Unless you are living in a cave, you probably realize that today is the tenth anniversary of the September 11 attacks on the United States. You may even remember wherever you were at the time of those attacks. I was in Johnson City, TN. I was in my first year of seminary down there. I remember watching it on the morning news unfold throughout the day. As you recall, there were 19 terrorists. They hijacked four passenger jets. Two of those jets found their way to the World Trade Center, struck them, and within two hours both the towers had come down. A third plane made it to the Pentagon and crashed into that. On the fourth plane the passengers tried to take control and it ended up crashing in a field in Shanksville, PA. All told, I guess over 3,000 people died. I was reflecting on this anniversary. I started thinking about why did the terrorists target those particular buildings. I had a suspicion but I went online and read about it. We will never know for sure but by attacking the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, they were attacking a symbol of America’s prosperity and economy. By going after the Pentagon, it was an attack on our military power. They believe that the fourth plane, had it not crashed in Shanksville, would have ended up either crashing into the White House or the Capitol Building. Those would be symbols of our democracy. Those attacks were an attack at the identity of the United States. As we continue to look at the book of John today, we are reminded that when our national identity or even the things we get our personal identity from, Jesus stands in the middle of the rubble even when things come crashing down. Jesus stands in the middle of the rubble and says loudly that “I Am”. “I am the first, the last. I am the one who was and is and is to come.”
If you have your Bibles, why don’t you open up to John 8:48. We have been looking at the book of John. Today we are closing off a rather lengthy passage and lengthy and heated dialogue between Jesus and the Jewish leaders. It started back in verse 12. Last week, Jesus had implied to the Jewish leaders that they were having trouble hearing. They were having trouble understanding his words. Jesus implied that the reason they could not hear his teaching was that they didn’t serve the same father as he did. They didn’t serve the father of the universe. They didn’t serve the father of truth but they served the father of lies, also known as Satan. As we find out today, the Jews didn’t take that criticism very well. They went on the attack. They started some name calling and by the end of this particular passage they were ready to stone Jesus to death. We are going to be reading John 8:48-59. (Scripture read here.)
We have a lot of passage here to deal with. Too much to deal with in one particular setting. We get the sense that the Jews were quite upset with Jesus. So upset at what he had said to them that they started some name calling back to him. The opening verse says “Aren’t we right in saying that you are a Samaritan and demon-possessed?” You may recall a couple months back when we looked at the story of the Samaritan woman at the well. You may recall that the Samaritans weren’t looked at with favor by the Jews. They were considered a mixed breed, half Jewish and half pagan because they intermarried. They were seen as an unclean people. A people that worshipped foreign gods. A people that had a cultic worship. When they are using this word, it is basically an ethnic slur at Jesus. Then they go on to say you are also demon-possessed. That basically implied you are crazy. You are a lunatic. At a minimum, you are a liar. They are saying to Jesus you have no value. You are worthless, unclean, lunatic, and a liar. That is basically what they are saying to Jesus. We get the idea of how darkened their mind had become. How far away removed they were from his real identity. As Jesus does, he begins to unfold who he is, his real identity. He doesn’t say I am not a Samaritan; you are wrong because they know he is not a Samaritan. But he does say I am not demon-possessed. He goes on to say a few other things. He says “I honor my Father and you dishonor me.” Which implies that they don’t honor the father. He says “I am not seeking glory for myself, but there is one who seeks it and he is the judge.” Then he goes on and says a phrase that really kind of provokes them in a new way. He said “If you keep my word, you will never see death.” Basically, what he was saying there was he was just reaffirming what he had been saying all along. If you hold to my teachings, if you hold to the core gospel message I am trying to teach you, you will not see death. This they saw as an opportunity to try and corner Jesus a little bit. Their response is “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.”
