The eighth chapter of John’s Gospel begins and ends with the Jewish elite wanting to throw stones. They came after the adulteress first, and Jesus was able to skillfully diffuse that situation. But then, after spending the rest of the chapter unsuccessfully arguing against his claim to be the son of God, they became so frustrated they prepared to heave rocks at him instead.
They couldn’t tolerate a sinner or a savior. Their perverted religious system had become all about attaining and preserving positions of spiritual privilege. They couldn’t afford to offer grace to the woman without exposing their own sin, and they couldn’t acknowledge Jesus to be their Messiah without humbling themselves. Ultimately, that was the issue. Jesus was a threat to their self-righteousness and sense of religious entitlement.
In verses 56 through 59, the Lord brought the chapter-long debate regarding his divinity and their descendancy from Abraham to a close with a dramatic statement. It was an absolute mic drop. He said, “…before Abraham was, I AM.” And at that point, they started grabbing stones and would have tried to silence him with death had he not hid himself and escaped.
They understood what he meant. I AM was the name God used to describe himself to Moses at the burning bush. By adopting that sacred name and claiming to exist before Abraham existed, he was declaring his divinity with emphatic clarity. And it completely undermined the foundations of their religious regime.
For us, it’s just the opposite. Our faith has power precisely because Jesus is God in flesh. The cross has no meaning apart from the fact that the penalty for our sins was paid there by the sinless Messiah.
And because he’s the eternal one without beginning or end, it also means that he is in my was – redeeming my past – gathering up the debris of my broken history and creating from its fragments a work of art. He is in my will be – shaping my future – making a way forward from the barren desert of my own making into the lush landscape of his fulfilled promises. And he is in my am – moving in my present – infusing this very moment with the sweetness of his undeserved grace.
There’s so much power and promise in what Jesus said about himself in this passage. But it may be that you haven’t yet been able to rest in its truth. If not, please hear my heart. The time has come. Let the mic drop.