With Stones In Their Hands

John 8:48-59

March 11, 2018 • Mount Pleasant UMC

It wasn’t until he died that I learned his real name was James. He had always been “Bud,” for much longer than I had known him. He had been “Bud” so long that no one in the family remembered why he had picked up that nickname; it was just who he was. I imagine some of his friends and family might have even missed his obituary because they were looking for “Bud” and not “James.” In almost twenty-five years of active pastoral ministry, I’ve learned a lot about names and the way we use them. It’s always interesting to try to go visit someone in the hospital if you don’t know their “real” name, their given name. Because of the laws, and HIPPA in particular, the hospitals usually won’t help you out, though I did have one desk attendant that tried. I knew the man as Dwayne, but when I asked for him by that name at the hospital front desk, I was told he wasn’t there. I said I knew that he was, so the desk worker asked if he, perhaps, had another name? I said I didn’t know, and if I had known, I would have asked for him by that name. The helpful attendant looked at the screen again and said, “Maybe it starts with E?” Maybe, I said, but I still don’t know what his name is. It took a trip back to the church to learn that his given name was Everett. Then and only then, when I knew his name, would they give me his room number.

Names are funny things. In that same church, I had another Bud whose name was Raymond, a Kenneth who went by Mike, an Elizabeth who went by Fran, a Diana who was called Leigh and an Eleanor whose middle name was not Susan but nevertheless went by Sue—even she didn’t know why. I learned long ago to keep a database of “real first names,” and I have some of you in there! (If you’re not in there, you might want to let me know your real name so I can find you in the hospital!) The names we choose to go by often say more about us than the names we were given, though in the ancient world, in the Hebrew world in particular, given names were not given just because they sounded good. Names meant something; the name you were given contained a meaning, an expectation of who you would become. Many of those ancient Hebrew names somehow reflected who they hoped you would become spiritually—so the name Jesus, for instance, or Joshua in Hebrew (Yeshua) means “God saves” or “God is salvation.” When your parents spoke a name over you, it was meant as a blessing, a prayer for who you would become. But there was no name more important than the name of God, often called just The Name, and it was a name that the rabbis and religious leaders would not even utter. To speak it out loud was to invite the death penalty. No good Jew would dare to utter that name—except for Jesus. After all, it was his name as well.

This morning, we’re continuing our journey through the Gospel of John in a series we’ve called “Simply Jesus.” As I’ve said the last couple of weeks, John, more than the other three Gospels, focuses on the character of Jesus. Matthew, Mark and Luke give us much in the way of the teaching of Jesus, and since they were written early on in the life of the church, that makes sense. Many who would have first read those Gospels had known Jesus or at least been in a crowd where he was preaching. What needed to be preserved was his teaching, his stories, his ethical instructions, and so that’s what Matthew, Mark and Luke wrote down in the 60’s and 70’s of the first century. But John comes along to write his Gospel much later, sometime in the 90’s, at a time when he is the last of the twelve disciples, and probably one of the last people on earth who had actually been with Jesus, who had seen him, who had spent time with him and knew what he was like. In addition, John is writing in Ephesus, a long ways from the Holy Land, and so his first readers had never had a chance to be with Jesus. John focuses more than the others on the identity of Jesus, and the fact that he is the savior of the world. Hopefully you remember John’s purpose in writing this Gospel: he wants us to believe and find life in Jesus’ name (20:31). And that issue of the name comes up over and over again in this Gospel because Jesus won’t quit uttering the name that should never be spoken, the name of God. It shows up in our English translations as two words: “I Am.”

The story really starts way back in the Old Testament book of Exodus, when a man named Moses, who was on the run for murder, tries to get out of what God is calling him to do. God wants him to go back to Egypt—where the murder happened—and set the Hebrew slaves free, and Moses pulls out every excuse in the book for why he can’t possibly do that. The second excuse he uses is, “I don’t know your name. They’re going to ask me who sent me and I won’t be able to answer.” I mean, Moses couldn’t just say “God sent me” because the Egyptians had a lot of different gods. They’d just ask, “Which one?” So Moses asks for God’s name. I remember being told this story the first time, and my first reaction was, “Isn’t God’s name…God?” And the answer is no. “God” is who he is, perhaps it might even be called a “title.” It’s sort of like you and I are “human” but we also have a name. Since our God is a personal God, he also has a name, and when Moses asks, God reveals that name to him. “I Am Who I Am. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I Am has sent me to you’” (Exodus 3:14). “I Am.” In Hebrew, it’s “Yahweh.” Actually, that’s a guess. Since it was not a name you were to pronounce, the exact pronunciation was lost through the centuries, and since Hebrew doesn’t have any vowels, the name in the text is only YHWH. When German theologians first tried to guess the pronunciation, it got communicated as “Jehovah,” but most scholars today believe “Yahweh” is closer to the actual name. “I Am.”

