Here’s a session from my book Daily Prayer 2. If you enjoyed the first Daily Prayer book, I’m confident you’ll enjoy the sequel just as much.
Read
Philip asked: ‘Show us the Father, Lord, and we’ll be truly content.’ ‘Have I been with you so long, Philip,’ answered Jesus, ‘yet you still do not realise who I am? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father also.’ John 14:8, 9a
Ponder
I’ve lost count of the times people have said to me of my son, ‘Oh, isn’t he like you?’ or of my daughter, ‘She’s the spitting image of her mum!’ Personally, I can see a bit of me and my wife in them both, but there’s no denying the resemblance that people point to, any more than one could dispute that certain features mark out virtually every child as their parents’ offspring. It’s not for nothing that people say to prospective suitors, ‘If you want to know what your partner will be like in twenty or so years time, look at her mother/father.’
When it comes to Jesus, we’re talking about not just a resemblance but an exact likeness, for, he tells us, he and the Father are one. It took his followers a long time to recognise that truth – in fact, for almost his entire earthly ministry they failed to grasp it – but finally they came to understand that in Jesus they saw the very face of God. Here is where faith finally rests: not in attempting to fathom the mysteries of God through our philosophical musings or intellectual efforts, but through looking to Christ and reflecting on his life and ministry, words and deeds. If you want to know what God is like, look no further than to him, for here and here alone it is truly a case of like father, like son!
Ask yourself
What aspects of God do you see most clearly revealed in Jesus? Do you make the mistake sometimes of attempting to understand God in the abstract; as a God who is distant rather than intimately involved with human life and the world around us?
Pray
Mighty and mysterious God, you are higher than my highest thoughts, greater than I can ever begin to grasp or imagine; above all, beyond all, before all, all in all. Yet you have made yourself known in Jesus: in his vulnerability as a child; his wrestling with temptation in the wilderness; his committing himself to the costly way of the cross; his love for the poor, sick, needy and broken-hearted; his reaching out to comfort, heal, restore and forgive; his hanging in agony on a cross; his rising from the tomb and exaltation to your side. Thank you that, though in this life I will always see only in part, in Christ you have shown me more than enough to know you for myself. Amen.
Remember
I am one with my Father. John 10:30
Close
Lord Jesus Christ, as you are one with the Father, help me to be a little more at one with you, so that my life also may in some way speak of God’s love for all. Amen.