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Exodus 3:13-14 13 Moses said to God, “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what shall I tell them?” 14 God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’
John 8:48- 59 48 The Jews answered him, “Aren’t we right in saying that you are a Samaritan and demon-possessed?” 49 “I am not possessed by a demon,” said Jesus, “but I honor my Father and you dishonor me. 50 I am not seeking glory for myself; but there is one who seeks it, and he is the judge. 51 I tell you the truth, if anyone keeps my word, he will never see death.” 52 At this the Jews exclaimed, “Now we know that you are demon-possessed! Abraham died and so did the prophets, yet you say that if anyone keeps your word, he will never taste death. 53 Are you greater than our father Abraham? He died, and so did the prophets. Who do you think you are?” 54 Jesus replied, “If I glorify myself, my glory means nothing. My Father, whom you claim as your God, is the one who glorifies me. 55 Though you do not know him, I know him. If I said I did not, I would be a liar like you, but I do know him and keep his word. 56 Your father Abraham rejoiced at the thought of seeing my day; he saw it and was glad.” 57 “You are not yet fifty years old,” the Jews said to him, “and you have seen Abraham!” 58 “I tell you the truth,” Jesus answered, “before Abraham was born, I am!” 59 At this, they picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus hid himself, slipping away from the temple grounds.
Before Abraham Was, I Am
Who are you? It’s a simple question. If we are asked this we would probably respond with our name. I am Christine Callaway. Sometimes we respond with a relationship. When my children were in school and someone asked me who I was I would say, “I am their mother.” Often the question is really about our vocation. Since I’ve come here I have the privilege of replying, “I am the pastor of the Aston Presbyterian Church.” Identity is important to us; it makes us unique.
This is our third week of our sermon series on the “I am” statements of Jesus in the gospel of John. Most of these statements are metaphors that Jesus uses to tell us his identity. Today’s statement is not a metaphor though; it is a bold statement of the truth of who Jesus is. In effect He said, “I am God.” One commentator said, “no clearer implication of divinity is found in gospel tradition.” We will again look for three things. First, who is Jesus saying He is? Second, what did it mean in His culture and how does it speak to us today? Finally, what does it mean to our beliefs, our behavior and our lives?
In our passage from John we come into the middle of an argument between Jesus and those in the temple courtyard who don’t believe in Him. Jesus appears frustrated and at one point says, “Why do I speak to you at all?” Those listening don’t’ appear to understand what He is telling them. Insults are hurled back and forth. Jesus says their father is the devil. They respond that He is a Samaritan and has a demon. They say, “Abraham died, and so did the prophets; yet you say, ‘Whoever keeps my word will never taste death.’ 53 Are you greater than our father Abraham, who died? The prophets also died. Who do you think you are?” Jesus tells them, “Your father Abraham rejoiced at the thought of seeing my day; he saw it and was glad.” They reply, “You are not yet fifty years old, how could you have seen Abraham?” Now comes the crucial statement. “I tell you the truth,” Jesus answered, “before Abraham was born, I am!”
The violent response of the Jews to Jesus’ “I AM” statement indicates they clearly understood what He was declaring—that He was the eternal God incarnate, God in human form. Jesus was equating Himself with the “I AM” title God gave Himself in our Old Testament lesson today. He was declaring Himself equal to God. To them, this was blasphemy and for this they tried to stone Him.
Our scripture today gets at something that is basic to our Christian faith. Who do we say Jesus Christ is? Some will tell you He was a great teacher and that is true. Some will tell you He was wise and that is true. Some will tell you He was a great man and that is true but none of this goes far enough.
Jesus Christ is God, the preexistent Christ, the eternal God incarnate. In this passage Jesus is saying He existed before Abraham. He is saying I am God Almighty. He is my Father and I am His Son. Abraham was brought into being, he, along with all people was a created being. Genesis 2 tells us, “the LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.” Jesus was not created. Jesus exists eternally. Before time began, before the universe began Jesus was. There never was a time when Jesus was not. He was and is God, the second person of the Trinity, equal to the Father and the Spirit in all ways.
What did this mean in His culture and how does it speak to us today? Here is where culture comes in to play. We don’t see anything wrong with Jesus’ statement. We say, “I am…” often, there is no special meaning to these words. For the Jews of His time though His statement was blasphemous. Remember Jesus didn’t speak in English or even the original Greek the gospel of John was written in. He spoke Aramaic and this is how His audience heard Him. He spoke the holy name of God that was never to be pronounced. Jesus used the sacred name for God that was told to Moses as we heard in our Exodus scripture, the name that according to Judaism was never to be spoken. He used this name and applied it to Himself. This is why they picked up stones to throw at Him. This was blasphemy and the punishment for it was stoning. Through much of the arguments in this chapter they didn’t understand what Jesus was saying but when he said, “Before Abraham was, I am” it came across loud and clear. Jesus was saying He was God and they could not tolerate that.
