Awaiting the Spirit

The older I grow the more I resemble both my mother and my father. When I look in the mirror I see many of my father’s features in my own face. He once said to me that the Williams family had strong characteristics. He was correct about that. Once, after I told stories at a church near where I grew up, an older man came up to me and said, “You’re Tid Williams’s grandson, aren’t you?” My grandfather died before I was born. I never met him. Still, this man recognized my grandfather in me.

My personality is more like my mother’s. I love people, and I love to talk. While my father was very reserved, almost a recluse, my mother was gregarious. She told me many times that the Cherrys (her family) “talked to hear their heads rattle.” Even many of my mannerisms are like hers.

Both my mother and my father are “in” me. When you look at me you see them because I embody so many of their characteristics. Looking at the human traits we inherit from our parents may help us understand what Jesus says to his followers. When Jesus says the Father is in him and he is in the Father, he is suggesting that when we look at Jesus we see God.

God comes to us as one of us in Jesus. If we want a snapshot of who the God of Jesus is, all we have to do is look at the person, life, and teachings of Jesus. Jesus embodies the God of love. Perhaps this is the reason that writers in the early church claimed that Jesus was both fully human and fully divine.