All of that, then, is background to the discussion Jesus is having with the Jewish leadership in John 8. We only read the tail end of this argument, this family squabble. It actually begins back in verse 12, and it all centers around the matter of authority. You see, Jesus has not been officially trained or authorized by the religious leaders of his day. He’s “preaching without a license,” so to speak, and at this point, in chapter 8, the religious leaders have had enough. They’re demanding what kind of authority Jesus possesses, since they know that they did not authorize him to do what he’s been doing. They accuse him of being a Samaritan (which is just a way of saying, “You’re not one of us; you’re from the other side of the tracks”) and demon-possessed. Jesus ignores the “Samaritan” comment, but he does refute the accusation of demon possession. In fact, he says, he is working for God the Father and that those who trust in him will never die—and that just sets them off on another tirade, because it sounds like he’s claiming to be better than the father of their faith, Abraham, who did in fact die. “Who do you think you are?” they ask him (8:53). Jesus’ response isn’t exactly direct to them, but he does give them more ammunition with which to attack him when he says this: “Your father Abraham rejoiced at the thought of seeing my day; he saw it and was glad” (8:56). What? How can he say that? He’s not even fifty years old, they say, so there’s no way he saw Abraham. After all, the number of years from Abraham to Jesus is about the same as the number of years from Jesus to us today (cf. Wright, John for Everyone, Part One, pg. 128), so there’s no way Jesus could have lived that long! Besides, he’s just a kid; he’s not yet fifty. Fifty was the age at which the temple workers could retire (cf. Barclay, The Gospel of John, Volume 2, pg. 36)—a practice I’m in favor of restoring—an age at which they were considered the wise of the community (again, a good idea). Jesus is a young upstart; he knows nothing. And that’s when Jesus really raises their eyebrows, so much so that they want to kill him. He says, “Before Abraham was born, I am!” (8:58).

So what’s the big deal? Why is this anything more than some crackpot claiming to have lived an impossible length of time? Well, the issue is not Jesus claiming to live any length of time nor is it that he claims to have known Abraham. The issue suddenly has become the words Jesus uses. In the Greek, the words here are ego eimi, which translates the Hebrew word Yahweh. I Am. Jesus doesn’t say, “Before Abraham was, I was too.” He says, “Before Abraham was, I am.” He’s using God’s name to describe himself, the name that is not to be spoken, not to be pronounced, not to be known. When Jesus speaks these words, he is claiming to be the Messiah, but more than that, Jesus is claiming to be God! No wonder the religious leaders pick up stones to throw at him; that’s exactly what they were supposed to do according to Leviticus 24:16, which says, “Anyone who blasphemes the name of the Lord is to be put to death. The entire assembly must stone them. Whether foreigner or native-born, when they blaspheme the Name they are to be put to death.” Jesus has spoken the name. They stand there with stones in their hands because Jesus must be put to death.

Oddly, however, this is not the first time or the last time in the Gospel of John that Jesus speaks this phrase, this name. Spread throughout the Gospel there are seven times Jesus uses this phrase to describe himself—seven “I Am” statements in which he uses a common image to give us more pieces of the puzzle of who he is. So as we try to get a better idea of why the religious leaders considered him such a threat, let’s look very quickly at each of these (and I do mean briefly because we could do a whole series just on these sayings). The first one is in John 6:35, where Jesus says, “I am the bread of life.” In John’s chronology, this is not too long after he has fed 5,000 men (plus women and children) using five small barley loaves and two small fish. After everyone eats all that they want (which was the first Methodist potluck), there are twelve baskets left over, one for each of the disciples. Perfect provision (cf. Card 86). Jesus compares this event to what he has come to give. He is the bread of life, and is there anything more basic than bread? Jesus is what we need to survive; he comes to bring life. Our spiritual hungers will be satisfied in him, which is an echo of what God promised the people from the very beginning. If they would root their life in him, they would find life.

The next saying is in chapter 8, verse 12, and it is, in fact, what seems to kick off the argument with the religious leaders we’ve been looking at this morning. The saying is this: “I am the light of the world.” John alludes to this in the prologue that we looked at a couple of weeks ago, in that famous verse we hear every Christmas Eve: “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (1:5). “Light” is a theme that runs all the way through the Gospel, because Jesus is the answer to the longing the Old Testament prophet Isaiah spoke about centuries before: “The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned” (Isaiah 9:2). Darkness is difficult to navigate. It’s hard to find your destination if you can’t see where you’re going, and sometimes you get hurt trying to move around in the darkness. I remember going to be a counselor at camp the first time, and on the list of things to bring was a flashlight. Why would I need that? The cabins have lights! I can find my way! Except what I forgot is that the bathrooms weren’t in the cabins. The nighttime activities weren’t in the cabins. And there are no street lights at camp! I spent a long week wishing I had brought a flashlight. Jesus comes to show the way, to push back the darkness and bring light to a dark world. He is the light, and if the people would root their lives in him, they would no longer stumble in the dark.

