Seeing my Father in Me
After washing my hair, I slipped down under the water in the old claw-foot tub in my friend’s farmhouse. As I came back up out of the water with the shampoo gone and my hair slicked back, I looked into a round shaving mirror on the tub faucet. My father was looking back at me! From a photo when he was my age, he usually slicked back his hair. I gasped as I looked at his photo in that mirror. My father was clearly in me.
I have many of his characteristics such as my physical size and loss of hair above my ears. I have a similar voice but others do not enjoy hearing me sing as they did for dad. I tried playing his trombone in school, but somehow his talent did not pass on to me. We are both reserved introverts and like working with our hands. We both enjoy the outdoors and photography. I have many habits of the way I sit, or laugh, or use my hands in dialogue that resemble his habits. And I have been mistaken for him by friends of the family who have not seen us for years. But I am not the only one.
After celebrating the Passover meal, Jesus was speaking to his twelve before being arrested. He made many references about his relationship to the Father.
If you really know me, you will know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him. John 14:7
Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. John 14:9
Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you I do not speak on my own authority. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the works themselves. John 14:10-11
On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love them and show myself to them. John 14:20-21
Then Jesus goes into his spiel on love:
As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. John 15:9-14
So Jesus shows us the Father in a language that we can understand. But it troubles me when I consider His commands that I have chosen not to keep, even the greatest one of “love each other as I have loved you.” Is my love of others even a faint shadow of Jesus’ love for me? Do I distinguish between like and love so that I don’t feel the guilt of not truly loving others? I do try to keep His commands, most of the time.
What about you? Do you claim to love Jesus, to believe in Him? Do you keep his commands more and more as you mature?
Or when you look in the mirror, are you one of those branches that the Father cuts off because there is no fruit when there should be? (John 15:2 & Matthew 21:18-19)
