62. Did God ever speak to Jesus as he did to Moses, Abraham, Jacob and others?

At the baptism the Father said to Jesus: "Thou art my beloved Son. In thee I am well pleased" (Luke 3:22; Mark 1:11). The utterances at the Transfiguration (Mark 9:7; Luke 9:35) seem to have been addressed not to Christ himself, but the disciples.

In Matthew's account of the bap­tism the same form is used (Matt. 3:17). But whatever kind of com­munication Jesus had with the Father, it was altogether different from that which any other human being ever had had, or could have.

No one could say, as he said, "I and my Father are one" (John 10:30), or, still more startlingly, "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father" (John 14:9). We know that Jesus had long periods of communion with the Fa­ther.

What mystic and beautiful messages passed between them in those prayer vigils we can only wonder. We know that he was, in fact, in constant communion with the Father, for he said: "The Father hath not left me alone" (John 8:29).

Only upon the cross was this perfect com­munion interrupted. It was from the anguish revealed in that cry from the cross that he had pleaded in the garden to be delivered: "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?"