Title: Flat question and three-dimensional answer
Text/ John 14:1-11, 20:24-29
1. Introduction /
The text takes place at the Last Supper of Jesus. Now, when night comes, Jesus will be delivered into the hands of priests' servants and Roman soldiers, to be whipped, insulted, ridiculed, and crucified outside the gates. While facing his fate in great pain and sorrow, Jesus gave his disciples his final farewell words. If you read the text, the dialogue between Jesus and his disciples is somehow not mutually exclusive. In the conversation between Jesus and Thomas, and between Jesus and Philip, Jesus is just like Jesus, and his disciples are his disciples. These are the peer-reviewed answers.
2. 起 Have you had this experience?
3. Show me God!
The part of the text that resonates most with modern people living today is < How can a person who has died once be resurrected? It must be the honesty of Thomas who said, “Lord, show us the Father, and it will be enough” for Thomas, who said, “I can’t believe it without touching his side with my hand and seeing the nails on his hands.” . What does Philip mean? < Lord, please don't go round and round like that. They say that no one comes to the Father except through me, and that if they knew me, they knew and saw my Father too. When did we see God? Lord, isn't it a simple matter? Don't do that, show me that God coolly! Then it's all over isn't it? > is that. That's right. This question of Philip is our question. Isn't it?
4. The most honest response
However, there is something we need to pay attention to at this point. It is acknowledged that this question comes from an honest heart, but is it a meaningful question for solving the problem? For example, many people at one time say, “What is truth? >, < What is life? >, I see cases where, in the face of a serious life problem, you end up rummaging through books on philosophy, psychology, and religion, and then you get exhausted. For this is the truth in any philosophical or religious scripture! This is because life is not giving a short-answer definition. Lao-tzu said that he is the Dao-do-non-常道, and that he is not. No teacher has ever said that this is the truth to the seeker who asks what is the truth of Buddhism. It only shows the way to that realization. Therefore, those who seek the truth are naturally frustrated. Why is the truth not clearly presented to the person who asks it? The reason is that the question itself is wrong. In other words, it is because they want to show three-dimensional truth as flat truth. Philip's request to show God is honest and sympathetic, but in reality, the request itself is meaningless.
5. The question is what kills, but the spirit gives life.
Nevertheless, Jesus gave the most honest and sincere answer to this request. < Philip, God is not conceived in the structure of human thought. God cannot be grasped by human eyes or by mystical experience. God is not revealed in a flat manner by human logical proofs >. < God does not appear in a flat plane after death, but is alive and works in three dimensions. God has revealed Himself in my life with you so far. Philip, what was my life like? What did I say? My life itself is God's life. Therefore, I am not a sign that leads to God, but God Himself; I am not the door to life, I am life itself; I am not the way to the truth, but the way itself.
Jesus said, "It is the Spirit that gives life, the flesh is of no avail. The words I speak to you are spirit and are life, but there are some of you who do not believe. John 6:63-64". not, but by the Spirit, for doubt kills, but the Spirit gives life.” 2 Corinthians 3:16 > What is the question and what is the spirit? The question is God who is grasped by human feelings, eyes, logic, and law, and the Spirit is the God whom the inner man meets through the revelation, fellowship, and filling of the Holy Spirit. Man begs to show the living three-dimensional God as a lifeless, flat God. Questions are flat, and spirits are three-dimensional. In this sense, Philip asked the most honest flat question, and Jesus gave the most honest three-dimensional answer.
6. Closing story /
< I am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me will live even if they die, and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this? > said. < Do you believe this? > We stand before this solemn question. We, who are buried in a flat question, and wrestle only with a dead God, Oh Lord! Help us in our unbelief. Renew me with your Spirit so that I can meet the living, three-dimensional God. Amen.