Jesus poses to Philip. Jesus seems genuinely surprised that Philip would even ask, “Lord, show us the Father.” I can picture Jesus’ body language here, can you? The slight startle, the movement of shoulders, the facial expression changing from one of earnest discussion to astounded wonder, eyes widening, mouth perhaps opening a bit in astonishment.

If Jesus were to speak in today’s colloquial English, his response might have sounded like this: “Really? Are you kidding me? I’ve spent the last three years with you and you still don’t know me? Don’t you get it? God is in me, and I live in God, so if you’ve seen me, you have already seen God. Do you think I could say and do all that stuff you’ve seen on my own? No way! It’s God in me who does all that and knows what to say…if you don’t believe me, then at least give God the credit for the miracles you’ve seen!”

Poor Philip. He thought he was asking the right thing, trying to clarify matters not just for himself, but for all the disciples. But no, it turns out he ought to have known the answer already. “There’s no such thing as a dumb question,” we say. Well, it turns out there is, at least in the situation we read about today. If you already know the answer to the question, then don’t ask the question.

“Have I been with you all this time,” Jesus says. How long has Jesus been with you? When did you first get to know Jesus on a first-name basis? Was it when you were a child in Sunday School, saying grace at the supper table, visiting with grandparents after church on Sunday, and staying in your church clothes all day because you might be going back to church in the evening, but even if you weren’t, it was the Sabbath, so you didn’t get to run around outside and get gloriously dirty? Was it when you were a teenager, and like the disciples on the road to Emmaus felt your heart strangely warmed one day? Was it as an adult, maybe being introduced to Jesus for the first time? Or perhaps just the first time you were actually paying enough attention for Jesus to matter to you? How long has Jesus been with you? And more importantly, would he look at you the way he looked at Philip and say, “and you still don’t know me?”

Paul says we see through a mirror dimly. That’s a pretty good metaphor. And in all fairness, Jesus knows that all the disciples, not just Philip, can’t really know him, that they’re “seeing through a mirror dimly.” Our limited human brains just can’t go there completely. So Jesus gives them an “out,” as it were…”if you can’t believe and know that God is in me, and I’m in God,” Jesus says, “then at least trust the evidence of your eyes: the miracles you’ve seen.”

Ah. Now here’s something we can grab on to! Trust and believe what we’ve seen and experienced firsthand. That I can do! So where do we see and experience God firsthand? We see him in the acts of kindness all around us: groceries and meals delivered to the most vulnerable, the person wearing a face mask while they’re out and about – not for their own protection, but out of love for the people they will encounter in their day.

The answer begs the question: how do we get better at recognizing Jesus? What would your answer be? I think that we recognize Jesus when we saw him hungry and we gave him something to eat, he was thirsty and we gave him something to drink, he was a stranger and we invited him in, he needed clothes and we clothed him, he was sick and we looked after him, he was in prison and we came to visit him.

This is, after all, what binds us together as a community: we’re all working toward getting better at recognizing Jesus and getting to know him, while at the same time knowing that in our brokenness and sin, we can only see through the mirror dimly. It’s a lifelong effort to get to know Jesus, and we accompany each other on this road just as the disciples accompanied Jesus so long ago. Getting to know Jesus is the tie that binds us all. And for that, thanks be to God!

The Rev Janet Taylor
Braeside Presbyterian Church, St Alberta, AB