In the Gospel this week, Jesus offers profound comfort to his anxious disciples on the eve of his crucifixion. Facing his imminent departure, he reassures them not merely with the promise of a future heavenly dwelling place, but with the immediate, transformative reality of his perfect union with God.
When Philip desperately asks, “Lord, show us the Father,” Jesus responds with a stunning claim about divine intimacy. The relationship between Jesus and his Father is so close and profound that to know Jesus is to know the Father, that is, personally and intimately experience the Father, as children know their father. Jesus is the perfect, unblemished mirror of the Divine; there is no hidden, distant God behind the back of Jesus. Every act of profound compassion, every word of uncompromising truth, and every gesture of healing witnessed in Christ’s earthly ministry is a direct, unfiltered encounter with the Creator’s own heart.
However, this theological truth is not meant to be passively observed; it is a catalyst for our own transformation. The purpose of this revelation is not only that every believer should know God as Father and so enjoy the divine life but also that they should complete Jesus’ mission from his Father by doing even greater works than Jesus did during his mortal life. These “greater works” do not imply a greater inherent power or divinity than Christ, but rather a greater earthly scope. Empowered by the promised Holy Spirit, the disciples – and all future believers – are tasked with multiplying this grace, taking the love and restorative justice of God far beyond the geographical borders of first-century Judea and into all corners of the world.
Ultimately, this passage serves as an enduring invitation to divine adoption and lifelong imitation. The believer, being a member of God’s family, is called to behave exactly as God shows himself to act in the incarnate person of his Son. By abiding deeply in the love of the Father and looking constantly to the Son as our ultimate template for living, we step fully into our true identity. We become the living hands and feet of Christ, bringing his light, his healing, and his truth to a fractured world.
Fr Stephen Berecz