Now let’s look at what this means to our beliefs, our behavior and our lives. If what Jesus says is true, and we certainly believe it is, than we accept Jesus as God, as a part of the Trinity. This is the very basis of Christianity. Jesus is fully God and fully human. The first sentence of the Apostles’ Creed says, “I believe in God the Father Almighty and in Jesus Christ His only Son our Lord.” Without this belief we wouldn’t have the Christian faith. The Nicene Creed is one of the most famous and influential creeds in the history of the church, because it settled the question of how Christians can worship one God and also claim that this God is three persons. It was also the first creed to obtain universal authority in the church, and it improved the language of the Apostles’ Creed by including more specific statements about the divinity of Christ and the Holy Spirit.
The Nicene Creed expands on the Apostles’ Creed and says, “We believe… in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father; God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God; begotten not made; of one Being with the Father.” I love how those words build and build and we get an increasingly exalted view of Christ. So when Jesus says, “before Abraham, I am” He is correct.
This was originally written to counter teaching in the 4th century that said Jesus was not fully divine. That was wrong. Jesus was not a created being. God has always existed in Trinity. The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit have always coexisted eternally. This means that the Trinity was present before creation and has always existed in perfect harmony and relationship with one another.
Christians often talk of accepting Jesus into their hearts. We have a very different relationship with God than the Jews of Jesus’ time had. They had the transcendent part, the holiness, the awe but not the intimacy that Jesus calls us into with Him. Jesus told them they were slaves to sin. They were and we would be also except that through the death and resurrection of Jesus we are adopted as beloved sons and daughters. Jesus gives us a new identity with Him; He brings us into relationship with the Father through the Holy Spirit. Our lives are transformed by this new identity; we live for Jesus rather than for ourselves.
What does our current world say about Jesus? The Muslim religion accepts Jesus as a prophet. Many atheists and agnostics will tell you Jesus was a great teacher. As Christians that is not enough, it doesn’t go far enough. We believe Jesus is God incarnate,
In his book “Mere Christianity” C. S. Lewis was speaking about Jesus when he said, “I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.” Thank you, C. S. Lewis.
As for me, I fall at Jesus’ feet in worship and I call Him Lord and God. What do I mean when I say worship? Former Archbishop of Canterbury William Temple defined it better than I can when he said, “worship is the submission of all our nature to God. It is the quickening of conscience by His holiness; the nourishment of mind with His truth; the purifying of imagination by His beauty; the opening of the heart to His love; the surrender of will to His purpose—and all of this gathered up in adoration, the most selfless emotion of which our nature is capable and therefore the chief remedy for that self-centeredness which is our original sin and the source of all actual sin.”
Wow! Now that’s totally involved worship. That is how I want to worship. Surrendering all of ourselves to God, turning our lives over to God, placing them in God’s hands. When we believe Jesus is God then it follows that will worship Him.
We come to church to worship God. When we gather on Sunday morning we must remember who the audience is. The congregation is not the audience, God is the audience. Our worship is offered to praise God. When we focus on God we get our focus off ourselves and our wants and desires and are able to concentrate on God.
Worship is the singing, it is the prayers, the sermon, the offering. Worship is the reason for all we do on Sunday morning. But worship also goes beyond Sunday morning. Worship is to be our attitude towards everything in life. Eugene Peterson, Presbyterian pastor and author of the translation “The Message” said, “Worship does not satisfy our hunger for God—it whets our appetite. Our need for God is not taken care of by engaging in worship—it deepens. It overflows the hour and permeates the week.”
If we live our lives from a position of worship we will live them as followers of Jesus Christ. If we engage in worship throughout our day it will change us and people will see the change. All of life is changed when we live from a position of worship. This is not just for Sunday morning. I had a friend and she and her husband started their day by singing hymns of praise before they even get out of bed in the morning. Let us worship God through all we do every day of our lives.
After the sermon we will sing “All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name”. Listen to the verses. They place us in the very throne room of Heaven. The angels bring forth the royal crown and crown Jesus Lord of All. The final verse says; “O that with yonder sacred throng we at His feet may fall! We’ll join the everlasting song and crown Him Lord of All.” Let us crown Jesus Christ as Lord of our lives. Let us offer our very selves to Jesus who is deserving of all honor, glory and praise.