Next we move to chapter 10, where Jesus makes two related statements back to back. In verse 7, he says, “I am the gate for the sheep,” and then in verse 11, he says, “I am the good shepherd.” Sheepherding, as you may know, was a big industry in ancient Israel, but because so much of the land (especially around and south of Jerusalem) is desert, shepherds often had to travel far from home to find enough grass for the sheep to eat and enough water for them to drink. Often they would be gone for days at a time, and the sheep depended on the shepherd to protect and provide for them. So a good shepherd would watch out for predators, and would make sure any injuries the sheep received were taken care of. And he would sleep in the door of the sheepfold, the enclosure or cave where the sheep were kept, at night, literally becoming the gate through which anything had to pass to be able to get at the sheep. He is the gate and he is the good shepherd, and if the people would root their lives in him, they would be cared for and protected.

At the centerpiece of John’s Gospel is the raising of Lazarus, which happens in chapter 11. Lazarus, the brother of Mary and Martha, is a close friend of Jesus, and yet Jesus lets him die. He waits to go see him until he knows Lazarus has died and is buried. Then Jesus shows up to be confronted by the grieving sisters, especially Martha who basically says to Jesus, “You could have hurried, you know. If you had been here, Lazarus would not be dead.” When Jesus assures her that Lazarus will rise, Martha acknowledges that she believes Lazarus will be raised with all the faithful people at the end of time. And that’s when Jesus tells her, “I am the resurrection and the life” (11:25). There’s that word again: life. Only this time, he’s pointing toward life beyond this life. He is the resurrection; he is the one through whom we can find hope beyond the hurts, the heartaches, the grief and the pain of this life. Resurrection only comes through him. Now, this was before Easter; resurrection was an impossibility as far as they knew, so Jesus’ words probably didn’t make much sense at that moment. But Jesus here is claiming once again power that only was supposed to be available to God himself. He is once again claiming to be God. He is the resurrection and the life, and if the people would root their lives in him, they will find life that never ends.

As if that wasn’t radical enough, over in chapter 14, Jesus makes another strong claim: “I am the way and the truth and the life” (14:6). But the way to where? He goes on: “No one comes to the Father except through me.” This claim continues to upset people because it makes Jesus sound exclusive—and that’s exactly what it means, what he’s saying there. He is the path that we must take if we’re going to find our way back to God. And some folks will say, “Well, is he the only way? What about people who never hear about Jesus?” Again, this is a whole other sermon, but I want to say just a couple of short things on that topic as my weekly “rabbit trail” chase. First, in terms of the first question, Jesus is the only way that we know, so why wouldn’t we take that way? If God chooses to do anything else, that’s up to him, but we do know that Jesus is the way. He is the one way we know for sure; as Christians, we’re to proclaim that he is the way and he is our way. And that leads to the second question: what about those who haven’t heard? Folks, the church has had 2,000 years to do what Jesus told us to do, to make disciples of all nations, to tell everyone we know about Jesus. If there are people today who have not yet heard about Jesus (and there are, even in our own neighborhoods), then that’s on us. We, the Church, have failed to do what God told us to do. He is the way, the truth, and the life, and once people root their lives in him, they will find God the Father.

Then, the final statement Jesus makes is in chapter 15, on the same night as the “way, truth and life” statement. Both of these are said during that long, final night Jesus spends with his disciples before his crucifixion, and this one in particular is said while they are walking from the Upper Room down the length of the Kidron Valley toward Gethsemane. Most likely, it’s as they pass the Temple, which had a large grapevine on the exterior as a symbol of the nation of Israel, that Jesus says, “I am the true vine” (15:1). There are a couple of layers of meaning in that statement, which we don’t have time to go completely in to. But since a grapevine was a symbol of Israel, Jesus here is claiming to be the replacement for the nation, the true Israelite, the one who perfectly fulfills the covenant with God. And he will do that very soon by giving his life on the cross, sacrificing himself for the salvation of the word. But if you read the rest of the chapter, as you will in a couple of weeks, he is also reminding us that we, as branches, are only able to stay connected to God if we stay connected to him. For me, this statement is also a reminder of resurrection. At a former parsonage, we had a grapevine in the backyard that had been planted by a previous pastor, so I decided to tend it and see if we could grow any grapes. The short answer: we couldn’t. Or I couldn’t. Anyway, all we ever got from that grapevine was a lot of leaves. I would trim them back, like the experts on the internet told me to do, and I’d just get more leaves. One summer, I had enough, so I cut the whole thing out. I cut it down to the base, tore all the vines and branches out, and put it out for the trash man. Then I went away to Israel for two weeks and when I came home, do you know what I found? I found a vine that had grown back with a vengeance. It was larger now than it had been when I tore it out, because despite my actions, it was well rooted. It’s probably still there, as far as I know, probably still not producing any grapes but lots of leaves. Jesus is the vine, and if the people would root their lives in him, they would find they (unlike my grapevine) could bear fruit.

