That word ‘draw’ really means ‘pull’.  It is used in the Gospels for pulling a net full of fish on to the beach.  It implies the possibility of resistance: “No one can come to me unless pulled by the Father”, influencing, modifying, changing one’s basic assumptions and one’s attitude to life; but all the time pointing us to his Son.  And if we seek to put into one simple sentence what the Father is telling us to do, we find the answer in the Father’s injunction to the three Apostles at the Transfiguration: “This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!” (NRSV, Mark 9:7, our emphasis).

And when one responds to the Father’s inner pull by hearing and learning – perceiving and taking to heart what he is teaching us in that sound of gentle stillness – then we become conscious of his Son’s pull on us.  In Holy Week Jesus said to the crowd of Passover pilgrims in the Temple, “…I, when I am lifted up from the earth,” – that is, on the Cross – “will draw all people to myself” (NRSV, John 12:32, our emphasis).  And significantly that word ‘draw’ is again the same word meaning ‘pull’: I will pull all people to myself – not pull everybody but people of every sort.  For we have to recognise that those who do not listen to the Father will not listen to his Son either.  The one deafness leads to the other.