The Truth of Life and Death

Sermon for Passion Sunday

"Before Abraham was, I am"

Grammatically, 

that's a very strange statement.

Looking at it

in the original Greek,

we see the idea that

Jesus is,

not was,

is before Abraham enters

into History.

Our Lord is as present

to Abraham

as He is present 

to these unbelieving Pharisees,

as He is to us now

as He is to those 

who come after 

we have long returned

to the dust.

In short,

every moment of Time

is directly accessible to Him

in His Eternal present.

Aside from using

the Name of God,

I AM

spoken to Moses in the bush

and making the Pharisees

ears bleed in horror,

Our Lord is making

a clear statement

that He is truly God

by virtue of His Eternity.

And still people will say,

"Jesus never claimed to be God."

But He is claiming to be God,

because He is God

and, if we take the time

just to simply hear His words,

He claims it,

loud and clear.

The testimony

of the Pharisees' reaction

shows that they hear

His claim to be God

and understand it

as a claim to be God.

[PAUSE]

This isn't the same confusion

of language

that poor Nicodemus has

when he hears Jesus say

that we must be born again

when Jesus means

we must be born from above.

The language is clear.

It is grammatically odd

because it is telling

an Eternal truth

in reference to Abraham

one who was time-bound but is no longer.

Abraham is not dead.

Abraham rejoices to see Jesus' day

because Jesus is God

and He is not the God of the dead,

but of the living.

Abraham lives

because Jesus is God.

And the same is true

for all who receive this fact

and live it out because it is true.

[PAUSE]

And we still hear people say today,

"Abraham is dead.

Moses is dead.

Mary is dead.

Peter is dead.

Paul is dead.

They can't hear you.

They are dead."

We ask them,

"who, then, is their God?

Who is the God of Abraham,

Moses, Mary, Peter, and Paul.

Is He the same God?

And if He is not the God of the dead

but of the living,

how are they dead?"

They are not

and they worship Father, Son and Holy Ghost

in Eternity

freed from the constraints 

of Time and Space,

yet keeping the Great Commandment

to love their neighbours.

[PAUSE]

It is the Pharisees who are dead

in the letter of their law.

Those who live by the text

shall die by the text.

They fail to see

the reason for the text

but rather bask in its certainty

which they and they alone control.

They see only the text

divorced from its history,

divorced from its context,

divorced from its meaning.

And the divorce themselves

from those 

who challenge their viewpoint.

But the reverse is also true.

There are those who see the text

only in today's context,

only in today's view of history,

only in today's meaning,

and thus divorce themselves

from the True Logos seeing Him

only the god of today.

[PAUSE]

"Before Abraham was, I am."

We know Our Lord,

to be the same 

yesterday,

today,

forever.

We know that we are

united in Him

with all who hold onto Him

past, present and to come.

We know that 

Our Lord is changeless,

His Law is Eternal,

His word enduring 

throughout all generations.

But He lives.

[PAUSE]

We hear the same words

of our liturgy each week,

telling us of the truth

of God's unwavering grace to us.

We cannot change

His sacraments

because they are

for the whole Church,

past, present and future.

But by our earnest longing

to be with Him and in Him,

thoss changeless words

carry life

- the same life of

Abraham,

Moses,

Mary,

Peter

and Paul.

And they carry life

because we do not express them

with death, 

as weapons of mass destruction

in hatred, or loathing

of those whom God has made.

The Pharisees hear truth

and seek to kill it.

We hear truth

and we proclaim it.

And what do we proclaim?

The next fourteen days.