Notice the progression in these statements: Jesus feeds us (bread of life), he shows us the path to take (light of the world), he protects and cares for us (shepherd and gate), he gives us the hope of eternal life (resurrection and life), he connects us to God (way, truth and life) and he enables us to bear fruit or make a difference in the world for the sake of his kingdom (vine). In Wesleyan terms, we can even talk about them in terms of the way God’s grace works in us. He gives us prevenient grace, the grace that goes before, that keeps us from wandering too far away that we can’t find our way back to God (bread and light). He gives us justifying grace, the grace that allows us to have a relationship with him (shepherd, gate, resurrection and life, way, truth and life). And he gives us sanctifying grace, the grace that helps us live a life pleasing to God, a life that makes a difference in the world (vine). So when Jesus says to these religious leaders, “Before Abraham was, I am,” he’s claiming to be God. He’s claiming to be the one in whom all our hope is found. He’s claiming that his authority comes from heaven itself, that he is the one who set all this in motion. These two little words have eternity-shaking consequences. No wonder they stand with stones in their hands, ready to kill him.

That claim still causes sometimes violent reactions today as people attempt to reject or even deny that Jesus is who he said he is. Maybe they don’t stand up with stones in their hands, but there are places in our world today where Christians find themselves in mortal danger because they believe that what Jesus said about himself is true. We’ve seen them on the news, facing death because of their belief in Jesus. That ought to cause us to ask: what difference does it make to us, in this place and time, that Jesus is “I Am”? First of all, it means that all the promises God has made are fulfilled in and through him. Everything God promised to do, he accomplished through Jesus, and that means that we can trust God to do what he said he will do. Ultimately, we know that when he promises that one day he will make it all right, that he will set the world to rights, he will do that. It may be during our lifetime, and it may not be for another thousand years, but we can trust that he will do it. When he says there is a place he’s preparing for us that has no more death, crying, tears or pain, we can trust that it’s true. When he says he will be with us each and every day, we can trust that it’s true. God keeps his promises; Jesus is the proof, because in Jesus, God came to be one of us and to do what the prophet Zechariah said he would do: wipe away the sin of the land in a single day (Zechariah 3:9). Jesus did that on the cross, to fulfill all the promises of God.

That leads me another truth: that Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever (cf. Hebrews 13:8). What Jesus said then is still true today. What Jesus taught then is still the way we are to live today. Life just works better when you live it according to the designer’s instructions. You know, I’ve had instances (and you have too) where you just ignore the instructions that came with that appliance or that gadget. Who needs instructions? The men here at least know what I’m talking about! Recently, we got one of these Instant Pots, and when it came out of the box, there were these pieces that had to be attached. More than that, there are all these buttons on the front. There was, of course, an instruction booklet, but I thought, who needs that? I’ve been cooking for a long time; I can figure this out. And do you know what? I had to go back and get that booklet out of the drawer I threw it in because this was a whole new way of doing things I wasn’t familiar with. It worked better and the pieces fit better when I followed the way the manufacturer intended. The same thing is true in our spiritual lives. Things work better when we live the way God intends us to live, the way the creator designed life to be lived. And because he is the same yesterday, today and forever, that means his instructions are not outdated. We may need to find new ways to live them out, but his commands are still the best way to live, especially his greatest command, one repeated in both testaments: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength—and by the way, love your neighbor as yourself” (cf. Deuteronomy 6:5; Matthew 22:37).

Then, finally, one more thing we have already touched on. The fact that Jesus is “I Am” means he is the only one who can save us—if we will let him. We have to make up our mind about who he is, to each and every one of us. A week or so ago, I wrote in my blog that God has no grandchildren. Every one of us has to come to faith ourselves; we cannot rely on the faith of someone else. We have to make up our minds about who Jesus will be in our lives. And so let me give the last word this morning to someone much smarter than me, one of the twentieth century’s greatest theologians, C. S. Lewis. Lewis was probably so good at theology because he wasn’t a clergy person; he was a professor and he thought long and hard about who Jesus was and is. In his most famous work, Mere Christianity, he put the choice to his readers this way: “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.”

So who will you allow Jesus to be…for you?