I JUST WANT TO BE SEEN

Thomas said to Him, “Lord, we do not know where You are going, and how can we know the way?” Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; and from now on you know Him and have seen Him.” Philip said to Him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is sufficient for us.” Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; so how can you say, ‘Show us the Father?’” (John 14:5–9 NJKV).

- DR. WALLACE PRATT

In the movie entitled Sergio, a United Nations diplomat travels to several nations trying to broker peace between warring groups. There is one scene that takes place in the nation of East Timor in Southeast Asia. Sergio is in a remote village trying to talk to the local people about how they have been affected by the rebels and the Indonesian military occupiers. As he stops to talk to a widow in a small hut where she is weaving, he gets into a lengthy discussion with her about how she had lost her farm, her husband, and her children to the civil war. The climax of this conversation comes when he says to her, “What do you want for your future?” The clock seems to stop; at first the widow seems to ignore him. But Sergio asks her again, “What do you want for your future?” This time, she lifts her head with tears flooding her eyes. She replies to him, “I just want to be seen.” The conversation ends as he turns to walk away, and the camera captures a tear running down Sergio’s face.1

In her despair, this widow’s words speak of the internal desire of every person to be recognized as a person whose life matters, who is considered as one who has basic rights and needs, and knows that others realize he or she exists. This widow’s words are actually indicative of the words of Jesus to the questions posed by His disciples, Thomas and Philip. They have been so concerned about where Jesus was going and the need for Him to reveal the Father to them, they miss, like so many others, the reality of who Jesus was and is today. How it must break the heart of God that His own creation cannot see Him. Long before that widow in East Timor said those haunting words, Jesus had been saying to those who followed Him, “I just want to be seen.”