“Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life.”
“To whom can we go? You have the
words of eternal life.”
It was Peter who said it. A great many
people who might have liked to have been followers of Jesus have
given up – they found what Jesus was saying just simply too much to
swallow. Literally! And then, when Jesus asks Peter and the others
if they are going to disappear, too, Peter says “Lord, to whom can
we go? You have the words of eternal life!”
Peter is a pretty terrific person all
round. He does have his moments, and he gets it wrong a lot of the
time, but he goes on because, whatever else happens, he knows that
Jesus is the Holy One of God.
I don't know whether Jesus really knows
that he is, or if he's just beginning to think so, or what. But in
John's Gospel we have those seven great sayings beginning “I am”,
that we've just sung about. And I want us to think about these a bit
this morning, because I think some of these “I Am” sayings are,
to us, the words of eternal life.
You see, even though Jesus might not
have been totally aware of it when he was saying it, what he was
doing, on one level, was declaring himself to be divine. I expect
you know the story of Moses and the burning bush, where a voice
speaks to Moses out of the bush, which was burning up but didn't burn
away. And it told him to get Pharoah to let the Israelite slaves go.
And Moses said, “Well, who shall I say sent me?” and the voice
said “I Am has sent you”. And Jesus, apparently used exactly the
same wording. Now I don't know how fully he was aware of this, but
certainly on one level this is what he was saying.
---oo0oo---
I am the Bread of Life
Let's start with the one this chapter
of John's Gospel has been expounding for the last month. I expect
you have heard several sermons on it over the past few weeks, so I
won't add much, except to remind you that his first hearers reacted
very differently to the way we do when we hear those words. At first
they said, “Oh rubbish, we know this man, he's Joseph the
Carpenter's son, we know his Mum, too – how can he say he is the
bread that comes down from heaven? Don't be silly!”
And then Jesus expounds a bit on it: “Very truly, I tell you,
unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you
have no life in you. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have
eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day.” And he
goes on like that, and this is when most people decide he's either
being totally gross, or else he's talking nonsense, and go away.
Peter and the other disciples may not have understood what Jesus was
talking about – after all, it doesn't go into words very well, does
it? All the same, they knew that the needed to go on following Jesus:
“Lord, to whom else should we go? For
you have the words of eternal life.”
Now then, who can remember another
“I am” saying of Jesus? We just sang them in the hymn there now.
And round the Church you will find some laminated sheets with the
sayings on them. Will someone go and find one of them, and bring it
to me, please? One of you younger ones?
---oo0oo---
I am the Light of the World
“I
am the Light of the World.” And in fact Jesus added that and said:
“I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk
in darkness but will have the light of life.”
“Whoever
follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of
life.”
Here
in London it doesn't really ever get totally dark, does it? There
are so many streetlights and so on that it is even quite difficult to
see the stars, always assuming it doesn't rain. But when we're in
the country, it can be quite different. I remember one Christmas
when we were going to midnight service at my sister's church in
Norfolk, and we had to park the car in a field next to the church.
So there were no streetlights or anything, and we had to turn the
torches on on our phones so that we could see what we were treading
in!
That's
the thing, isn't it. Light, however feeble, is always stronger than
darkness. Think of the rare occasions when we have power cuts – if
you go and find a tea-light or similar candle, it doesn't produce
much light, but you can still see enough not to bump into the
furniture. And the same here – if you follow Jesus, there will
always be light enough to see your way ahead in life, even if it's
only one tiny step.
“Lord,
to whom else should we go? For you have the words of eternal life.”
---oo0oo---
I am the Gate for the Sheep
“I
am the Gate for the sheep”. This one's a bit weird, isn't it?
Whatever can he mean?
