When I was in college in the 1960s, we all took a Humanities course each quarter our first two years. In these courses we studied philosophy, religion, literature, art, and music of Europe together, epoch by epoch, through history. I remember writing a paper for “Renaissance and Reformation” class on “Raphael’s Picture of God.”
I was fascinated, even then, by the question: What does God look like? How do I know that a picture of God (by artist, writer, or my imagination) is really what God looks like?
The pictures of God by Renaissance artists were much more appealing to me than the icon pictures of God we had studied in our Middle Ages class. Still, the pictures of God in that era from philosophy and religious perspectives drew me–as did the pictures of God created in the great cathedrals.
Even today, it seems to me that our picture of God is very important. Who do you see in your mind when you pray?
In today’s Gospel
Today’s Gospel continues Jesus’ Farewell Address on Holy Thursday. It begins today with those famous lines, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father, except through me.”
Jesus was saying in effect, “I am a picture of God.” Now, Peter had said some six months before, “You are the Christ, the Messiah,” but Peter’s behavior later Holy Thursday night would show he did not fully understand what “You are the Christ” meant. He did not understand that Jesus, the Messiah, was about to freely lay down his life as man so that he could freely take it up again as God.
Then Philip, the disciple prone to questions, asked Jesus: “Master, show us the Father, and that will be enough for us.”
He didn’t understand. He wanted a clearer picture of God. So, Jesus responded to him, “Have I been with you for so long a time and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I speak to you I do not speak on my own. The Father who dwells in me is doing his works. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or else, believe because of the works themselves.”
Did Philip or James (whose feast day we celebrate today) or the other disciples understand? No. If they had understood, they would have been camping out near the tomb to watch Jesus rise from the dead.
This Great Mysterious Mystery
This unity of God the Father and God the Son in the person Jesus has been a great mystery all through the church. In century after century, a heresy has formed, theologians have argued, and/or a Council has met to iron out exactly what this union of God and man in Jesus is.
In the Catechism
The Catechism discusses this in paragraphs 461 through 483. This is, in essence, the Mystery of the Incarnation. I like paragraph 484. It makes sense to me:
The unique and altogether singular event of the Incarnation of the Son of God does not mean that Jesus Christ is part God and part man, nor does it imply that he is the result of a confused mixture of the divine and the human. He became truly man while remaining truly God. Jesus Christ is true God and true man. During the first centuries, the Church had to defend and clarify this truth of faith against the heresies that falsified it. (CCC 484)
Then, I admit I get confused as the catechism discusses various heresies. Clarity returns for me in paragraph 469: “The Church thus confesses that Jesus is inseparably true God and true man. He is truly the Son of God who, without ceasing to be God and Lord, became a man and our brother.”
Jesus Is a Picture of God
All through the Hebrew scriptures, it was not safe to see God’s face. Now, the night before he died, Jesus is telling his friends, “If you have seen me, you have seen the Father.” I am the face of God—mediated in this human person I am. If you know me, you know the Father.
And, in just a few more verses, Jesus will tell them, “Not only do you see God when you see me, but God is going to come and live within you through the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete.” He says already here, “The man who has faith in me will do the works I do, and even greater works” because Jesus is “going to the Father.”
So, what do we know of God—of God’s picture—from Jesus? Even Jesus can be multi-faceted. Bishop Fulton Sheen frequently said, “Jesus is not just a good man who teaches us wise ways to live.” True. But Jesus did teach us wise ways to live. The Sermon on the Mount (Chapters 5-7) in Matthew’s Gospel and this Farewell Discourse in John (Chapters 14-17) are summaries of those wise ways to live.
Jesus, in his teachings, is the WAY.
Jesus spoke up about what was right or wrong. He corrected his disciples, as he did Philip here, as when Peter tried to persuade him the cross was not necessary, as when James and John got their mother to beg positions of power for them. He spoke sometimes blunt truth to those he helped—the woman at the well, those who wanted a bread king, the woman taken in adultery. He spoke enough truth to the religious leaders about their mistaken ideas about relationship with God that it got him crucified.
Jesus, in his words today, is the TRUTH.
And the face of God as Jesus was also a doer: he called disciples, healed the sick and the possessed, threw out money changers, and ate dinner with both friends and public sinners. He lived simply in community. He loved and was loved.
Jesus is the LIFE.
Jesus is a picture of God.
Prayer:
Lord, Raphael painted pictures of God, as did both medieval and 20th century artists. Cultures paint You. Theologians fine tune pictures as they, through the centuries, ponder Your great Mysteries. I have visions of You in my head. I see you, often, as Light–Light in the trees of the events of my life. Light in my understanding. Light in my ability to love. Light in direction for my will. But could I be creating You in an image I want You to be in? Or am I seeing You as You are? Lord, let me see You as You are—the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Give me Your picture, Lord, and let me put it over my heart.