At this point, it is a good idea to stop and explain who Abraham was. I suspect some of you know about Abraham from the Old Testament and some of you may have never heard of Abraham. Abraham was the hero, the patriarch of the Jewish people. He was the one that was called out to be the chosen people. To take the people into the Promised Land. We see that back in Genesis 12. We see the calling of Abraham. Reading from Genesis 12:1 (scripture read here). He was the one chosen to be the founder, to be the patriarch of the Jewish people. He was also called to be a man of faith. He just packed up his family and decided to go. We also know he was a man of faith because of the story about him and his wife Sara. Sara was barren, childless. They were childless. At some point, God comes along and says I am going to give you a child. They laughed at him and then they believed. He gave him a child known as Isaac. Because of his belief that the nations would be blessed through Isaac that that was credited to him as righteousness. He was seen as a man of faith. We don’t have time to go back to that story, but we can see in the book of Hebrews in the chapter that we sometimes refer to as the Hall of Faith, the faith chapter; we see because of his response, he was considered a man of faith. In Hebrews 11:11 it says “By faith, Abraham, even though he was past age and Sara herself was barren, was enabled to become a father because he considered him faithful who had made the promise.” Because of Abraham’s faith and because of his belief that the nations would be blessed through his children, he was considered faithful. Not only was he faithful about the belief in having a child, but he was faithful in that he was willing to take that child, his boy Isaac, up Mount Moriah. God had told Abraham “Take your son Isaac and go up to Mount Moriah and sacrifice him on an altar.” In obedience and in faith, Abraham didn’t get it, but he believed God and said I am going to do whatever God tells me. He went up Mount Moriah and gets ready to slay his one and only son, gets ready to kill him with a knife on an altar, and at that point God says stop, wait. You don’t have to kill him. I will provide the sacrificial lamb. What God was doing was testing the faith of Abraham. He was testing to see where his allegiance was. Was he tied to the child or the promise or was he tied to God. In other words, was his love for Isaac greater than his love of God? We see that, by faith, he responded in the right way. That is also outlined in Hebrews. It says “By faith, Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who had received the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son even though God had said to him it is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned. Once again, he knew that God had told him that it was through his offspring that all the nation would be blessed. Yet he believed God and he went up there and agreed to slay his very own son. God did not want him to slay his son. God just wanted to test his faithfulness.
Coming back to today’s passage, we have the Jews really trying to set Jesus up in some way. They are trying to corner Jesus into saying that he is somehow greater than Abraham. Going back to that passage, it says “Are you greater than our father Abraham? He died and so did the prophets. Who do you think you are?” Jesus, not wanting to get caught up in an argument, he decides to just go on and let them know exactly who he is. He goes on to say “If I glorify myself, my glory means nothing. My Father, whom you claim as your God, is the one who glorifies me. 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.” Now another phrase that really kind of provokes them a little bit. He goes on to say “Your father Abraham rejoiced at the thought of seeing my day and he saw it and he was glad.” This stopped them. They were like what are you saying here Jesus? What Jesus was saying was that Abraham was so in tune to God and the promises, he had such belief that what God said was true, the promises that his children would be heirs, all nations would be blessed through him, that in some sense, even when he was near death, he could look forward and see that promise being unfolded in Jesus Christ. We don’t know how that worked but that is the sense. He so believed in the promise that in his mind’s eye or whatever he knew that that promise was going to come to fulfillment. That very day, what Jesus is saying, it is coming to fulfillment. Once again, they misinterpreted his words. They are just focusing on the idea that you are saying you were back there in the time of Abraham which would have been 2,000 years earlier. Were you back there hanging out with Abraham? Once again, they are demonstrating that they are missing the mark.
