“Before Abraham was…” (John 8:48-59)

For those of you who are old enough to have watched the Seinfeld show on tv, you may recall an episode from twenty-five years ago entitled “The Comeback”. It all revolved around a conversation in the opening scene between George Costanza and a co-worker named Reilly. The two are taking a snack break at a business meeting, when Reilly observes that George is gobbling down considerably more than his fair share of a shrimp cocktail. This prompts Reilly to remark, “Hey George, the ocean called; they’re running out of shrimp.”

The result is that for much of the remaining half hour of the programme we see George making a succession of desperate attempts to come up with an equally witty comeback. But the outcome of all his efforts is a series of rejoinders that range from the pathetic to the positively offensive.

This morning’s verses from John come at the end of a series of exchanges between Jesus and some of the Pharisees. You can detect their hostility right from the very beginning. In verse 12 Jesus has just made one of his seven great amazing “I am” proclamations: “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

Coming from anyone else, this would seem to be an outrageously egotistical claim to make. And so, understandably, it prompts a contrary response from the Pharisees in the following verse: “You are bearing witness about yourself; your testimony is not true.” And so the debate begins, back and forth, going on and on through the following thirty-five verses, and taking us right up to this morning’s passage.

This time it is the Pharisees’ turn to fire the opening volley. And it is a zinger: “Are we not right in saying that you are a Samaritan and have a demon?”

To understand the depth of this insult, take a moment and if you can, think way back to chapter 4, to Jesus’ conversation with a Samaritan woman. You may recall how Jews and Samaritans regarded one another with hostility. In fact they had been engaged in an ongoing feud that had lasted for centuries. The result was that to call another person a Samaritan was to class them with the lowest of the low, someone you would not trust to let out of your sight for even a fraction of a second. Then, as though that insult were not enough, the Pharisees added another: “You have a demon.” It was as if to say that Jesus was not only a sad specimen of humanity, but that he was positively evil.

However, it is already clear that the Pharisees’ argument is weak. As Bishop J.C. Ryle observed 150 years ago, “To lose temper, and call names, is a common sign of a defeated cause.”[1] But once again Jesus was ready with an answer for them: “I do not have a demon, but I honour my Father, and you dishonour me…”

Jesus and the Father (48-51)

Now these words of Jesus may not stand out for us as being especially remarkable. As Christians we are accustomed to addressing God as “our Father”. It’s what Jesus has taught us to do. But I can only imagine that for the Pharisees Jesus’ referring to God as “my Father” would have more than raised a few eyebrows.

In the Old Testament there are fewer than half a dozen passages where God is referred to as “Father”. Yet here was Jesus speaking of the ineffable God, the God who thundered from the top of Mount Sinai, the God who was so holy that his name could never be pronounced by human lips—here was Jesus referring to the all-powerful Lord of all as “my Father”.

One of the images that the gospels give us of Jesus is of his intimate relationship with God the Father. We witness it most especially on the eve of his crucifixion. In what is commonly referred to as his high priestly prayer, John tells us “Jesus lifted up his eyes to heaven and said, ‘Father…, glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you…’” (John 17:1). As he kneels in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus pleads, “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me” (Luke 22:42). And hours later, as he hangs from the cross, Jesus cries out on behalf of his executioners, “Father, forgive them…” (Luke 23:34).

Everywhere in the gospels we see that Jesus enjoyed a unique intimacy with the Father. And while this may have angered the Pharisees, the whole purpose of Jesus’ coming was that you and I might share in that relationship through faith.

It would not be going too far to say that this is the whole aim that John had in mind when he took the effort to write his gospel. In the opening verses we find him writing, “To all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God…” (John 1:12). Then, in his first epistle he rejoices, “See what glorious love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are!” (1 John 3:1).

