John 8:48-59 (Trinity Sunday)
St. John, Galveston 6/15/2025
Rev. Alan Taylor

+ In Nomine Jesu +

Grace and peace to you, from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

    Today, of course, is Trinity Sunday. It is also Confirmation Sunday. God is One, and yet, He is three persons. Each person does not compose 1/3 of the Godhead, rather, each person is fully God. The persons are co-equal and co-eternal, and yet, there are not three eternals, but One. Time will not permit us this morning to explore all of the mysteries of the Trinity, or have all of our questions about the Trinity answered. However, there is one question about the Trinity that always stands in the forefront. Namely, “who is Jesus?” Or, as the crowd in the Gospel reading before us this morning put it, who does Jesus make Himself out to be? The answer not only provides the key to understanding, more fully, the Trinity. It is also the most important question you’ll ever be asked in life, period!

    In many ways, confirmation is about that very question. Many years ago, these young people were baptized into the name of Jesus. They were, of course, very young at the time. Much younger than they are today. Intellectually, they knew nothing about Jesus. And yet, in that miraculous washing of water and the word, God reached down into time and space and said to each of them, “I have bought you with a price. Behold, you are mine.”

    In their baptisms, God created within Addie, Aiden, Anselm, and Augustine, a simple faith in Him. Thus, these four, and all those who were brought into the kingdom of God at a young age, through Holy Baptism, were the very one’s of whom Jesus spoke when He said, “let the children come to me, and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God. Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.”

    In one of our older hymnals, there was a grievous error regarding the purpose and meaning of the Rite of Confirmation. It was in the words that were to be said to the confirmands on their day. “You have been baptized and you have been taught the faith according to our Lord’s bidding. The fulfillment of His bidding we now celebrate with thankful hearts.” I say to our Confirmands, and all of you gathered here today, that Confirmation adds nothing to your baptism, because your baptism was of God. When you were baptized into Christ, God got it right!! You are His for all eternity because all of the merits of the cross Jesus, forgiveness, life and salvation, were granted to you in water and the word.

    Confirmation is a Rite of Confession. It equips you and enables you to confess the name of the Triune God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, in whom you were baptized. And, of course, central to your confession of the faith, are the words that you believe and say regarding Jesus. And so, we return to what was said earlier in this message. The question of “who is Jesus” is the most important question you’ll ever be asked in life, period!!

    There are many correct answers to the question. Peter gave one answer. He said of Jesus, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Jesus affirmed and praised Peter for the answer he gave. John though gave another answer. Seeing Jesus coming toward him in the Jordan River, he said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” Even Thomas, the one who doubted, got it right as he fell to his knees before Jesus and said, “My Lord and my God.” And, of course, the corporate Church has offered it’s own answers to the question of, who is Jesus? As we confess in the Nicene Creed, “Jesus is of One Substance with the Father by whom all things were made. He is light of light, the only begotten of the Father, very God of very God, begotten, not made.”

    When people get their confession of Jesus right, it is a wonderful thing because, as He said of Himself, He is, “the Way, the Truth and the Life, and a part from Him, no one will come to the Father.” That is, without Jesus, no one will be saved. Equally wonderful though, and perhaps more so, is for us to hear from the lips of Jesus His confession of Himself. In other words, “who does Jesus say He is?”

    Frankly, our Lord’s words here in John 8, lay to rest to the claims of so many people, that Jesus never claimed to be God. Oh, He didn’t use the words, “I am God,” anywhere in the Bible. But He did most certainly claim to be God. Here, in John 8, He did so in such a striking fashion, that the Jews who heard Him speak, immediately took up stones to stone Him to death. They did so because they were so irate with what He said, with who He claimed to be.

    So, what was it that Jesus said about Himself that so stirred the wrath of those who wouldn’t accept it? Frankly, what He said of Himself is evident in the awkwardness of the English translation of verse 58 of John 8. I’ll back up to verse 57 to give a little context. “The Jews said to (Jesus), “You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?” Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.”

    No one really speaks that way, do they, that is, by referring to themselves with a form of the verb “to be.” “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.” Without going into too much detail, Jesus used here the same word that was given to Moses when Moses asked God, “whom shall I say sent me?” Remember, Moses was to be the deliverer of Israel. He was to go to Pharaoh and demand that Pharaoh set God’s people free. It occurred to Moses though that he was going to need a name for God. Thus his question, “whom shall I say sent me?” To which God said to him, “I am, that I am.” In Hebrew, “I am, that I am,” is a single word. It’s the word is Yahweh. And so, God said to Moses, tell Pharaoh that Yahweh, the covenant God of Israel, sent you.  

    When Jesus said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am,” the word He used for “I am,” is the Greek equivalent to the Hebrew word, Yahweh. Do you see now why the people picked up stones to stone Jesus to death? They knew exactly what He was saying about Himself. “I am Yahweh!” “I am the covenant God of Israel!

    To our confirmands, and to all of you who have been baptized into Christ Jesus, this is what you have come to know, and believe, and confess and about Jesus. He is God in human flesh. He is the “Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the Last.” The Incarnation, the birth of Jesus, was not just about a man, a prophet, coming into the world. It was about God coming into the world. Jesus death on the cross, was not just about a man dying for the sins of the world. It was about God dying for the sins of the world, including your sins and mine. 
    

“Who is Jesus?” For sure, He is model for holy living. But He isn’t just a model for holy living. He is your substitute in death and your Victor in life. He is your righteousness, your holiness. He is the reason that you will stand before God one day, and God will say, “Come, you who are blessed of My Father and inherit the Kingdom prepared for you.”

    Adeline, Aiden, Anselm and Augustine, what God did for you in your baptism, namely, Him making you His child by faith, you affirm and you confess today before the church and the whole world. “Who is Jesus?” He is the great I am, the Savior of the world.

“You Christ, are King of Glory, The everlasting Son,
Yet You, with boundless love, sought to rescue everyone;
You laid aside Your glory, were born of virgin’s womb,
Were crucified for us and were placed into a tomb;
Then by Your resurrection You won for us reprieve
You opened Heaven’s Kingdom to all who would believe.”

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The peace of God that passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus unto life everlasting. Amen.

+ Soli Deo Gloria +