All of God's pieces

There's probably a game or a puzzle in your house with missing pieces. You might try to use it without all the pieces, but it's not as much fun. Some games don't even work if you don't have all the pieces!

Jesus said that God is like one of those games. In this week's Gospel (John 14:1-12), we find out what He meant:

"I am the way, the truth and the life," Jesus told His disciples. "No one comes to God the Father except through me." "Show us God the Father," one apostle said. Jesus answered, "If you've seen me, you've seen my Father. I am in Him and He is in me."

In the Gospel story, Jesus told us that God is like a puzzle with three pieces: God the Father, Jesus and the Holy Spirit. (We call that the "Trinity.") Take away any of those pieces and you're forgetting to look at the whole picture.

If you're halfway through a game, you don't know how it will end. If you look at one piece of a puzzle, you don't know what the whole picture will look like when you're done putting it together.

That's where God is different than a game: You can look at Jesus, who is one "person" of God, and see all of God right there. Jesus IS God. So when people asked Jesus, "Let's see what God the Father looks like," Jesus could tell them, "You're looking at Him."

Games with missing pieces are no fun. But Jesus wanted us to remember that even when we're not thinking about the other parts of God, they're always there. God has no missing pieces!

PRAYER FOR THE WEEK: Jesus, help me remember God is all around me, in me and in everything! Amen.

(04-29-99)