4th week in Easter Time, Saturday – 9th May 2020 — Gospel: Jn 14,7-14
Jesus did the Father’s works
Jesus has an equal status with the Father and so he makes an affirmation, ‘to see him is to see the Father’. It is a claim that he is the unique revealer of the Father. The believer, therefore, cannot separate faith in the Father from faith in Jesus and knowing Jesus is to know the Father. In saying “from now on” (14,7b), Jesus wants his disciples to be secure of the present and the future, because of their relationship with him. However Philip’s inappropriate request brings out the continuous misunderstanding of Jesus’ most definite claims about his identity. As humans, it is hard to grasp what we don’t see. Jesus’ reply to him makes another clear claim that he alone reveals the Father through his works. All that Jesus did what told by the Father and so his works are those of the Father. This answer may not have satisfied Philip’s curiosity, but invited him to believe, to lean on his experience of the Lord, and to trust that Jesus is the revelation of the Father, even if he didn’t understand it.