Have we come to know Jesus?

[AI translation] You may remember, last Sunday I announced that on this Sunday I would like to spend a day with the boys and girls who have been confirmed here - in silence, being with Jesus - looking into his eyes, hearing his voice, feeling his nearness, being filled with his power; to see with our souls his crucified, risen, returning to judgment; to be renewed in faith in him and in communion with him. This is what we want - to spend a quiet day with Jesus. What I would like to talk about in this service, on the basis of the Scripture that we have read, is who is this Jesus before whom we want to stand in spirit? So let us talk about the mystery of the person of Jesus. And I preach the Word with the hope that, while I am speaking about Him, He Himself will come among us in such a way that we can spend this hour with Him in a very real way and be sanctified in His presence!It was one of Jesus' disciples, Philip, who made this strange request: "Show us the Father, and it is enough for us." I don't know what Philip meant by this question - perhaps some memory of the theophanies, the horror of seeing God, stirred in his soul accustomed to Greek mysteries - but I do know that there is in every religious man, and even in every believer, a desire to be more certain of the reality of God. He would like to see some sign, to have some experience that would confirm him in his faith. He longs for some unmistakable proof that God is really alive, that He is thinking of me, caring for me, loving me. It would be nice to experience this in a tangible way, to be sure of it. Why doesn't God do this, why doesn't He reveal Himself to me in this way, why doesn't He break the cloud of fear and doubt with some visible certainty, some unmistakable sign?! So this wish of Philip's to "show me the Father" in the soul of modern man means that it would be good to be convinced of the reality of God, but it would be good in this world - when people are going to the point of being destroyed nervously, seeing the world and their own lives in total chaos - to be convinced that we can really say this to a living person: "Our Father!" We are not deceiving ourselves when we believe in God, but God is truly the loving power of Him in Whom we believe! You too are here now because you desire greater certainty, because you want to be confirmed in a more real experience of God, because you want to be more firmly convinced that there really is a God, and that God is your Father and you are His children! Yes: I feel Philip's longing, and I fully understand his request when he said to Jesus: 'Show us the Father,' and I can also agree with Philip when he says: 'That is enough for us. It is indeed enough, you know, to live free of all one's fears, with inner peace in one's heart, in this often very strange world.
What does Jesus say to Philip? First, he gently rebukes him: 'I have been with you for so long and yet you have not known me, Philip!' How strange. To be with someone for years, to see their face, hear their voice, witness their life, and yet not really know them! I know of spouses who, even after twenty years of living together, never really knew each other... And sadly, I know of many Reformed people who are like that with Jesus! They have been with Him here in the church for a long time and many times, they know His life from the manger at Bethlehem to the cross at Calvary and the open tomb at Easter, they know everything about Him - and yet they don't really know Him! So many Reformed people still have the same faith in Jesus as the Unitarians or the Jews: they do not see the hidden glory of God shining through the human person of Jesus, they know nothing of Jesus as their personal Saviour, Lord and God! Yet those who saw Him with their own eyes, those who later wrote of His life, always speak of Him in this way. It would be easier to remove the stars from the sky than to erase the divinity of Jesus from the pages of the Gospel. He shines through in all the descriptions. If you see in Jesus only the man who works miracles, who has beautiful qualities and thoughts and great character, who was the perfect type of man on this earth, you have not yet known anything of the mystery of the person of Jesus Christ. Would he not say to many here, perhaps, "I have been with you so long and yet you have not known me..."?
And it is almost breathtaking how he continues, "He who has seen me has seen the Father!" How wonderful: Jesus, when he wants to convince someone that there really is a God, that the heavenly Father is a living reality, does not go into high-minded speeches, does not explain who God is: ultimate cause, or first movement, or primordial premillennium, or something like that - but simply points to Himself: God is what He appears in Me, God is what I reveal Him to be in Myself, in My life, death and resurrection - "he who has seen Me has seen the Father!" - And this is the true mystery of the person of Jesus. That in Him God Himself is made concrete for us, that although He was man, He was the incarnation of God, manifesting the life of the invisible God in a visible human body - the radiance of the glory of God and the image of the essence of God in Jesus! (cf. Heb 1:3) Stanley Jones describes how in one war, an officer who had been commissioned to do dangerous duty said to the field chaplain. The chaplain replied, "No! No, I will not, but I will go with you!" Well: that's Jesus! Jesus means that God is going with you! He goes with you in your suffering but also in your joy, He goes with you in your work but also in your rest. Jesus: the God who goes with you, the God who is with you, the God who suffers with you, the God who rejoices with you, the God who struggles with you.
