Holy Trinity John 8:48-59 Jesus Is

Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31 Acts 2:14a, 22-36 John 8:48-59

In the area of Pennsylvania where I grew up there were a lot of Amish families. Many of them still spoke German, but their dialect was not the same as the people of Germany and just because you could speak German did not always mean you could understand what the Amish were saying. Even when they spoke English, they sometimes did not put their words in the proper order for them to make sense. You had to listen very carefully to what they were saying and figure out what they really meant. For instance, one day while at a friend’s house I heard someone say: “Throw your mother down the stairs, the laundry.”

If you missed that last part of that sentence, you could find yourself in big trouble. So you had to actively listen to what they were saying.  Actively listening means to listen attentively, to understand and remember what you hear.  In addition, active listeners have relational goals like giving a positive impression, advancing the relationship, and demonstrating love and care to the one who is speaking.  Active listening is done politely, is focused and shows that you care about the one who is speaking.

But you can hear without listening. You can close your eyes and your mouth, but your ears can always hear. But you and I have learned to ignore a lot of the sounds that enter our heads. People who live close to railroads get so accustomed to hearing the sound of trains that occasionally someone dies on the tracks because they do not hear the train or its frantic whistle. Hearing without paying attention is called ‘Passive Listening.’ Passive listening happens all the time. In fact it’s probably happening right now as I speak. 

There is another kind of hearing which is called critical listening.  When people listen critically, their goal, in addition to understanding and remembering, is to evaluate and learn about what they are hearing.  Critical listening emphasizes critical thinking skills. 

Critical listening when combined with active listening enables you to ask good questions to clarify what you do not understand.  The purpose of critical listening is to help you learn about a subject more clearly.

Both Active and critical listening are something you choose to do. It requires using your ears for hearing and using your brain for comprehending. Listening in such a manner is hard work and it can tire you out. But those who listen in such a manner learn a great deal. When you listen to the word of God in such a manner, you become filled with His wisdom. Jesus is referring to active and critical listening in many places throughout the New Testament when He says, “He who has ears let him hear.”

In our gospel lesson, however, we see that there is another way of listening. I call it ‘Hateful Listening.’ Contrary to active and critical listening which is done for the purpose of giving aid or enriching your own knowledge, hateful listening is done with the intention of inflicting pain on the speaker or destroying the ideas of the teacher.  

Listen to the hatred in the first verse of our lesson, “The Jews answered him, "Are we not right in saying that you are a Samaritan and have a demon?"” (John 8:48) Calling Jesus ‘a Samaritan’ was considered the worst insult a Jew could inflict upon another Jew. Notice the politics involved; they have put their hatred in the form of a question so they can say that they are not claiming Jesus to be a Samaritan, they are only asking the question.

Their purpose however is to stir Jesus up, to get Him angry. It’s a tactic that is used all the time.  If you can get your opponent angry and off balance, he is more apt to make a mistake. Once you get an opponent angry and he starts yelling, you have pretty much won the battle.  But Jesus has not come as an opponent.  Moreover, while the Jews absolutely despise the Samaritans, Jesus does not.

Jesus has come to offer salvation according to the Father’s will. Jesus answered, "I do not have a demon, but I honor my Father, and you dishonor me. Yet I do not seek my own glory; there is One who seeks it, and he is the judge. Truly, truly, I say to you, if anyone keeps my word, he will never see death." 

What Jesus does is place the gospel beside the law. First He convicts them of the sin of denying God and then He opens the door of salvation from sin.

But they were not actively listening to His words. Instead they were only listening to what He said so as to twist the words of Jesus to put the worst possible meaning on them.

The Jews knew from scripture that everyone born of natural means was born sinful. Psalm 51 told them and us, “Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me. Surely you desire truth in the inner parts; you teach me wisdom in the inmost place. (Psalm 51:5-6) They knew that the wages of sin is death. (Romans 6:23) Since the time of Adam, men have died because of their sinfulness and yet God has always spoken of eternal salvation. But they close their eyes to what God has said; words they already know to be true and substitute physical death for eternal death and thus pervert the word of Jesus.

This is even more inexcusable since Jesus had just told them of eternal life in heaven earlier according to John.  The perversion of Christ’s word was certainly deliberate on the part of the Jews, an evidence of their wicked intention not to understand whatever He may say if it does not serve their purpose.

Still Jesus offers them salvation. His word is universal and opens the door to all the sinners in the world. A literal translation of the last sentence would be, “Amen, amen, I say to you, if anyone shall guard my word, death he shall not see forever.” To guard Jesus’ word is the same as to remain in Him and His word is the word of the Father. Even though they have been earnestly trying, the Pharisees cannot show that Christ’s words are contrary to the Father’s word.

Usually when we think of Christ’s word, we think along two lines: the first being that of faith in the word; believing what God has said to be true and secondly that of obedience to those very words. But there is a third aspect brought out by Jesus saying, “If anyone guards My word.”

 Jesus means let no one tamper with the word, let no one twist its meaning and let everyone who desires eternal life to guard my word against perversion. These particular Jews however, refuse to hear God’s word and therefore do not even come close to guarding it. In fact when Jesus speaks God’s word, they hate Him all the more, especially when they cannot catch Him in a lie.

Finally Jesus tells them plainly, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.” Now to us, that statement seems to only imply that Jesus was around before Abraham was born. But the Jews understood it to mean more than that. 

They recall the time when Moses stood before God at the burning bush.  Moses asked God, "If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, 'The God of your fathers has sent me to you,' and they ask me, 'What is his name?' what shall I say to them?" And he said, "Say this to the people of Israel, 'I am has sent me to you.'  This is my name forever, and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations.” (Exodus 3:13-15) 

So when Jesus said, “I am” He was calling Himself God. He had been saying this fact all along but they did not hear or understand what He was telling them. But now, He had said it plainly, in words that they understood. That was all they needed to hear in order to justify their wickedness. They picked up rocks to stone Him, to kill Him for blasphemy. But Jesus hid Himslef and went out of the temple.

Today, many still refuse to believe that Jesus is who He says He is. The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit were there at the beginning, before the world was created. Genesis tells us, that the Spirit of God hovered over the waters.

 Listen to what John tells us, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory.” (John 1:1-15) 

Now those words seem pretty obvious to you and me. Jesus is God. We confess this about Jesus is in the Apostles, the Nicene and the Athanasian Creeds. We see Jesus not as just a man who was a great teacher, but we see Jesus as both God and man.

We see Him as our Savior, the One who died on the cross for our sins. He that was, is now and ever shall be, one God now and forever. So we are to watch His words as found in the Bible; hearing them, obeying them and guarding them from those who try to twist His words into something hateful.

And we are to live out our lives as Christians, actively listening to those who need our help and responding to their needs. We listen critically to His Word so as to understand His love for all people and we guard His word against those who would use it for their own personal gain and sinful purposes.

As Martin Luther says, “We should fear and love God so that we do not despise preaching and His word but hold it sacred and gladly hear and learn it.”  What do we get in return? Why eternal life with Jesus Christ forever and ever, Amen.