Day 157: Witnessing God

Jesus answered, "You know neither Me nor My Father.  If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also."  John 8:19

Although this response is quite negative and condemning of the Pharisees, it's a great revelation to us as Christians.

I have just finished reading From Sin to Amazing Grace by Dr. Patrick Cheng and have been starting to take many of his ideas into my own understanding of the scriptures.  One of the things that Dr. Cheng writes about is the Out Christ, who serves as our revelation of the Godhead.  The Old Testament God is difficult to understand many times, and that particular manifestation of God was never seen face to face.  Jesus, on the other hand, came down to earth so that we can see God face to face and live (I love that song, "Come O thou traveler unknown").  In one sense, God came out of the heavenly closet in the form of Jesus Christ.

And this is where things are important with the above response.  The Pharisees refused to accept Jesus as the Messiah for many reasons, but none of them explained away their intentions.  They hated Jesus.  And Jesus was honest (if not blunt) with them.  He told them like it was.  What Jesus told them is what he tells us all, that God is love.  We are being called every day by God to show our love for one another.  That's where our understanding can get to be difficult.

God will never be what we envision.  God is so amazing, so transcendent, so great that we can never truly fathom or comprehend God.  Yet, we don't need to be doing that.  Despite the fact that we as humans are creatures of patterns and habits, we don't have a need to be putting God into a box or a drawing or a writing.  God's love transcends all of that.  What's even better is that we have all that we need in order to understand right in front of us.  Jesus has spoken to us in so many different ways to explain all that we need to know.  When we read the Gospel, we will come to understand love just a little bit more.

Yes, Jesus might make us uncomfortable because he calls us to come out of our closets made of prejudices and selfish pride, but to come out and embrace love is so much better!  When we make that step to receive and internalize love, we will see that the world all around us will become a better place.  When we learn to embrace one another, seeing the image of God in each person, we will be able to see God and know God better than we ever have.