“A Good Look at God”
St. John 14:1-14
5th Sunday of Easter – April 20, 2008
Pastor Chip Winter

            Grace to you and Peace, from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, Amen. The text for our sermon is the Gospel lesson appointed for the day.
            My dear family in Christ, "Do you want to see God?" Who wouldn't want to see God? Of course, surely we all know that seeing God is more than a matter of abusing a controlled substance, marveling at the wonders of nature in the wilds of Alaska, the mountains of Colorado, the midst of the ocean, or taking stock of the truly fantastic odyssey of a baby’s birth. I say this to you this morning knowing that this is a major reason for coming to church: we want to see God. We want to cut through all the hype, sort out all the conflicting claims and counterclaims, and see God. Trouble is, God is - by definition - invisible, unapproachable, infinite, and inaccessible. "No one has ever seen God," says 1 John 4:12.
            In the Bible, seeing God is no simple thing. In the Old Testament it was a fearful thing to gaze upon the great glory of God. Moses, who hides his face before the Burning Bush presence of the Almighty, is hidden in the cleft of the rock, allowed to see only the glory of the Lord already passed by (Exodus 33:22).  Similarly Elijah (I Kings 19:8), standing at the entrance to the cave, wraps his face in his cloak to be able to withstand a “whisper” of the presence of God.  No mere mortal can look upon God and still be alive. God Almighty is holy, distant, and unapproachable. Is it that, perhaps, if you could see God face-to-face then you could control God? God would be an object just like any other, to be held, used, and abused.  Perhaps.
            John's Gospel opens with the self-evident statement: "No one has ever seen God" (John 1:18). Of course not, for we can see objects and people, but God is not to be compared with the things of this physical world: the Creator is every so much more than the creation. When Jesus is criticized for healing a man on the Sabbath he says to his critics, "You have never heard his voice or seen his form" (John 5:37). That's a rather self-evident statement. His critics have never seen God but who among us, friends of Jesus or not, can say, "I have gazed upon the face of God"? "No one has seen the Father," says Jesus a few verses later (John 6:46).
            You’ve probably heard the story of the little girl who was drawing a picture in school one day. The teacher leans over her and asks, "What are you drawing?"  "God," was her reply.  The teacher laughed and said, "No one knows just what God looks like dear."   To which the little girl replied, "They will when I get finished with this drawing."
            I suppose that in the back of our minds when I mention the name "God" all of you have some image tucked away that flashes before your consciousness - you see a kindly old man in the sky, you see a brilliant winter sunset, you see some artistic representation of God the Father, such as Michelangelo’s work in the Sistine Chapel. None of us needs be told that these images, these representations are all symbolic, metaphoric images; they are incapable of doing justice to that grand reality, that immortal entity we name as "God."
            The first of the Ten Commandments orders us not to have "graven images" of God. We are not to take any representation, any artistic depiction, any metaphor or image as if it were a truthful representation of God. God is too holy, too exalted for any merely human representation.
            And yet we ought to be reminded that we Christians are not to make any image or representation of God, nor do we need to, because we already have the definitive, complete, full image of God - Jesus Christ. For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, wrote Paul to the Colossians (2:9)
            Jesus is called "Christ," the "Messiah," "God's Son," because he is completely one with God. Jesus is God in the flesh. Christians believe that in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, we have seen God. This is the grand claim of today's Gospel. Jesus is the very presence of God. When we see Jesus, how he lived in the world, when we hear Jesus, the words he spoke to his first followers, the words he speaks to us today, when we feel the tugging at the heart that is the Holy Spirit, we have seen, heard, and felt God. That is his name, Emmanuel. God with us.
            We have a God who loved us so much that he refused to remain aloof and apart from us. This God came among us, revealed himself to us. "You know me," Jesus tells his followers, "therefore you know and see God" (John 14:7). When Philip says to him, "Show us the father" (John 14:8), Jesus responds, "Anyone who has seen Me has seen the Father…I am in the Father and the Father is in me."
            Now some of you may be a bit uncomfortable by such claims, particularly when they are made in the form of John 14:6: "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."
            That "no one comes . . . except through me," has troubled some sensitive souls. It sounds arrogant. Is Jesus the one and only way? Hasn't that attitude done much damage around the world as Christ's followers have gone about insisting that everyone else ought to give up their religious ways and accept our one and only way?
            Today, I expect that I meet more people who believe, as an article of rigid faith, that Christ is not the one and only way but only one way among many possible ways to God. Truth be told, they are somewhat arrogant in their humility!
            Trouble is, if Christ is not the definitive way to God then what is your definitive way to God? If you take Jesus off the throne, you will put someone or something in his place. All religious ideas are not the same. There are deep differences between Jesus and every other major religious figure.
            Even the position that God is remote, unknowable, and indefinable is not as "humble" an idea as it might first appear. If Jesus is not your way to God, your image of God, your definitive self-revelation of God, then what will be your way? American democracy, capitalism, self-sufficiency, sex, power, security - the list of competing "gods" is long.
            John's Gospel begins with such high sounding poetic talk about "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was made flesh, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." It sounds very beautiful and poetic. But then when that Word-made-flesh got to talking, began moving about in the world, reaching out to the untouchables, healing the sick, rebuking the rich and the powerful, raising the dead, upsetting the authorities, well, then many people thought they could see God just a little too well! God got so close to us in Jesus that we got a good look at God and we didn't like what we saw!
            So we put him to death on a cross. We were determined to keep our "religion" vague, indefinable, ethereal, soft, and spiritual, even if we had to crucify Jesus to do it! And we did. But then we learned on Easter that he was not only Word-made-flesh but also eternal life, that he was the God who would not be defeated by our sin and death.
            When Christians claim that Jesus is the full revelation of God, that Jesus is the only full revelation of God, therefore the way, the truth, and the life, we are not being "arrogant" if we are truly looking at Jesus. His way of humble, loving service and inclusive, embracing love is God's way. The "only" way that is the way of Christ is the way of the cross - suffering, self-sacrificial love rather than arrogant, assertive, vain, and pompous pronouncements.  It is a way which remains open to all in faith.
            Christians are those who believe that, in Jesus, we got a good look at God. We are not those who begin with a clear, fixed idea of who God ought to look like if God is to be God. Rather, we look at Jesus - what he says, what he does, who he is - and believe that there we see the true and living God.
            That's what Jesus told Philip when he said, "Show us God." Jesus said, "Philip, take a good look at the one who is beside you, talking to you, walking with you. When you've seen me, you've seen the Father."
            Let us pray: Lord, help us to see you as you are, not as we would have you be, and in seeing you, to love you, and in loving you, to follow you, and in following you, thereby to believe in you, Son of God, Light of the World, Savior of all. Amen.