Jesus said, "I am..."

I can be – am – a Smart-Alek at times. When Meg or one of my kids asks me where I am, I will often say, “Here.” “Here” is the only place we can be. We are never “there.” So, yes, that is a Smart-Alek thing to say, but there is an underlying fact of life in it that frames how I’d like us to approach Mark’s Passion narrative.

We need to stop; stop and recognize where we are. We always live at a point in time. It is always, “now,” in the present, in the moment that everything happens for us. It is as though we are always in the middle of the hourglass, the current moment being the grain of sand that is passing through.

There are grains that have fallen below or behind us – and we have some appreciation for just how many there are. We can hopefully look back on the moments and events of our past.  We analyze and evaluate them, but they are not just history, locked beyond our reach. We see how they influenced our arrival to this point. In a very real sense, everything that we ever did, everything that ever happened to us, every decision we’ve made have brought us to this precise moment.

We look ahead and there are grains yet to fall – though none of us know how many. Some are closer and more or less in view, and we have some hope of shaping our future. But it quickly gets clouded because there are infinite variables that make the long view tenuous at best.

I’d like us to join Jesus in a particular moment of this Passion narrative, a pivotal moment, a grain of sand with immense importance. It comes at the heart of his trial.

All four gospels describe Jesus’ trial.  All four gospels reference Jesus going before Caiaphas. Mark’s gospel puts the finest point on it.

The High Priest Caiaphas asks Jesus, “Are you the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed One?” Jesus answers,

“I am; and
‘you will see the Son of Man
seated at the right hand of the Power’,
and ‘coming with the clouds of heaven.’”

If we pause there, in that moment, and look at all the grains of sand that have passed through Jesus’ hourglass to that point, we quickly flash back across all he has shared in all 4 gospels, including his prayers and teaching the previous night at the Last Supper, the breaking of the bread and sharing of the cup. We recall his years of earthly ministry, the wisdom in his sayings and the parables he shared, the wonder of his healings and miracles, the encounters he had with individuals of many backgrounds and circumstances. We recall everything all the way back to the annunciation of his birth. And John reminds us that Jesus’ life carries back further, back to the very beginning of all things – as far back as there is and further than we can even imagine.

All of history, all of time itself had come to that moment.

One of those grains is Exodus 3:14, when Moses encounters the burning bush. God has given him his charge, to lead Israel out of the bondage of slavery in Egypt. “God said to Moses, ‘I am who I am.’ He said further, ‘Thus you shall say to the Israelites, I am has sent me to you.’”

The Hebrew word for “I am” is Yahweh. It means, literally, “I am being who I am being.” Yahweh is name of God in Judaism. They understood that to name something – anything – was to assert a measure of authority, some dominion over it. They therefore grew to regard Yahweh as the unspeakable name of God, holy and sacred.

Mark doesn’t tell us that Jesus spoke in Hebrew in that moment, but Caiaphas’ reaction – tearing his clothes and accusing Jesus of blasphemy – indicates Jesus very likely said, “Yahweh.” And that is the charge. He claimed to be God. Guilty as charged? Oh, yes; He said it. We still say it. We proclaim it. It’s not blasphemy because it’s true.

We look ahead to the grains of sand yet to fall. He will suffer in every way; physically by the lash and crown of thorns, the weight of the cross as he carried it before experiencing its agonizing and tortuous means of death; mentally through the sneering taunts and declarations of his accusers, the soldiers and the crowds; spiritually in his sense of utter abandonment – “My God, my God why hast though forsaken me?” – in the very moment of demonstrating his supreme faithfulness. All of that will come to a close when he dies, but for the hope and promise of eternity yet to come in his resurrection Easter morning.

As we have bound ourselves to him, we have bound ourselves to this moment. We hear Caiaphas speak the question the whole world has been asking ever since, “Are you the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed One?” Jesus said, “I am” and we respond, “Yes, Lord, we believe.”

When we join ourselves to Jesus, everything that we are and have been, all of our moments, we place every grain of sand that has passed in and through our lives with Him. Every mistake, every error, every sin, every lie, every lapse in judgement, every thoughtless remark and every misstep is His. Every wrong committed against us, every accident, be it natural or of human origin is His. All of it is covered by His grace. All of it is reshaped and redeemed because of who He is and  has brought us together in this moment with Jesus.

And we place all the grains of sand ahead of us, all in our future with Him. Every hope, every dream for ourselves, our children, our community, our nation and our world; all of our plans and strategies for the future, the grains we think we can see pretty well up close and everything that lies well beyond our perception and even beyond our mortal lives – all to come is also covered by his grace.

All of our past is bound to Him. All of our future is bound to Him, because of who He is.

AMEN