The Fifth Sunday in Lent – Pr. Faugstad sermon
Text: St. John 8:46-59

In Christ Jesus, through whom alone is salvation and eternal life, dear fellow redeemed:

“Who Is Jesus?” It is an important question, and anyone you ask will have an answer for it. But the answers will not all agree. Some think of Jesus as an excellent teacher who shows us how to live a life of love. Some think of Him as a buddy or a sort of life coach, who just wants them to be happy. Some don’t think much of Him at all, because they don’t like what Jesus said, or they doubt that He even existed. And then a good many believe that Jesus is the true God and the Savior of the world.

C. S. Lewis, the author of The Chronicles of Narnia, weighed in on the same question. His contention was that Jesus could be only one of three things: a lunatic, a liar, or the Lord. He wrote: “I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: ‘I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God.’ That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic—on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg—or else he would be the Devil of Hell.”

Lewis argues that with Jesus, there is no middle ground. “Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God” (Mere Christianity, “The Shocking Alternative” chapter). Others have said there is a fourth option: that Jesus is only a legend. But the testimony of the Bible along with testimony from ancient non-Christian sources make this a difficult argument to make. Even going by the Bible alone, what human could or would make up the things Jesus said and did?

I

The people who consider Jesus to be no more than a moral teacher have not actually read what the Bible says. They have some vague notion of Jesus’ words about “turning the other cheek” and “not judging.” But they investigate no further. What about Jesus’ claim that after He is killed, He will rise again (Mt. 16:21)? Or what about His statement in today’s text that “before Abraham was, I AM.” No matter what others might say about Him, He certainly claimed to be more than a Man.

The Jews who saw the miracles He did and listened to His words were divided in their opinion about Him. Some argued that His miracles proved He was the Christ (Jn. 7:31). Others said Jesus could not be the Christ because He was from Galilee, and the Christ was to come from Bethlehem (7:41-42). Jesus declared in no uncertain terms, “I came from God and I am here. I came not of my own accord, but he sent me” (8:42).

Many who heard Jesus rejected this. He was not God, they said. So that must make Him a lunatic or liar: “Are we not right in saying that You are a Samaritan and have a demon?” they asked Jesus with not a hint of innocence. Can you imagine that? Accusing the eternal Lord, the One who came “to destroy the works of the devil” (1Jn. 3:8) of being demon-possessed?

Such accusations were not leveled only against Jesus, but also against His followers after Him. It still happens today. I watched a TV show last week that portrayed Christian parents as being stuck-in-the-muds and wrong-headed for trying to stop their son from participating in a school play—a play in which he would act out a homosexual relationship with another boy. The criticism of Christian morals could not be more obvious. There will be no debate and no compromise. The message sent by the show is clear: traditional Christian teaching stretching back thousands of years cannot be tolerated.

Jesus predicted these very things. He said, “If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you…. If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you” (Jn. 15:19,20). But why does it have to be this way? Can’t there be some sort of compromise?

Whenever Christians try to work out a compromise with the world, what happens? Christianity always loses. Look at what has taken place in Christian churches across America. As more and more have accommodated and even promoted the errors of evolution, the killing of the most helpless among us, homosexual unions, and gender as a feeling instead of a biological reality, these churches have become almost indistinguishable from the culture around them. No longer are they characterized by the message of sin and grace. Now they embrace the sin, which does away with God’s grace.

They try to say that this is all done in the name of and with the blessing of Jesus. But it is not the Jesus who says, “You are from below; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world. I told you that you would die in your sins, for unless you believe that I am he you will die in your sins” (Jn. 8:23-24). Or as He said in today’s text, “Whoever is of God hears the words of God. The reason why you do not hear them is that you are not of God.”

The Jews were shocked and offended by these words. “What do you mean we are ‘not of God’? We are descendants of Abraham—God’s chosen people. We follow God’s law. We worship in His temple. Who do You think You are?!” But while they may have followed some of the laws in Scripture, they had stopped paying attention to the promises. Their connection to Abraham was physical—they had descended from his line. But they were not his spiritual descendants. Jesus told them this is because “my word finds no place in you” (Jn. 8:37).

II

All of us here would say that Jesus’ word has a place in our life. But what place does it have? Does it have a place only when we come to church? Even here, we can easily go through all the motions without really taking the Word to heart. We can walk out the door and cheerfully go back to the same sins we did before. Do we long to hear God’s Word? Do we honestly apply it to our own lives? Do we cling to the promises the Lord makes toward us?

We should be willing to give up all earthly gain, all our plans, all our wealth and possessions, and even our own life for the Word of God. Without the Word, we have nothing that can last. With the Word, we have Jesus and the eternal glories He won for us. But the devil convinces us that the world has more to offer. He says it is not God’s truth that matters, but your truth; what matters is that you stay true to yourself. The devil is a liar (8:44). He would have you make a god of yourself, which is the cause of all the evil and heartache we see in the world today.

We know what a lie it is, and yet we fall for this temptation again and again. We hardly study and meditate on God’s Word, and so we remain spiritually vulnerable and weak. We fail to take the Word to heart, and so we live without the confidence and comfort that only the Holy Spirit can provide.

A vengeful and uncaring God might have already destroyed you. An impatient God might have given up on you long ago. An indifferent God would not give you a second thought. But the true God loves you. And the way He showed His love was to send His only-begotten Son to assume our human flesh. Jesus did not come spouting half-brained theories—He was no lunatic. He did not come making promises He never intended to keep—He was no liar. He came to fulfill what you had not done and would never do. He perfectly kept the holy Word of God.

But if He kept the Word, why did He die? He Himself said, “If anyone keeps My word, he will never see death.” He died on the cross because that was the only way to save you and all people. He offered up Himself to atone for all sin. The author of the Book of Hebrews writes that Jesus suffered and died, “so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone” (2:9). The death that He tasted was eternal death in hell, the just punishment for sin. He tasted that death, so you would never have to. He tasted that death, so you could drink deeply of His life by faith in Him.

Jesus is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Those men are alive in spirit now, even though their bodies gave out long ago. Jesus “is not God of the dead, but of the living” (Mt. 22:32). Because Jesus lives, His people live also. His people are not the ones with a certain bloodline or lineage. They are the ones who believe His Word. This is what God’s Word is for—it brings Jesus with all His blessings into your mind and heart. The Apostle John said near the end of his Gospel that the signs and sayings of Jesus “are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name” (20:31). Who Is Jesus? He is the Lord and your Savior.

Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, forevermore. Amen.

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(painting is portion of the altarpiece in Weimar by Lucas Cranach the Younger, 1555)