“Some sticking points”
By Rev. Michael Stonhouse
Meditation– Wednesday, August 31, 2022
John 8:47-59 (Forward, p. 33) CEV p. 1113
Jesus said many things that could be expected to rile up His opponents and adversaries and turn them against Him, but today’s discourse has got to ‘take the cake’ in this regard. There are several things that He said that would have been ‘sticking points’ for them:
a) First off, He tells them that if they obey His words, they will never die. To this, they reply that their ancestor Abraham died and so too did all the prophets, so who do you think you are? Surely, they are thinking, if all of them died, nothing further could be expected with you.
b) Then He alleges their ancestor Abraham was ‘really glad to see me’. To His critics, that idea is preposterous: Jesus not even fifty years old. How could He have seen Abraham?
c) Then, to top it all off—this was the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back--Jesus says ‘before Abraham was, I was, and I am.’ Here He is using the divine name, ‘I am’, to refer to Himself, which, in the eyes of His hearers was, without any doubt, blasphemy pure and simple. Jesus was claiming to be God. No wonder they wanted to stone Him to death.
But, as is often the case with His critics—and even with people today, they were not aware of the bigger picture. They were unaware of a couple of highly significant details:
a) One, of course, was Jesus’ atoning death which would eliminate death, spiritual death specifically, for ever. That hadn’t even happened as yet, so they can scarcely be expected to understand that piece of the puzzle.
b) The other thing was Jesus’ pre-existence, His eternity. And again, how could they be expected to grasp that when Jesus came across to them as a ‘mere mortal’?
Certainly, then, Jesus made some outrageous claims, some things that were certainly ‘sticking points’ as far as His audience went. However, the same can be said of many peoples’ reactions to Jesus today. To them the claims made about Jesus seem equally preposterous, equally absurd and outrageous.
But then, have those objectors ever seriously, dispassionately and carefully examined the evidence and tested it out? Have they been willing to suspend their disbelief and skepticism long enough to look at the evidence and see where it leads? Sadly, unfortunately, many people, then and now, refuse to carry out that examination, or, when they see where it leads, refuse to deal with it. As Josh McDowell says it is ‘evidence that demands a verdict’. Sadly, many people don’t do that, refuse to come to a verdict, and choose instead to just ‘let it be’. And so they lose out on what Jesus has to offer. Let us never be like them. Amen.
Forward notes: “Whoever is from God hears the words of God. The reason you do not hear them is that you are not from God” (verse 47).
“My aunt, who was deaf from birth, was both creative and energetic. She became a talented seamstress who never used a pattern. She measured me with her eyes, then went to her cutting board, and, voila!—a beautiful, ruffled dress for a happy little girl. Despite wearing old-fashioned hearing aids, hearing was, for her, more than sound. By looking deeply at you, she understood what you meant.
“As Jesus knew, hearing happens on many levels. We can identify a bird by its song, or our hearts can sing along with the beauty of the morning. We can hear spoken words, or we can come to know people by their expressions, their actions, their gestures.
“Unlike my aunt, the group that Jesus addresses hears only the ‘noise’ of what he says. They are so focused on facts—like Abraham’s death—that they fail to see the joy of those who have been healed, fed, and awestruck by his walking on water. God’s Word is all around us. May we learn to hear the meaning and not just sound so that we may experience God’s presence.”
Moving Forward: “What obscures your hearing?