Jesus, the Father’s Ambassador
Jn 8:21-30
21[Jesus]
said to [the Pharisees], “I am going away and you will look for me, but
you will die in your sin. Where I am going you cannot come.” 22So the Jews said, “He is not going to kill himself, is he, because he said, ‘Where I am going you cannot come’?” 23He
said to them, “You belong to what is below, I belong to what is above.
You belong to this world, but I do not belong to this world. 24That is why I told you that you will die in your sins. For if you do not believe that I AM, you will die in your sins.” 25So they said to him, “Who are you?” Jesus said to them, “What I told you from the beginning. 26I have much to say about you in condemnation. But the one who sent me is true, and what I heard from him I tell the world.” 27They did not realize that he was speaking to them of the Father. 28So
Jesus said [to them], “When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will
realize that I AM, and that I do nothing on my own, but I say only what
the Father taught me. 29The one who sent me is with me. He has not left me alone, because I always do what is pleasing to him.” 30Because he spoke this way, many came to believe in him.
You will realize that I AM. Jesus
alludes to the name God gave to Moses during the episode of the burning
bush in the desert (cf Ex 3:14). He is now assuming the same name for
himself, therefore implying his divinity. This is nothing short of
blasphemy for the Jews who believe in only one God and who are sure that
Jesus is not the God that Jesus claims to be.
As
if this claim is not shocking enough, Jesus pushes his listeners to the
limits of what they can take by implying that this God in him has
to die but will rise again. This shatters their notion of the
“almighty,” “omnipotent,” and “eternal” (immortal) God. They do not
realize that even as God in Jesus dies, he remains “almighty and
ever-living” God, but his power lies in his love. As Fr. Catalino
Arevalo, SJ, puts it, “Jesus hanging on the cross is the only portrait
of God to whom the only omnipotence known is the overwhelming power of suffering love.”
“The nature of God is love, not power.
And love is best revealed in humble self-emptying”
(Nil Guillemette, SJ).
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