In Mark’s gospel (14:36) we learn that the expression that Jesus used to address his Father was the intimate word “Abba”. I had a first-hand experience of what that word means when we were renting a lakeside cottage one summer. The family next to us were from Israel and I remember one day hearing their little daughter running up from the beach to her dad, excitedly shouting, “Abba! Abba!”

And this is the relationship with God into which Jesus invites you and me today as we open our lives to him in faith. However, let me make it clear that this is not a relationship of crass familiarity. Rather, it is one of childlike trust, respect and obedience to an all-wise and all-powerful Father—one we know who desires only our good.

Jesus and Abraham (52-56)

But back to the dispute between Jesus and his detractors. It was time for them to launch another volley. “Are you greater than our father Abraham?” they ask. Their challenge was an accusation that Jesus either suffered from a delusional sense of grandeur or that he was deliberately lying. And I cannot imagine that they were ready for his reply: “Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day.”

What was Jesus talking about when he made this claim? There are at least three possible answers. And for each of them we need to go all the way back to the Book of Genesis. The first comes in chapter 12. Abraham was still living in the city of Ur at the time, in what is now modern-day Iraq. It was there that the Lord met with him and told him to go to a land that he would reveal to him. “I will make of you a great nation … and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Genesis 12:1-3).

Now the first half of that promise had long been fulfilled. The nation of Israel had existed in one form or another for more than a thousand years. But it was in Jesus that the second half of that promise would become a reality, that not just a single nation, but all the families of the earth would be blessed—and you and I this morning are the fruit of that. And there are peoples we have never heard of in in every corner of the world who are still finding that blessing that God promised to Abraham and that comes to us through Jesus.

The second incident that Jesus may have been referring to comes in Genesis 17. By this time Abraham had reached the ripe old age of ninety-nine and his wife Sarai was not far behind him. They had long given up on any hope of having a child. Yet God promised once again that he would give them a son. These were his words in reference to Sarah: “I will bless her, and she shall become nations; kings of peoples shall come from her.” (Genesis 17:16). Abraham’s response was to fall facedown with laughter. And I can only imagine that tears of wonderment and joy must have streamed down into his beard, as he contemplated the God of wonders who is always faithful to his promises. And once again that promise found its fulfilment in Jesus.

The third incident comes in the chapter that follows, in the dramatic account of the near sacrifice of the son whom Sarah had borne. God comes to him once again and commands him, “Abraham! Take your son, your only son Isaac whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you”. I’m sure we’re all familiar with how the story proceeds. At the last minute, with his knife raised, Abraham hears a voice telling him to stop. As he looks up he glimpses a ram caught in a thicket and he knows that the Lord has provided a sacrifice. And Abraham called the place where it all happened, “The Lord will provide.” (Genesis 22:1-14)

More than a thousand years later another sacrifice would take place on that same mountain and it would be another Lamb of God’s providing, another substitute, who with outstretched arms would offer life, and salvation for all people. “Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad.”

Jesus the I AM (57-59)

Now you might think that this would have stopped the Pharisees. But they were determined to win the debate. “You are not yet fifty years old,” they retorted, “and have you seen Abraham?” To which Jesus replied with what has to be one of the most astounding claims in all of Scripture: “Before Abraham was, I am.”

Now I suspect that most of you are familiar with what are called the seven “I am” sayings of Jesus that are all found in John’s gospel:

•  “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.” (John 6:35)

•  “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” (John 8:12)

•  “I am the gate. Whoever enters through me will be saved.” (John 10:9)

•  “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep… I know my own and my own know me…” (John 10:11,14)

•  “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though they die, yet shall they live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.” (John 11:25-26)

•  “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6)

•  “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.” (John 15:5)

Each one is in itself a remarkable statement. And we have encountered a couple of them already as we have been making our way through the Gospel of John. But in this morning’s reading we come across an eighth: “Before Abraham was, I am.”