About this time, Jesus decided he was going to drop the “I Am” bomb. He says it is time to let you know who I am. It is time to let you know that “I tell you the truth, before Abraham was born, I am.” We read these two words, I am, and we don’t think much about it because we use them all the time. In a sense, these two words are basically seen by the Jews as the personal name of God. I talked about this a few months ago. This comes out of the book of Exodus. When Moses is back there and faces God in the burning bush and God says Moses you are going to be the one that is going to deliver the people. You are the one that is going to set the people free. You are going to deliver them from the hands of the Egyptians. He is thinking I am just a shepherd. I can’t do that. What if I go to the people and they ask me who sent me? This is the reply from Exodus 3:13 “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?” 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.’” The underlying Hebrew there is the word Yahweh. The personal name of God to the Jewish people was Yahweh. They wouldn’t even speak that name. That is what he is talking about here. So Jesus is not saying I am the good shepherd. He is not saying I am the light. He is just saying I am. They know what that means. At a minimum what it implies is a preexistence. It not only implies a preexistence but a preexistence with God the Father. Not only a preexistence with God the Father, somehow he is God, which ties back to John 1:1. John 1:1 said “In the beginning as the word.” In other words preexistence. “The word was with God.” The word coexisted with God. “And the word was God.” In those two words are implied preexistence, coexistence with God and the same nature of God. In a sense, Jesus is saying Abraham was a great guy. He was a man of faith. He deserved to be part of that Hall of Faith that is listed in Hebrews, but I guess you can say maybe I am implying at least that I am greater than Abraham. It is hard for us to imagine how they were processing this stuff and what they were thinking. This is major, major stuff. What Jesus is saying is Abraham was a great example of faith but I am now to be the object of your faith. Really what he is saying is just as Abraham was supposed to sacrifice Isaac on the altar, in some sense they are now supposed to sacrifice Abraham on the altar. They are about to change their allegiance. They are really struggling with this because, once again, their whole national identity is tied up with Abraham. I tried to think of an example but it would be like all of a sudden in America the president gets on the TV and says we are all going to become Russians today. Everything is going to change and we are going to become a Russian culture. That is the extreme of what we are looking at here. The people are thinking this would affect my whole world view. If I was to believe that Jesus was indeed who he claimed to be, my world is going to be crumbling down. My national identity is going to be crumbling down. My security is going to be crumbling down. Then what would remain. Jesus is standing there saying I Am would remain. I am the one that your forefather Moses had predicted and had joy about that coming day. I Am would be there. The first and the last. The Alpha and the Omega. The one who was and is and is to come. I would be there. At that point, some probably responded in a positive, but as we see in the rest of the story, some decided to stone him. Eventually, we find that they wanted to crucify him.
That is really all the passage I wanted to look at today. As I was thinking about it, I was trying to think of an application. I believe that every scripture that we read should have some personal application for the church. This one was really hard to be honest. I really wrestled with it. What I finally came up with, and I don’t think it is too contrived, is it comes down to a matter of priorities. We have to ask ourselves is there anything that stands between ourselves and our devotion to God. Today it could be any number of things. Today, it is September 11, the tenth anniversary, but other ones are thinking about the Steelers. It is the opening day of the Steeler season. I am as much of a football fan as the next person, but to be honest, there are some people that get a little bit too wrapped up in the Steelers. In fact, their whole world revolves around the Steelers. It is one thing to be a non-Christian and do that but to be a Christian and have your whole life centered on the Steelers; that is a problem. I may hit a nerve here, but it really bothers me that when we are planning the church calendar for the Sundays, we have to consult not God but the Steelers schedule. That is the truth. Including today when we were planning a 9/11 service at Assumption, the first thing we looked at was if the Steelers are playing today and, if so, what time. That is a sad reflection on Christianity. The question that we each have to ask ourselves, especially if you are a Steelers fan, do we love the Steelers more than we love God? It could be sports that get in the way of our devotion to God.
