(John 16:26 "In that day you will ask in my name, and I do not say to you that I will ask the Father on your behalf, 27 for the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God. 28 I came from the Father and have come into the world, and now I am leaving the world and going to the Father."}

I read Sunday's gospel through expressly nuptial lenses. The Bridegroom has come in search of his bride. Soon the side of the New Adam will be opened by a Roman spear and she will emerge, washed in the nuptial bath of his blood, and the water of holy baptism. He is going on ahead to prepare the nuptial chamber in his Father's house. The Bride, now married to the Groom at the wedding of Calvary, is taken into the Groom's family. She now knows his Father to her Father.

"Our Father."

The One who dwells in the heavenlies where Jesus has gone ahead to prepare the Bridal home.

Because we, the church, the Bride, love the Father's Son; and because the two have become one flesh in baptism; the Father loves his Son's Bride. As such she can approach him, directly, to supply her every need.

The epistle from Revelation confirms this, and seals it. (Which is one of the reasons that I think of Revelation as the 5th gospel).