Our move now through the Lenten Season, and to the cross has a purpose: to confront people to make a decision about what they think about Jesus. The TRUE Jesus. This week, we focus on the foolishness of the cross to those who want to accept Him on their own terms. In 1 Cor 1:
18 The word of the cross is foolish to those who are perishing, though for us who are being saved it is the power of God…22 For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, 23 but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles.
Throughout John’s Gospel, Jesus has this practice of driving people away from him, when they follow him for the wrong reason. That’s what we had in today’s lesson. The Great I AM. When Jesus previously came into Jerusalem for the Feast of Passover, his preaching and miracles caused many to believe in him, but John says He had no faith in them.
So, after that, in John 6, Jesus is preaching in Capernaum to a group of about 10,000 people he had fed with the miracle of the loaves and fish. They believe in him, want to follow Him, and make him King in Jerusalem. Jesus offends them so greatly, telling them they need to eat His flesh and drink His blood, that only his 12 disciples remained with him.
Jesus directly addresses a problem that many people have today. The great crowd wanted Jesus for personal blessings in this world. And Jesus, knowing what they wanted, chose rather to drive them away rather than let them follow him wrongly.
It’s a great picture for today. Whether it is people who want Jesus to be their Cosmic Sugar Daddy, like the prosperity Gospel types, or “Progressive Christians” who think Jesus’s message is all about the wisdom of restructuring society with Social Justice and equality.
The prosperity types, like the Jews who followed Jesus, see the cross as foolish, since the cross kept him from achieving an earthly throne with all its power and riches. Progressives hate the cross, because he willingly humbled himself and submitted to the dishonest, disreputable leadership of His time. He had the power and the authority to overcome them. He even had a legion of angels. Yet he refused to tear down the hierarchy.
Both groups, polar opposites as they may be, have something in common. Both refuse to accept the claims of Jesus as revealed in the Scriptures. Both fashion their own conception of Jesus that is less threatening and demanding, so they can say they follow Him, while pleasing themselves and patting themselves on the back. And both are in a way worse than rejecting him outright.
In this morning’s Gospel, Jesus takes this group of people who want to follow Him on their own terms and shows them who He really is.
Before our lesson begins, v. 30/31 we’re told Jesus was preaching to a group of people who had become followers of Jesus. They said they were believers. But we began the reading with the same group telling Jesus: “Are we not right in saying that you are a Samaritan…?” This was their way of saying Jesus was a traitor, He wasn’t a true Jew.
More than that, they also say in verse 48 that he has “a demon”. Jesus was insane – out of his mind. In verse 53 they ask him, “Are you greater than our father Abraham, who died? And the prophets died! Who do you make yourself out to be?”
Three accusations are made: a liar, a lunatic, or an egomaniac. What I am about to say might sound strange, but in a way (and please here me – I’m saying in a way) these men are closer to the kingdom in v. 48 than they were earlier.
In verse 30, their minds were filled with confusion about Jesus’ true identity and mission. At least now they have a proper view of Jesus! It’s true they are responding in hostility, but they are hostile because they understand what he’s saying. They understand his claims, and their wicked hearts are offended. What they need is the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit.
The claims of Jesus really are offensive if they are not true. The saying holds true that we must consider Jesus to be either the Lord of the Universe, a liar, or a lunatic, but not a good man and a good teacher. John wrote his Gospel to move us from a place of unbelief or false belief, or even indifference, to full-fledged faith in Jesus.
Starting in verse 51, Jesus tells his enemies that if anyone keeps his word, he will NEVER SEE DEATH! Maybe we’ve heard this many times, but this truly is an incredible statement Jesus is making! I am pretty sure none of us has ever tried that when debating with a spouse.
Steph, agree with me and you will never see death. She’d just tell me to shut up or throw something. But we know this is Jesus, and that clouds us to how incredible it is what he is saying. His opponents saw it as an incredible claim, and in response, they ask him if He thinks He is greater than Abraham. “Hey Jesus, Abraham died!” and he was the Father of the Jews, the greatest man (along with Moses) who ever lived.
Doubling down, (no death +) Jesus says in v. 56 Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day; HE saw it and was Glad. Time out.
How could Abraham rejoice at seeing Jesus’ day? It was impossible, right? Another outlandish statement. In Genesis 12 and again in Genesis 15, God told Abraham that through him, all nations would be blessed. And Abraham believed God’s promise, and it was accounted to him as righteousness. He lived believing, seeing, what he could not yet have. (18)
So, the Jews counter by saying you are not yet 50 years old, and you have seen Abraham! In response, Jesus comes up with one of the most amazing statements in the Bible. He proclaims, Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM! And with this they were ready to kill Jesus.
This was an incredible claim on many levels! One layer of what Jesus is saying is that ‘before Abraham existed, before he was born, I existed.’ This, the leaders saw, was an impossibility.
But as amazing as that claim was, it was not the fulness of the claim. The claim was much bigger, given the words Jesus used. He didn’t say I was, or I existed, even though both claims were true since he created all.
But….he used the words I AM! And this is where the claim to be God comes in. This phrase “I AM” is an intentional call back to the Old Testament and the Name of God. In Exodus 3, Moses asked God What shall I tell the people your name is. God responds to Moses, I AM who I AM. Tell the people I AM has sent you. I AM, in Hebrew, is Yahweh.
He is saying, I am greater than Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, because I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, which is why the Jews picked up stones to murder him on the spot. Because of Jesus word choice here, the phrase can’t be interpreted in any other way than as a clear claim to be the God who created each and every one of those arguing with Him.
There is no neutrality with Jesus--we either refuse Him or trust Him.
Jesus draws a line in the sand, a line that those who are listening to Him cannot miss. Jesus forces us to decide as to where we stand regarding Him. He was not calling His hearers to join a NEW religion; He was saying he was the God they were worshiping all along.
Christianity is either sheer illusion or else it is the truth. If it is the truth, the question is not whether the God of Christianity suits us, whether we like what he has to say, but whether we suit Him, being remade in his image.
Phil Yancey said “Truth that does not set free is not truth.” When we trust Him, when we abide in His teaching, His truth sets us free