I don't think it's quite within
living memory these days, but time was, on the Sussex Downs and
elsewhere, the shepherd lived with his sheep for weeks on end. He
had a little hut that was like a tiny caravan where he could sleep
and store food and so on. During the day, the sheep roamed fairly
freely on the Downs, but at night, the shepherd would build an
enclosure from hurdles, and “fold” as it was called, the sheep in
there. They would move the fold each night, so that the sheep
weren't subjected to mounds of manure. These folds were closed in
with a final hurdle, but in the middle east, the shepherd himself
would lie down in the gap so that wolves and stray dogs and thieves
and so on couldn't get in. And the wolves and stray dogs and thieves
and so on knew that, and would sometimes jump over the walls of the
fold. Jesus riffs on this: “Very truly, I tell you, I am the gate
for the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and bandits; but
the sheep did not listen to them. I am the gate. Whoever enters by
me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture. The
thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may
have life, and have it abundantly.”
“Lord,
to whom else should we go? For you have the words of eternal life.”
---oo0oo---
I am the good shepherd
This
is the more familiar of the two “sheep” sayings, isn't it?
Actually, it happens in the next paragraph in John 10.
“I am the good shepherd. I know my
own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the
Father. And I lay down my life for the sheep.”
“I
know my own, and my own know me.” I think I may have told you
before that my brother and his wife are shepherds, and when they go
into the field where the sheep are, the sheep know who they are and
either carry on with their own lives, or else, if they are hungry,
start demanding food NOW! But if Robert or I, or anybody else they
don't know, goes into that field, they run away, bleating
ferociously.
Jesus
also points out that a hired shepherd might run away if a wolf comes,
because they aren't his sheep, so naturally he'd rather save his own
skin than that of the sheep, but Jesus, the Good Shepherd, will lay
down his life for the sheep, if necessary.
“Lord,
to whom else should we go? For you have the words of eternal life.”
---oo0oo---
I am the Resurrection and the Life
“I am the Resurrection and the
Life”. This, of course, comes in that lovely story where Jesus'
friend Lazarus has died, and his sisters Martha and Mary are grieving
for him. Jesus, weeping himself, says that Lazarus will rise again.
And Martha says: “‘I know that he will rise again in the
resurrection on the last day.’ Jesus said to her, ‘I am the
resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they
die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never
die. Do you believe this?’ She said to him, ‘Yes, Lord, I
believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into
the world.’”
“Those
who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who
lives and believes in me will never die.”
Do you
believe this?
“Lord,
to whom else should we go? For you have the words of eternal life.”
---oo0oo---
I am the way, and the truth, and the life
“I am the way, and the truth, and
the life”. Here, Jesus is talking to his disciples only, not to
the crowds. He has reminded them that he is going to prepare a place
for them in his Father's house. But Thomas says, “Well, how are we
going to know the way?” and that is when Jesus says, “I am the
way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except
through me. If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now
on you do know him and have seen him.”
So it
is through Jesus, and Jesus alone, that we can know God as Father,
that we can know ourselves beloved children of God.
“Lord,
to whom else should we go? For you have the words of eternal life.”
---oo0oo---
I am the true vine.
“I
am the true vine”. Jesus is speaking to his disciples again, here.
And this time, it's a two-way thing. First of all, he says he is
the vine, and his Father is the vine-grower. “He removes every
branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he
prunes to make it bear more fruit.”
And then Jesus goes on to explain:
“You have already been cleansed by the word that I have spoken to
you. Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear
fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless
you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches.”
So
this “I am” is a two way one, pointing up to the Father and down
to us. We can do nothing unless we “abide” in Jesus. I don't
know about you, but that always makes me feel that we have to strive
and struggle to stay in Jesus, but if you think of branches on a
fruit tree, they don't do any such thing! They just stay where they
are put, perhaps swaying a bit if it's windy, but otherwise just
relaxing, knowing that the trunk of the tree is holding them tight so
that they will bear fruit in due season. As, I expect, will we.
“Lord,
to whom else should we go? For you have the words of eternal life.”
---oo0oo---
And
that's it. The seven great sayings of Jesus.
“Lord,
to whom else should we go? For you have the words of eternal life.”
Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment