|
DATE |
CHURCH |
SUBJECT |
PREACHER |
BIBLE
REF. |
|
20.04.08 |
St Mary's Church |
The "I Am" Sayings |
Patricia Higton |
John 14:1-14 |
|
Introduction
Quite frequently these days we
need to produce documentation to prove we are who we say we are
– the other day I wanted to open a savings account and had to
show my passport and a notice of tax coding.
Well, we have documents to prove
Jesus was who he claimed to be. In fact John said he wrote his
Gospel so ‘that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ the Son
of God and believing you may have life in his name’ (John
20:31).
The 7 ‘I AM’ sayings
John shows this in various ways
including highlighting the 7 ‘I am sayings’ of Jesus.
We can’t go into them all this
morning as you will remember that last week we looked at the
Jesus being both the Good Shepherd and the Door or Gate for the
sheep. I’m sure you remember that in the Middle East the
shepherd himself would lie across the entrance to the Fold to
sleep, so that wolves and thieves would be deterred from
invading the flock. Before Easter we looked at Jesus being the
Resurrection and the Life. When we receive the elements in
Communion we think of Jesus in bread and the wine (although the
meaning of Jesus being the Bread of Life and the Vine is broader
than that) and at Christmas we thought of Jesus being the Light
of the world.
So today we consider Jesus being
the Way, the Truth and the Life. (John 14:6)
But let’s look a bit deeper. We
shall miss the whole point if we rush on to the rest of what
Jesus said and don’t think about the first two words:
The Meaning of I AM
The Jews knew that God had said
to Moses, when he asked him to reveal his name (Ex 3):
‘I am who I am.’ Say to the
people of Israel, I am has sent you to them to rescue them.
Can you imagine what Moses
thought to himself? ‘How on earth can I say that to my
countrymen. Why not a straightforward name like the gods of
Egypt? What does it mean?’
As you know, God is frequently
referred to in the Old Testament as Yahweh, which means He is or
He will be – so God says to us ‘I am’ and we say of him ‘He is’.
But how profound, when you think
about it:
–
I am the one who was and is
and is to come
–
I always have been, always
am and always will be
–
I am the source of life
–
I am the totality of
being…..
What
more wonderful name could there be?
In the paper recently there was
an article of the Genesis machine, a huge tunnel 17 miles long
in a circle –in which sub-atomic particles will be accelerated
to close to the speed of light, in the hope this will generate
enough energy to recreate the conditions that existed a
millionth of a second after the Big Bang. In this way
scientists hope to discover the secret of matter itself and
therefore, they believe, the secret of creation and all that now
exists.
But if they are able to discover
IT, it will only ever be an IT – never an I AM. Only God has
the secret of Being because he is a Being and a Personal Being
and therefore the source of all life, resulting in the pinnacle
of creation – human beings themselves.
So in the I AM saying for today,
Jesus is not simply pointing the way to God. That is fairly
easy for us to understand – namely that Jesus died on the cross
to make possible our forgiveness, so that if we repent, the way
to God is open to us. He is not just telling us about the truth
of God and how to be reconciled to God, wonderful though that
is. He is not just telling us about eternal life and how to
achieve it, even though that is so very important.
Rather has is saying I AM
And in fact he says ‘I am’ seven
times, which in Jewish thought is the sum of perfection.
This is one of the ways in which
Jesus claimed to be God.
People ask: are there many
different paths to God?
But how can there be when Jesus
himself is the Way.
Are there not many aspects of
truth?
Yes, but only revolving around
the central truth of the reality of Jesus.
Can we not find the answer to
life through science or through meditation or in many other
ways? Jesus says I am the Life.
So the only way of finding God,
the only way of discovering the truth about life, the only way
of having eternal life which starts now and lasts beyond the
grave, is by trusting in Jesus and committing our lives to him.
No other way is possible – that is why religion, even Christian
religious practices can never be a substitute for personal
commitment to Jesus himself.
And, if we have taken that step
of faith, then surely we want to tell others? But it is not a
matter of putting forward a theory but promoting a person – the
risen and indestructible Lord Jesus, who IS the Way the
Truth and the Life. |