To my mind this is the most astounding of Jesus’ claims in all the gospel. Notice that Jesus does not say, “Before Abraham was, I was,” but, “Before Abraham was, I am.” To understand this fully we need to go back to the Old Testament again, this time to the story of Moses in Exodus 3. Moses was tending his father-in-law’s sheep far out in the wilderness when he spotted a bush in flames (something that should send chills down our spines in Nova Scotia right now!). But when he looked, he could see that although the bush was on fire, it was not being consumed. Then, as he got closer, he could hear a voice calling to him out of the flames: “Moses, Moses…”

We don’t have time to go through the whole story right now, but the upshot was that Moses was hearing none other than the voice of God. This was the almighty creator of heaven and earth, calling him to lead his people out of their centuries-long slavery in Egypt. When Moses asked how he was to explain this to them, he was told, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘I am has sent me to you.’ … This is my name for ever, and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations.” (Exodus 3:15).

The Pharisees caught the allusion in a snap. No more clever comebacks now! The time for civilized debate was over. And they began to pick up rocks to stone Jesus to death.

But there is another reaction they could have had. It is the reaction of Thomas seeing Jesus after his resurrection and exclaiming, “My Lord and my God!” And it will be the chorus of thousands upon ten thousands who will gather around his throne and cry aloud,

Worthy is the Lamb who was slain,
to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might
and honour and glory and blessing! (Revelation 5:12)

And by God’s grace you and I will be among them.

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[1]     Expository Thoughts on the Gospels, John, vol 2, 122

“Rebekah” (Genesis 27:1-17 et al.)

 

Who among us hasn’t heard it said, “She got to where she is because she was in the right place at the right time”? In his book Outliers Malcolm Gladwell offers numerous examples of famous people who, in part at least, got to where they did because they happened to be in the right place at the right time—people as disparate as Bill Gates and the Beatles, Andrew Carnegie and Wayne Gretzky. Not that these people did not have an enormous amount of talent and ability, not that they did not put in prodigious hours of hard work, but one of the reasons that they succeeded where others with equal ability and effort did not, was that they happened to be in the right place at the right time.

In the case of all-star hockey players, for example, a hugely disproportionate number (40% in fact) are born in the first quarter of the year. “Why?” asks Gladwell. His answer is that the cut-off date for admission into hockey programmes is January 1—which means that by and large children born early in the year will have a significant physical advantage over those with later birth dates. (Wayne Gretzky’s birthday, by the way, is January 26.)

Once again, Gladwell is not seeking to take away from the incredible talent of Wayne Gretzky or from the abilities of the Beatles or Andrew Carnegie or Bill Gates. But what he is saying that in each case there were factors outside their control or effort that contributed to their success, and one of them was being in the right place at the right time.

Well, this morning we meet with a woman who just happened to be in the right place at the right time. Rebekah’s story begins while she is off-stage, somewhere in the wings. In the spotlight is Abraham, who is now “old, and well advanced in years”, as the Bible describes him. We can picture him stooped and leaning on his staff as he calls in his oldest and most trusted servant. Nowhere in the engaging story that follows are we given the servant’s name, though many suspect it was Eliezer of Damascus, mentioned in Genesis 15:2. Whoever it was, Abraham sends him out on a crucial mission—to find a suitable wife for his son Isaac. He makes him swear a solemn oath to go back to his homeland and his relatives and sends him off with ten camels, loaded with costly gifts.

Rebekah’s beauty

As the curtain rises on the next act we find the servant arriving at the city where Abraham’s brother Nahor lived. The sun was waning and the heat of the day had passed and the women had begun to come out to draw water from the local well. So what was he to do now? Pray! And pray he did: “God of my master Abraham, let the girl to whom I say, ‘Lower your jug and give me a drink,’ and who answers, ‘Drink, and let me also water your camels’—let her be the woman you have picked out for your servant Isaac.” And I suppose we could say that the rest was history. Barely had he uttered his prayer when a stunningly beautiful young woman arrived at the well. “Please, do you mind if I take a sip of water from your jug?” “Drink,” came the reply, “and let me get water for your camels, too, until they’ve drunk their fill.”

