- John 14:1-12
When thinking about Jesus, it is easy to imagine His human nature. As humans ourselves, it is easy to relate to Jesus’s human experiences: birth, family, friends, suffering and even death. We have all experienced the range of emotions that Jesus would have experienced. What is harder for us to understand is that Jesus also had a divine nature? It is this nature that He discusses with His disciples in this week’s Gospel.
The idea that Jesus and God the Father are one is impossible for us to comprehend, even after 2,000 years of theologians studying and thinking about the idea. How much more incomprehensible must it have been for the disciples? This exchange between Jesus, Thomas and Philip takes place during the Last Supper. Here is their friend and teacher, the man who has been traveling and living with them for three years, telling them that He and God are one. By this point, they had come to the conclusion that Jesus was the Messiah, that He was the Son of God, and that He had a special connection to the Father. This is based on His teachings, parables and the miracles they had witnessed. Still, the idea that He was not only God Himself but that He was united with the Father they had worshipped since they were children must have taken them back. It would have been a game changing revelation.
Too often, we run the risk of emphasizing Jesus’s humanity and minimizing His divinity. We focus on Jesus as teacher, friend and brother and forget that He is also God and Creator. We have a tendency to separate the members of the Trinity and, in our heads, think of them as separate from each other. This is understandable, but we must always strive to remember that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, while distinct persons, are united with each other as one God. What one does, all do. When we pray to Jesus, we are also praying to the Father and the Holy Spirit. Likewise, when the Father created the universe, Jesus and the Spirit were there with Him fully participating in that act of creation. When we receive the gifts of the Holy Spirit, they are being given by all three members of the Trinity. This is the mystery and the beauty of the Trinity.