Sunday 22nd October
Read John 8:27-30
“They did not understand that he was telling them about his Father. 28 So Jesus said, ‘When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he and that I do nothing on my own but speak just what the Father has taught me. 29 The one who sent me is with me; he has not left me alone, for I always do what pleases him.’ 30 Even as he spoke, many believed in him.” (NIVUK)
The key point Jesus is trying to communicate to the Jews concerns who He is. Repeatedly He has declared that they will know that ‘I am’. Not ‘I am he’ as most translations amend, but simply ‘I am’. It is a claim to the divine that they can’t yet understand because only someone crazy would make it. For those who think God is far away in heaven, aloof to the happenings and missteps of those on earth, this final statement from Jesus is immensely comforting. It is when they have ‘lifted up the Son of Man’ that they will finally understand who He is. When He has lowered Himself as far as death on a cross that the true nature of God is fully revealed. Fully divine. God with us.
