Jesus, the Scandal…and the Miracle of Pentecost.
In today’s gospel, Philip's words could well be mine or yours.
“Show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.”
We long to see the Father. We would ache to reach out, to touch, to know, to engage, to gawk and chatter. For most of the time, we walk blindly in faith, stumbling along, hoping, glimpsing, sometimes sensing, getting a slight ‘whiff’ of the divine. A cursory little glimpse out the corner of our eye. A set of circumstances that tumble down in front of us in a way that we could never have envisaged or hoped for. Puzzling and alluring. But,.. that’s just about it.
There is a line of logic which says that we as human beings can never really ‘Know’ God. Not know Him completely in all his infinite glory. Our minds and hearts can never take it all in, and his ways and purposes are baffling, frustrating, bewildering and incomprehensible to us. If God is completely ‘other’… What hope do we have? And yet.. and yet. We long for the miracle of Pentecost.
Perhaps it is Philip’s obvious and understandable yearning that is the best proof that we have. ‘Show us the Father and we will be satisfied.’ Now, where did his desire come from? There is clearly a longing within Philip where he kind of knows, wants to know more and yet,… isn’t quite there … yet…
‘Show us the Father and we will be satisfied.’
Or would we? Would one solitary interview, one photo, one prod at his piercings ever really be enough for us?
Jesus’ firm response to Philip, maybe it's even a chastening, is to point to the indivisible, unbreakable, indissoluble unity that Jesus and His Father have.
“I am in the Father and the Father is in me. The words that I say to you, I do not speak on my own; but the Father who dwells in me does his works. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; To have seen Me is to have seen the Father.”
And I suspect that there is a clue here. When we see the same unity amongst ourselves, when we are in harmony one with another, then we have a fleeting peep at the face of God. In our fractious world, it doesn’t happen often but I have been privileged to watch it at what might seem an odd place. And that place is the arrival area of Tullamarine Airport. Hugs, flowers, balloons, tears and passionate kisses are all around.
At that ached-for moment, when the face you long to see emerges from the sliding glass doors, there is nothing that you wouldn’t do for them. Even getting up in the middle of the night to be there, sleep deprived and hair askew, is no hardship, but on the contrary,y it is a thrill and a joy. Where else could you be? Who else would you be with?
So it is with God.
The Father we see in Jesus loves the world, lays down his life for us, is not ashamed of us, but actually invites us to dwell with him forever. This is the ferocious passion with which He loves us. This is His deepest and keenest desire.
The Father we know is the judge we love.
And yet… The Jesus we meet is a scandal.
There is no solid proof that this is the one. There is no absolute certainty that we have made the right choice. The Father we see in Jesus is not the noble, exalted, all powerful man we seek, but He is a jew who died crushed on a cross. How macarbe.
Yet the Holy Spirit that the Master alludes to in today’s gospel teases us, allures us, taunts us, dares us to follow and dance.
And just sometimes in a moment of weakness… or is it strength, we are convinced that this crucified one, this pushed aside one, this downtrodden, this rejected, beat up, spat upon, mocked one, is truly The one; the face of the Father, the heart of God. The miracle of Pentecost is that we believe, however feebly and however fleetingly.
Perhaps the miracle of Pentecost is that even today, after all this time, people still gather together to worship the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
There are still people who keep watching, hoping, longing, waiting, like the bedraggled folk at Tullamarine.
There is still a worshipping community that craves for the new creation and longs for a peek of God’s face.
The miracle of Pentecost is that there is still a community of people who long to carry each other’s burdens.
Now when we gather to celebrate Pentecost there is always a temptation to celebrate it as a nostalgic event of the past and remember the ancient Pentecost. John will not allow us to live in the past. The work of the Holy Spirit is and must be a present work. Greater works than these are alive in us who in spite of our “Philipness” confess that the bruised and risen one, this embarrassment pinned to the cross, truly is our Lord and God. And that we can make this confession with a grin on our face and a flush of excitement in our hearts, is the finest miracle of Pentecost.