It could also be our careers. Most people here have some sort of a job. A job is a good thing. A job is a way we contribute to our families and our community. It is a way we earn money. To be honest, there are some people that work a lot and not because they need the money but because they get their identity from that job. They get their affirmation from that job that makes them feel important. So much so that they begin to miss out on that relationship or that identity that they get from God. As a side note, there are some people that aren’t here on any given Sunday because they work on Sunday. I know that some people just don’t have the option. But I still wonder how many people when they apply for the job and they say you have to work Sunday, they say I would rather not because Sunday is the day for the Lord. I would hope that some people would do that but I suspect that some people don’t even bring it up. Some people don’t even challenge the employer to say I need off on Sunday. The question is do you love your career more than you love God?
Another distraction can be families. I love my family. I love doing things with my family. I love spending time with my family. To be honest, families can hinder your relationship between you and God. There are some families that put so much focus on the family that there is no room for God. In fact, some families control the time that a spouse or somebody can spend with God. Or how much money they can give to God. They get caught up in this. I can think of a couple that I have known for 20 years that haven’t grown one iota in their faith because one spouse said I am staying back. I am not ready to grow and so the other spouse stays back instead of moving forward in their faith. That is an unhealthy thing because the question is do you love your relationships more than you love God.
Another thing that can get in the way would be our country. This is hard to talk about on September 11, but there are some people that allow country to get in the way of God. There are some people that would defend Old Glory the flag to the death but yet would not defend the glory of God in their workplace, homes, or schools. That is not a good thing. The question is do you love your country more than you love God.
Even the church can be a hindrance to our relationship with God. We saw in today’s story that they got so focused on tradition that they couldn’t see the I Am that was standing right in front of them. They couldn’t see it. Even today, we can miss God because we get so focused on traditions. Whether we do communion this way or that way. Whether we do the hymns this way or that way. Or we do baptism this way or that way. We could even get so focused on a pastor and we can actually miss God. Just like they were focused on Abraham, you can get so focused on a pastor where you can miss your relationship with God.
As I get towards closing here, I suspect I might have touched a nerve or two. If I did, I am glad. Jesus touched a nerve with the Jews when he started implying that he was greater than Abraham. All these things I mentioned, they are not bad things. They are all good things. God wants us to enjoy sports and family and careers. Once again, we have to be willing to place those things on the altar. Just as Abraham had to place Isaac on the altar and just as Jesus was expecting in many ways the Jews to place Abraham on the altar, we need to be able to place those things that come in the way of our relationship with God on the altar. We have to be willing to sacrifice. God is probably not going to ask you to give them up. Once again, as with Isaac and Abraham, he is just testing you to see where your priorities are to see how tightly you hold on to those things and if somehow you have missed the mark or you have gotten so involved in those things you have hindered your relationship with God. The bottom line is those things are temporal. They are bounded by time. They are totally bounded by time. Given enough time, most every one of those things will fail you. If your identity is caught up in those things, you lose your sense of identity. Given enough time, the Steelers may not be in the Super Bowl. What happens if your identity is all caught up in that team? You begin to lose something when they are no longer the #1 team in football. Let’s say your career all of a sudden becomes a flash in the pan and you were once the big shot at the office. You were the one that everybody came to. Now they say I don’t need you anymore. You are out of here. The career is gone. You have your money caught up in 401Ks and investments. What happens if overnight the stock market drops and cuts in half and you lose half your investment? There are other people that are so caught up in relationships and what happens when the relationship goes away. What is left? As we talk about the country and if something happened to the country and the politicians let us down, which they will, and we have our identity tied up in America, what is left? Even thinking of the church, we think about the church and how important it is for us, but if we get our sole identity from the church or even the pastor, what happens when the church disappoints or even the pastor? I have said it before, if I am here long enough, I will probably offend every one of you in some way or another. It is just the odds are in favor of that. We can’t put our identity in those things. When those things come crumbling down, when they start to be shaken, God is standing there. Jesus is still standing there and saying I Am. I was here before all those things. I will be here during those things. I will be here after those things. I am the one who was and is and is to come. As Debbie is going to sing here, I am the everlasting God. Let us pray.
