Once more Jesus said to them, “I am going away, and you will look for me, and you will die in your sin. Where I go, you cannot come.”
This made the Jews ask, “Will he kill himself? Is that why he says, ‘Where I go, you cannot come’?”
But he continued, “You are from below; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world. I told you that you would die in your sins; if you do not believe that I am he, you will indeed die in your sins.”
“Who are you?” they asked.
“Just what I have been telling you from the beginning,” Jesus replied. “I have much to say in judgment of you. But he who sent me is trustworthy, and what I have heard from him I tell the world.”
They did not understand that he was telling them about his Father. So Jesus said, “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he and that I do nothing on my own but speak just what the Father has taught me. The one who sent me is with me; he has not left me alone, for I always do what pleases him.” Even as he spoke, many believed in him. (John 8:21–30 NIV)
From a young age, we have a desire to be known. And that desire is often deepest in our relationship with our parents – we want them to see us for who we truly are, and we crave a deep and intimate relationship with them. As we grow, that desire to be known extends to other relationships in our lives, and we long to do life with people who see us in all our good and our mess and still love us.
As we go along life’s journey, we realize there is no earthly relationship where we can be perfectly known, but if we are pursuing Jesus and relationship with the Father, we are invited into a relationship where we really can be perfectly known. While I don’t always understand how Father, Son, and Spirit could want to be in relationship with me, I love learning about what that relationship could look like as we see them interact with each other in the Scriptures.
I can still remember where I was and what I was doing the first time I really started to grasp the beauty of the relationship between Father, Son, and Spirit and the baffling idea that we are invited to be part of it. I was away at a retreat center in the mountains, hoping my time away would help me sort out some things in my life. I went into my few days away with some pretty big questions I wanted answers to. On one of the afternoons, I set aside some time to do some VantagePoint3 homework, where we were to spend time dwelling on John 17. As I read that passage over and over, I was overcome with emotion as I saw the many times Jesus prays for us to be in him, as he is in the Father.
I sat with that passage for most of the afternoon and let myself soak in the deep love the Father and Son have for each other and how that is extended to us. That theme of being deeply loved and invited into relationship with Father and Son overtook the rest of my retreat. I didn’t get any of the answers to the specific questions I had brought into the retreat, but I came home with so much more.
I was reminded of that retreat when I read the words in today’s passage in John. In verses 25–29, we see that not only is Jesus really clear on his identity and what he is to be doing in his ministry, we see there is a closeness between him and the Father. He only speaks what he hears from the one who had sent him, and he acknowledges that the one who sent him is truthful; he does nothing on his own, only what the Father has taught him; the one who sent him is with him; and he always does what pleases the Father.
I desire to have a relationship like that with the Father and the Son. I want to be known by them, and I want to grow in my ability to hear them when they speak to me through the Holy Spirit. I want to speak with confidence about the faithfulness of the one I’m following and who has sent me to be in the specific job and city I am in. I want my life to be a reflection of this love between Father, Son, and Spirit because we need to know we can be fully loved and seen. And entering into a relationship like this changes everything.
Sara-May Cardy is the pastor of Groups and Missional Life at Greenfield Community Church in Edmonton, Alberta.