It’s an absolutely engaging story, and recounted with all the artistry of a master storyteller. But we need to stop there for just a moment to examine its details. First of all, we need to know that a camel that has gone without water for a few days can quaff down nearly a hundred litres. Secondly, the kind of jug that women in the ancient world used for drawing water held maybe ten litres at most.[1] Now do your math. This means that for ten thirsty camels Rebekah may have had to draw from that well as many as a hundred times. No mean task!

If nothing else, this tells us that Rebekah’s beauty was considerably more than skin deep. Alongside her physical attractiveness she had the gift of gracious hospitality, which in spite of all the violence and animosity of recent years is still so evident in middle-eastern lands. Karen and I encountered an example of it when we were travelling through Libya with our son Simon six years ago. Our vehicle needed gas, so we pulled up at a filling station. Unfortunately the large underground tank was being filled at the time, with the result that we had to wait under the blazing sun behind a long line of cars until the process had been completed, and it took more than an hour. When we were finally allowed to proceed, what did we find but men anxiously ushering us to the head of the long queue? We protested that we were happy to wait our turn. But no, we were guests in their country and they would not take no for an answer.

What a precious gift it is when outward attractiveness is matched by an inner beauty and strength of character as well. I think of the young shepherd boy David, who would not allow himself to be cowed by the roaring and threats of the giant Goliath; of Queen Esther, who courageously risked her life by pleading for her people before King Xerxes; of Daniel and his three young companions, who refused to engage in the pagan practices of the Babylonians; and of Stephen in the New Testament courageously sharing his faith in Jesus before the hostile religious council, who saw that his face was like the face of an angel. The Bible warns about “those who take pride in what is seen rather than in what is in the heart” (2 Corinthians 5:12). Instead it commends to us the infinitely more beautiful fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control (Galatians 5:22-23).

Rebekah’s serendipity

Rebekah, then, as she first appears in the Scriptures, is a woman of both outer and inner beauty—and in that regard I suspect that she was not unique among the people of Nahor’s city. What was equally important (we might even go so far as to say all-important) was that she happened to be in the right place at the right time.

I wonder if you have ever had that experience? I remember years ago, early in my ministry, for some reason deciding to drop into the shabby flat of a man who had come to me for financial help on a couple of occasions. He had had a longstanding struggle with alcohol but had been sober for some time. As it turned out, as I knocked on his door he was just about to open the first bottle in a twelve-pack of beer that he had just bought from the liquor store. I remember one snowy Christmas morning in the wake of a blizzard when just three people turned up in church. I was one of them and the other two were a woman and her daughter. I had seen her regularly in the congregation but had never got to know her. That morning gave us the opportunity to chat for the first time and it wasn’t long before she was involved in a Bible study group and later became the church’s treasurer. And if you gave me time I could probably come up with a whole series of similar incidents—and I suspect that if you look back on your life you could likely do the same, of being in the right place at the right time.

Now I know that most people—and possibly we ourselves—might write those things off as coincidences. But that was not the case with Abraham’s servant. “Praise be to the Lord, the God of my master Abraham,” he uttered in amazement, “who has not abandoned his kindness and faithfulness to my master. As for me, the Lord has led me on the journey to the house of my master’s relatives” (Genesis 24:27). He had the spiritual insight to recognize that what was taking place at that moment was not mere happenstance. It was the result of God’s faithfulness, God’s gracious leading. Now that word “led” is found only at this point in Genesis, although it is found elsewhere in the Bible, most notably in Psalm 23: “He leads me beside quiet waters, he refreshes my soul. He guides me along the right paths for his name’s sake.”

Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann writes about “… the hidden, inscrutable guidance of God …” “We do not always know the gifts of God in advance,” he continues. “But given a perspective of faith, we can in subsequent reflection discern the amazing movement of God in events we had not noticed or which we had assigned to other causes.” He goes on,

In a culture which grasps for visible signs of faith, which is driven toward scientism, and which falls for too many religious quackeries, the story stands as a foil against easy and mistaken faith. The workings of God are not spectacular, not magical, not oddities. Disclosure of God comes by steady discernment and by readiness to trust the resilience that is present in the course of daily affairs. There is an understatedness about the action of the narrative. But it is not reticent about faith. It is an understatement that is ready to be sustained and profoundly grateful when gifts are given. [2]

Another Old Testament scholar, John Walton, writes about learning to see God’s fingerprints, being guided by the everyday circumstances that he brings into our lives.”[3] The servant recognized God’s leading, but he was not the only one being led that day. It was Rebekah as well. And while we don’t have time to go into the details of how this particular chapter unfolds, it becomes very clear that Rebekah was a woman who both followed God’s leading and was fully prepared to go wherever that took her. In that sense she was a true child of God.

Rebekah’s duplicity

So it is that Rebekah is brought to the future husband she has never met, and we are told that “Isaac brought her into the tent of his mother Sarah, and he married Rebekah. So she became his wife, and he loved her.” And here is where the first shadow of future tragedy begins to cast itself over what so far has been an enchanted love story. The Bible immediately tells us, “And Isaac was comforted after his mother’s death.” Rebekah soon came to discover that she had not only to be a wife to her husband, but a mother as well.[4] Her situation only becomes worse when what should have been a joyful event, the birth of twin sons, turns out to be an omen of enmity and strife. Even in her uterus she could feel the babies jostling with each other. When she spoke to the Lord about it, the answer was clear: “Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples from within you will be separated; one people will be stronger than the other, and the older will serve the younger” (Genesis 25:23).

As they grew up, the two were as different as chalk and cheese. Esau was ruddy and strong, a man’s man, who loved to be outdoors and hunt. By contrast Jacob much preferred to stick around the tents. It was clear that Esau was Isaac’s favourite, no doubt because as the older son he was the natural heir, but perhaps also because he embodied so much of the character that his father lacked. But Rebekah never forgot the prophecy that had been given to her: “… the older will serve the younger.”

Now flash forward many years. Isaac is old and blind and it’s time to think of passing on the torch to the next generation. We have already read it from the Old Testament, so I don’t have to tell you how the story unfolds. Perhaps it was the result of years of living in a passive-aggressive relationship. Perhaps it was just part of the same deceitful streak that we see in her brother Laban. We don’t know and we probably never will. Whatever the cause and with the complicity of Jacob, Rebekah resorts to an act of intolerable deceit to guarantee her son’s place as head of the family and heir to the promises of God.

The result of this duplicitous act is that Jacob does indeed inherit the promise and the blessing of his father. But also the rivalry between the two brothers now becomes open warfare and Rebekah ends up never seeing them again. In her efforts on behalf of one son she loses both. It is a tragic end to a story that began with such promise. And what are we to say to all of this? That the end, no matter how high or pure, does not justify the means, is obvious.

Yet there is also a greater truth at work. Once again Walter Brueggemann cautions us: “This is not a spiritual treatise on morality. It is, rather, a memory of how faith moves in the rawness of experience. We must leave it at that.”[5] And I suppose the apostle Paul was saying much the same when he wrote, “We have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us” (2 Corinthians 4:7). May we take heart from Rebekah that we have a God who in his infinite grace and mysterious wisdom is able to take our impure motives and sinful acts and use them for his greater purposes. He is the God of the cross.

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[1]        John H. Walton, Genesis (NIV Application Commentary), 530

[2]        Walter Brueggemann, Genesis (Interpretation Commentary), 199-201

[3]        Walton, 540

[4]       Clovis G. Chappell, Feminine Faces, 42

[5]        Brueggemann, 229