You can safely assume that you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do. — Anne Lamott

Remember back in school how there was always one kid who asked the question that everyone was thinking, but everyone was too scared to ask because it sounded dumb? And remember how grateful you were for that person?

Well, the disciples were no different, and Philip was that kid. Jesus had just told the disciples something truly amazing in John 14:6: “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” It was a stunning truth, a paradigm shift in all of their brains.

But Philip pipes up and says, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us” (v. 8). You can almost hear the frustration in Jesus’ voice in His response:

Jesus answered: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? 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.” (John 14:9-10)

We similarly miss the message once in a while. We see Christ do amazing things in lives all around us, and yet we still tend to “miss the point” or fail to see the implications of this mystery. Jesus is the revelation of the Father to us. When we see the Son, we see the Father too—a supernatural unity with Jesus in the Father and the Father in Jesus.