Lent 4

Preliminary thoughts for Sunday

Every good sermon starts with Google. This week I googled the words “Who am I?” This led to a very interesting (and long) quiz on that question – which of course was really a piece of market research and had some dubious results. There was an article from psychology today, a video from a Christian band and another quiz from the Oprah website.

This might seem like a tangential question to the Gospel today but the phrase “I am” turns up in two important places – Jesus says “I am the light of the World” and the man who has been healed says, quite clearly, “I am he” when the crowds are questioning whether he really is the one who used to be blind.

Let’s briefly put Jesus saying into context in John. There are seven places in John’s Gospel where Jesus says definitively “I am…..” He is bread; light; gate; shepherd; resurrection; way, truth and life and true vine. These “I am sayings in John form around the character of messiah, of who Jesus is and is becoming for those who follow Him. They offer an important structure for character building in John.

The verb Jesus uses is the Greek eimi  ”eimi”  “I am” in English.  But, interestingly, when the man born blind says “I am” he uses a more declarative form ego eimi “ego eimi” – I am he, I am the one, I am the man. The other place where this comes into the Gospel of John is in the Garden of Gethsemane when the soldiers come to the group of disciples. Jesus steps forward to them, knowing, John says, exactly what is going on, and asks who they are looking for – Jesus of Nazareth they reply and he says simply eyo eimi “I am he”.

The English translations do not always make this verbal link apparent but if you know anything about John’s Gospel you know that the author does not write things accidentally. There is a verbal clue between the Jesus who steps up to the soldiers and the man who has been healed who says to a crowd – that is me.

It is all too easy to assume a sort of naiveté on the part of the man who had been healed – that he would have had no idea about the trouble he was about to cause himself. A story of a similar healing in Mark has the healed man being told in no uncertain terms by Jesus not to say anything to anyone – and this, of course, is part of the Markan motif – the idea of the Messianic secret throughout the Gospel. John has no such surprises and as we build through the crescendo of work and action which will take us into chapter  11 and the raising of Lazarus it is becoming increasingly apparent that this life of sight and life and true feasting will be one which requires of its participants more than quiet assignation.

Let’s listen to what the man says to those questioning him. It’s astonishing, he says – you don’t know where he comes from and yet he opened my eyes. Does that remind you of anything – yes, Jesus talking to Nicodemus in John 3:8 “The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes”. The wind, the creative breath of God, the Spirit of the Living God – all of these images tumble together in John and you have to keep on your toes and breathe them in all at the same time.

In the testimony which the man gives – that this Jesus must be God, a decisive rift is being formed between those who know and those who only claim to know – between the way things are and the way people want things to be – between those who live in light and see and those who choose darkness. Nicodemus is making his journey through the Gospel from that moment of meeting Jesus in the night, to a public defense of Jesus in Chapter 7 to carrying a huge load of spices in broad daylight as Jesus is taken to the tomb. The woman of Samaria runs with joyful questioning to her community and the man born blind goes from the darkness of his former life through public proclamation and joyful questioning, “ If this man were not from God, he could do nothing….” , to the point of standing in front of Jesus and saying “Lord, I believe.”

These journeys we are taking in John during Lent are powerful icons, powerful pictures which we are invited into of the journey through the Cross to Resurrection. Entry into this upside down world of the Gospel demands fortitude but more than that it demands and honest statement – I am this person.

The Jesus of the Garden who says I am he, the man who stands in the middle of the crowd and says I am he are not simply passively assenting to a role and time and place they are making a conscious decision. Jesus could have walked away, he could have stayed hidden but John’s whole purpose and structure tells us that Jesus is very much in control, the outcome is set but the time has to be right. Jesus chooses to reveal Himself to whom he will, when He will.

The man born blind could easily have said, as Peter did, it is not me, I do not know that man – but he makes the conscious decision to be a person who has been affected by life with and in Christ and to speak up for that fact. Peter, of course, serves to illustrate both that at in the light of morning we know ourselves all to clearly and that redemption and return are vital themes in the Christian life – but they are redemption for the purpose of life and return to a life which is open and honest about the transforming power of God in Jesus Christ.

So where are we in all of this – who are we in all of this. Who am I – not in a pop psychology quiz which is probably really trying to sell me breakfast cereal and limits my choices to a few multiple choice answers – but in the limitless bounty of God’s creation. Who am I in the freedom which I inherit with Christ. Am I a person who steps forward and says “ I am he” , “I am she”  - a person whom Jesus has touched and healed, a person who believes that that touch is divine.

As we tip into the second half of Lent we are reminded today that we are a people who are called to know and be known. We are called to know God and to accept that we are known by God and rejoice in that, to develop a sort of light filled translucence in our lives but we are also challenged to know the world around us, to develop relationships and to challenge norms. As we journey inward to who we are truly created to be, an identity which we best discover in Christ, we are called also to stand firmly and proclaim who we are, to step willingly into situations in which we know we might not fare so well – not for the sake of suffering or some bizarre martyr mentality but because who we know God to be is so true for us that is become who we are and there can be no other way to express ourselves.

This goes far beyond the marketers fancy of breakfast cereal or a new car – it goes to the heart of what it is to be a person. Far beyond five hundred words of popular wisdom and enquiry and into a lifelong journey.  Who is it that God touched, who is it that God transforms and calls and heals? Simply – it is me, it is you, it is us.