Tag: Where Is Your Father?

“Oh, so you’re Duke’s boy!” the townsfolk would exclaim when making the connection. This was often followed by, “You look just like him!” Though I was seven when Dad died, I have vague recollections of our times together. His whiskers on my cheek as he hugged me, his gentle tuck-ins and goodnight kisses, his cheerful whistle as he walked home from work. But above all memories was this: Dad and me alone in the boat, fishing for Perch in the serene morning mists of Mullet Lake. Quiet time. Quality time. Together time.

Over the past two weeks, we have been beholding Jesus, the Son of God, from a heavenly perspective. For Jesus is not a mere man who became God; He is the Son of God who, for a specific time and purpose, took the form of a man and lived with us in His own creation. Today we glimpse the intimacy between Father and Son, incomprehensibly close from everlasting to everlasting. In prayer Jesus exalted the Father, “you loved me before the foundation of the world.”¹ This Son, wrote John, “was with the Father, and then he was revealed to us.”² He lived incarnate among the people, but the Father they could not see. So the skeptics asked Him, “Where is your father?”³ Even an unsettled disciple said, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.”⁴ Jesus answered him, “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip?. . . Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me?”⁵

Jesus said, “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.”⁶ Scripture attests. Jesus “is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.”⁷ “In him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell.”⁸ “In him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily.”⁹ Indeed, “He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature.”¹⁰ Then “No one who denies the Son has the Father. Whoever confesses the Son has the Father also.”¹¹ Why? Because they are one — Father and Son. They always have been; they always will be. Together time. Forever time.

It is into this intimacy that the Father and the Son draw us. Jesus prayed that we believers in Christ “may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.”¹² United, we live with purpose: “Let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.”¹³

“Our Father who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.”¹⁴ Thank You for showing us Yourself to us clearly through Your Son. You are worthy of our praise. Be glorified in us, Your people. In Christ we pray. Amen.

¹ John 17:24 ESV
² 1 John 1:2 NLT
³ John 8:19 ESV
⁴ John 14:8 NIV
⁵ John 14:9-10 ESV
⁶ John 14:9 ESV
⁷ Colossians 1:15 ESV
⁸ Colossians 1:19 ESV
⁹ Colossians 2:9 ESV
¹⁰ Hebrews 1:3 ESV
¹¹ 1 John 2:23 ESV
¹² John 17:21 ESV
¹³ Matthew 5:16 NIV
¹⁴ Matthew 6:9 RSV