In today’s Gospel Jesus speaks the surprising and even scandalous words, “I AM.” This phrase is a phrase that God uses in the Old Testament to describe himself: “God replied to Moses: I am who I am. Then he added: This is what you will tell the Israelites: I AM has sent me to you” (Exodus 3:14). Jesus in the Gospel of John talks like God (“I AM”) and acts like God by judging and giving life (John 5:19-30). While we have grown up hearing that Jesus is God or the Son of God such talk would have been scandalous to many contemporary Jews in Jesus’ time. Twice a day Jews would recite the Jewish prayer called the Shema:
“Hear (shema), O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord alone! Therefore, you shall love the Lord, your God, with your whole heart, and with your whole being, and with your whole strength.” (Deuteronomy 6:4-5)
So twice a day they would declare in prayer there is only one God, the Lord alone. How then could Jesus also be God? It would have been very difficult for them to hear these words of Jesus without being scandalized. Some did accept Jesus’ surprising message and came to experience life or eternal life. John wrote his Gospel to call us to faith in Jesus and to strengthen those who already believed:
“Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples that are not written in this book. But these are written that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through this belief you may have life in his name.” (John 20:30-31).
The message of today’s Gospel is that God acts at times in some very surprising and even scandalous ways. We should never try to box God in and think that we know where God can work and how God can work. God works within the church but also outside the church. We should also never think we get to decide who is saved and who is not saved. This decision is in God’s hands who thankfully is more loving, merciful, and compassionate than you or me. “God is love, and whoever remains in love remains in God and God in him” (1 John 4:16).