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“Two of the deepest longings of the human soul are to be seen and to be known.”
- John O’Donohue
One Christmas about eighteen years ago, after my daughter Sarah became engaged to Austin, she decided to put together a special gift for him. Her goal was to create a calendar where she expressed 365 reasons why she loved him. Well, around reason 68, she came to me for help, and I was able to prompt her with questions that allowed her to creatively explore parts of Austin that she had not yet exhausted and keep the ideas rolling. When the calendar was complete, she let me read it before she gave it to him. Sprinkled throughout the calendar were attributes that would not be considered positive but more like flaws. I questioned her on this, and her response was, “Mom, I know Austin; I mean, I really know him, and I want him to know that I love him for who he is, not who I think he should be.” Okay, once more, my baby girl teaches mom a profound lesson about the nature of love.
In confession, we make vulnerable statements about ourselves and all of humanity. We come before God with the hope and faith that God knows all about us and continues to love us. In the way God knows us and sees who we really are, we find a sense of true belonging and acceptance. We are held in the arms of God’s mercy and grace extended to us through Christ.
Unlike revealing ourselves, which must have a confessional aspect, in John, we learn through Jesus’ great Priestly prayer that to know God is eternal life, and to know God is to know love. We also learn that it is Jesus’ most earnest desire that we know God intimately. We learn that if we want to know God, we must look no further than Jesus. Jesus reveals God to us and points us towards God throughout his ministry and beyond his resurrection.
On Sunday, we begin the first in our Lenten Series, which focuses on the world-changing work of our Savior. This series will combine two sections of Jesus’ lengthy discourse with the Disciples before the Passion: This includes a discussion of the significant dimensions of the believer’s life and the High Priestly Prayer of Jesus that reveals the true nature of his life and work.
I hope you will join us in person or by any means for worship this week as we focus on Jesus’ prayer for himself that he might fulfill his mission and thus show God to the world how a Savior’s love reveals a loving God.
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