The Face in the Video Call

When Maria's father emigrated from Guatemala to work construction in Houston, she was only three. For twelve years, she knew him only through a scratchy phone voice and the occasional wire transfer that kept the lights on. She built an image of him from fragments — her mother's stories, a faded photo taped to the refrigerator, the packages that arrived every Christmas smelling faintly of sawdust.

Then, when she was fifteen, her father gained legal status. He sent a plane ticket. Standing in the arrivals terminal at George Bush Intercontinental, Maria scanned every face. When a broad-shouldered man with calloused hands knelt in front of her and said her name, something collapsed inside her chest. Every phone call, every money order, every secondhand story suddenly had a face. She wasn't learning new information about her father. She was finally seeing what had been true all along.

Philip's request in John 14 carries that same aching hunger: "Lord, show us the Father, and that will be enough." Jesus's reply is tender but astonishing — "Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father." He wasn't introducing a stranger. He was revealing what had always been true. Every healing, every shared meal, every word of forgiveness — that was the Father's own heart made visible.

And then Jesus promises something more: the Holy Spirit, the Advocate, who will dwell not across an ocean but within us. The God who once seemed distant doesn't just show His face. He moves in.