Now?
Jesus answered the disciples: Do you believe now? It is like Jesus was saying: now you believe, because I’m talking plainly and you have understood that I know and see everything, and so you believe that I came from God. This is not faith. You do not believe in me, in who I really am, but in the idea of me you have in your mind. This is not faith, this is devotional calculation, religious opportunism. This is not faith, it is only a devotional associative process that comes from the fact that the extraordinary things you have seen me doing are consistent with the idea of Messiah you have in mind. The proof that you do not believe in me, but in the idea of me you hold in your mind, will be proven by the fact that, as soon as troubles will start and your life and your person will be in danger, this faith, which is not faith, will disappear, and so will you, you will go far away, away from me. Because of the signs and the miracles you have seen, you believe I come from God, but you do not believe that God the Father is always with me. Indeed: Behold, the hour is coming and has arrived when each of you will be scattered to his own home and you will leave me alone. But I am not alone, because the Father is with me.
True faith is not just believing that Jesus comes from God, because of the extraordinary things He does, impossible to any other man, this is rather religiosity, fruit of associative devotion that generates submission, religious confessions.
True faith is being aware not only that Jesus came from God, but also that God the Father is always, always, always with Him, whatever happens. Believing in Jesus is being aware that the Father is with Jesus when he multiplies bread, rises the dead and even when He is handcuffed and jailed.
When it sees Jesus being pulled to be jailed, religious faith does not understand anything anymore, it starts doubting Jesus’ divine nature and the fact that God really is with Him, utterly supporting His mandate. When it sees Jesus being spat at, His nose broken for the beating, His blood running down His eyes and the pain caused by the crown of thorns that writhes the muscles of His face in an unwatchable spasm, when it sees Jesus torn apart by scourging, religious faith certainly doubts the presence of God the Father with Jesus, with that Jesus. This is the reason why Jesus says to this kind of devotional and associative faith: Do you believe now? In time of trouble, challenge, persecution, cross, the religious mind, even before doubting Jesus’ divine nature, doubts God’s presence on His side. The one who really believes in Jesus, absolutely and without any doubt also believes that God the Father has always chosen, preferred, followed, protected, loved that Jesus that the human eyes have seen being treated as an animal, as the worst of the criminals, as the enemy of mankind, as God’s enemy
There is no difference for us, true faith is knowing, blindly trust, beyond what our eyes are seeing and our mind is understanding, that God is always, always, always with us, whatever happens. This is faith’s strength, this is faith: the Father is with me. It is the unique faith-certainty that Moses received at the beginning of his mission: I will be with you (Exodus 3:12). The name that God takes at the beginning of Exodus and of the liberation of His people is YHWH-sacred tetragrammaton: This is my name (Exodus 3:15). Name that only in the Old Testament appears more that six thousands times. Name that Jesus will embody as Emmanuel, God with us.