To Know

Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, ‘I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life.’ Then the Pharisees said to him, ‘You are testifying on your own behalf; your testimony is not valid.’ Jesus answered, ‘Even if I testify on my own behalf, my testimony is valid because I know where I have come from and where I am going, but you do not know where I come from or where I am going. You judge by human standards; I judge no one. Yet even if I do judge, my judgement is valid; for it is not I alone who judge, but I and the Father who sent me. In your law it is written that the testimony of two witnesses is valid. I testify on my own behalf, and the Father who sent me testifies on my behalf.’ Then they said to him, ‘Where is your Father?’ Jesus answered, ‘You know neither me nor my Father. If you knew me, you would know my Father also.’ John 8:12-19

What does it mean to know? John here writes that Jesus says to the crowd that if they had known his Father, they would know him. I think we are talking in terms of recognition, of understanding, of that flash of knowledge that means I know this person, I have met them before. What Jesus is speaking of is a type of recognition that has to do with personhood.

I don't think that we can ever forget that Christianity is a faith that demands recognition of personhood. The Word may include the good, the true and the beautiful. It may be "the way, the truth and the life." It is all of those things and contains all of those things. But more than that, the Word, Logos, was and is a living person. We worship a God that is three persons in one. So to know God, here, is about "knowing" a person, having a relationship with them.

Jesus claims that if one knows his Father, then one will recognize, know, him. If you know this person, the Father, then the recognition of that same reality will also be present with Christ, and vice versa. Why? Because Christ does the will of that Father. It's like seeing a reflection of something you know and are familiar with, that you have heard before - you're going to recognize it, you're going to know from whence it comes. This is why Jesus says his judgment is true, because he listens for judgment to the one who is true, he does not judge alone.

How do we come to "know" God? I think this is essentially about relationship. That through prayer and worship, perhaps simply through questioning and asking questions - any way we can we respond to the knock on the door and so seek to "know" God, to come to recognize the voice of God's shepherd within us and in scripture or other places it may appear, we build that relationship. But first we have to open up the door to "know" or to get to know this person, what loving kindness and mercy feels like from this person, what teaching and enlightenment is. How do you decide to know?