Without Jesus, God is really only a concept, an idea, a distant, mysterious, unknown authority, whom the "flame of the wise cannot touch..." - but in Jesus, He is a concrete reality, near, inclined towards me, reaching out to me, addressing me, who says to me: you; to whom I can say: you: You! Who is in my life, who sits down at the table with me, who accompanies me on my journey, who lives my life with me...God, the Father, has revealed himself in Jesus so that when you say, "My God, my Father," you do not have to grope in a vacuum, but see God, the Father, in a historical person; your faith is not a "secretly wished-for conjecture", but you can almost see in the life of a concrete earthly person how the invisible God feels and acts. God revealed himself in Jesus so that God might be for you a living reality, just as the life and death of Jesus was a bloody reality on this earth. So when Jesus took the little children in his arms and laid his hands on them and blessed them: see from this how God feels about children. Or when Jesus had mercy on the suffering, the sick man, understand from Him what our heavenly Father feels at the sight of the misery on earth. Or when Jesus went into the house of Zacchaeus, took the sinful woman under his protection, ate with the despised, preached forgiveness to the repentant: know from him how compassionate God is. Or when he hung on the cross as a voluntary atoning sacrifice for the sins of the world: know how God loves you!
So in Jesus we know God! So if you truly long for a deeper experience of God, a personal experience of God, a fuller certainty of God, then believe in God by believing in Jesus Christ! He Himself said: Believe in God and believe in Me! Jesus makes faith in God concrete. Do not just believe in God in general, as the Gentiles believe - and even the unbelievers and the God-deniers believe in some kind of God - but you believe in God by believing in Jesus! We truly believe in God when we believe in Jesus!
The fact that God is made concrete in the person of Jesus excludes us from indifference and from contemplation in theory alone, and forces us to make a decision. About the God who is enthroned somewhere beyond the stars and beyond human reach: one can philosophize, one can daydream, one can talk irresponsibly; but the God who is before me in Jesus: He forces me to decide, I must decide for Him or against Him, I must decide: to believe in Him or reject Him, to bow down before Him or laugh at Him! "He who has seen me has seen the Father!" A dizzying statement! Imagine if I said of myself, "He who has seen me has seen God!" what would you think of my state of mind? Such a thing can only be said by a madman, or by God! Hearing this statement, one can either smile at the one who said it, or - worship him! I have already made up my mind - I love it! I worship as my Lord, my God, my Saviour! If this is the God that I see in Jesus, if this is the God who shows Himself in Jesus: then this is the God I love and with this God I accept fellowship in life and death! If this Jesus died on the cross, then truly there is forgiveness of sins! If this Jesus rose from the dead, then truly eternal vistas have been opened to our lives! If this Jesus comes back into the world one day, then He will truly take away the just reward and punishment of everything and everyone! If God is like Jesus, then good! Then all is good! Then I am very happy!
And finally, if I believe in God by believing in Jesus, then such faith will never be idle contemplation and piety, but active action and service. You know, the same Jesus who said: 'I and the Father are one', also said to the Father: I and the man who needs your help are one! The same Jesus who spoke of the heavenly Father identifying Himself with Himself, the same Jesus in turn identified Himself with the hungry, the cold, the sad, the homeless, the prisoner, the sick. So much so that, in His words, "What we have done to one of these wretches, we have done to Him, Himself, or to Him, Himself, we have failed to do! The same Jesus who claimed of Himself that God is found in Himself, also claimed that He is found in the man with whom you can do good, whom you can help, whom you can love! God in Jesus, and Jesus in your fellow human being.Do you feel, then, that such faith in God: mobilises us, gives us impetus, works in us the impulse to act, to serve? When I believe in God by believing in Jesus, I am moved by forces that pull me out of passivity, out of my recognised sins, and lead me to new wills, to love people. If only we could be with Jesus every time we are here or praying at home, so that we could become happier, more dynamic people in the world through him!
Amen
Date: 20 September 1959.