- Jesus Declares His Identity - By His Holiness Pope Benedict VI - Joseph Ratzinger - Pages:1 - 4 -
"I AM" - The sayings of Jesus that the Gospels transmit to us include - predominantly in John, but also (albeit less conspicuously and to a lesser degree) in the Synoptics - a group of "I am" sayings. They fall into two different categories. In the first type, Jesus simply says "I am" or "I am he" without any further additions. In the second type, figurative expressions specify the content of the "I am" in more detail: I am the light of the world, the true vine the Good Shepherd and so on. If at first sight the second group appears to be immediately intelligible, this only makes the first group even more puzzling.
I would like to consider just three passages from John's Gospel that present the formula in its strictest and simplest form. I would then like to examine a passage from the Synoptics that has a clear parallel in John.
The two most important expressions of this sort occur in Jesus' dispute with the Jews that immediately follows the words in which he presents himself as the source of living water at the Feast of Tabernacles (cf. John 7:37f). This led to division among the people some started asking themselves whether he might be the awaited Prophet after all, whereas others pointed out that no prophets is supposed to come from Galilee (cf. John 7:40, 52). At this point, Jesus says to them: "You do not know where I come or whether I am going... You know neither me nor my Father" (John 8:14, 19). Jesus make his point even clearer by adding: "You are from below, I am from above; you are of this world, I am not of this world" (John 8:23). It is here that the crucial statement comes: "You will die in your sins unless you believe that I am he" (John 8:24).
What does this mean? We want to ask: What are you, then? Who are you? And that, in fact, is just how the Jews respond: "Who are you?" (John 8:25). So what does it mean when Jesus says "I am he"? Exegesis understandably set out in search of the origins of this saying in order to make sense of it, and we will have to do the same in our own efforts to understand. Various possibilities have been suggested" typical Revelation discourses from the East (E. Norden), Mandaean scriptures (E. Schweitzer), although these are much later than the books of the New Testament.
By now most exegetes have come to realize that we should look not just anywhere and everywhere for the spiritual roots of this saying, but rather in the world where Jesus was at home, in the Old Testament and in the Judaism of his lifetime. Scholars have since brought to light an extensive background of Old Testament texts, which we need not examine here. I would like to mention just the two essential texts on which the matter hingers.
The first one is Exodus 3:14 - the scene with the burning bush. God calls from the bush to Moses, who is his turn asks the God who thus calls him: "What is your name?" In answer, he is given the enigmatic name YHWH, whose meaning the divine speaker himself interprets with the equally enigmatic statement: "I am who I am." The manifold interpretations of this statement need not occupy us here. The key point remains: This God designates himself simply as the "I am." He just is, without any qualification. And that also means, of course, that he is always there - for human beings, yesterday, today, and tomorrow.
At the great tome of hope for a new Exodus at the end of the Babylonian exile, Deutero-Isaiah took up once again the message of the burning bush and developed it in a new direction: "' You are my witnesses', says the LORD, 'and my servant whom I have chosen, that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he. Before me no god was formed, nor shall there be any after me. I, I am YHWH, and besides me there is no saviour'" (Isaiah 43:10f). "That you may know and believe me and understand that I am he" - the old formula 'ani YHWH is now abbreviated to 'ani bu' - "I he," "I am he." The "I am" has become more emphatic, and while it remains a mystery, it has also become clearer.
During the time when Israel was deprived of land and Temple, God - according to the traditional criteria - could not compete with other gods, for a god who had no land and could not be worshiped was not a god at all. It was during this period that the people learned to understand fully what was different and new about Israel's God: that in fact he was not just Israel's god, the god of one people and one land, but quite simply God, the God of the universe, to whom all lands, all heaven and earth belong; the God who is master of all; the God who has no need of worship based on sacrifices of goats and bulls, but who is truly worshiped only through right conduct.
Once again: Israel came to recognize that its God was simply "God" without any qualification. And so the "I am" of the burning bush found its true meaning once more: This God simply is. When he says "I am," he is presenting himself precisely as the one who is, in his utter oneness. At one level, this is of course a way of setting him apart from the many divinities of the time. On the other hand, its primary meaning was entirely positive: the manifestation of his indescribable oneness and singularity.
When Jesus says "I am he," he is taking up this story and referring it to himself. He is indicating his oneness. In him, the mystery of the one God is personally present: "I and the Father are one." H. Zimmerman has rightly emphasized that when Jesus says "I am," he is not placing himself alongside the "I" of the Father ("Das absolute 'Ich bin,'" p. 6) but is pointing to the Father. And yet precisely by so doing, he is also speaking of himself. At issue here is the inseparability of Father and Son. Because he is the Son, he has every right to utter with his own lips the Father's self-designation. "He who sees me, sees the Father" (John 14:9). And conversely: Because this is truly so, Jesus is entitled to speak the words of the Father's self-revelation in his own name as Son.
This issue at stake in the whole of the dispute in which this verse occurs is precisely the oneness of the Father and Son. In order to understand this correctly, we need above all to recall our reflections on the term "the Son" and its rootedness in the Father-Son dialogue. There we saw that Jesus is wholly "relational," that his whole being is nothing other than relation to the Father. This relationality is the key to understand the use Jesus makes of the formulae of the burning bush and Isaiah. The "I am" is situated completely in the relatedness between Father and Son.
After the Jew ask the question "Who are you?" - which is also our question - Jesus' first response is to point toward the one who sent him and from whom he now speaks to the world. He repeats once again the formula of revelation, the "I am he," but now he expands the formula of revelation, the "I am he," but now he expands it with a reference to future history: "When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he" (John 8:28). On the Cross, his Sonship, his oneness with the Father, becomes visible. The Cross is the true "height." It is the height of "love to the end" (John 13:1). On the Cross, Jesus is exalted to the very "height" of the God who is love. It is there that he can be "known" that the "I am he" can be recognized.
The burning bush is the Cross. The highest claim of revelation, the "I am he," and the Cross of Jesus are inseparably one. What we find here is not metaphysical speculation but the self-revelation of God's reality in the midst of history for us. "Then you will know that I am he" - when is this "then" actually realized? It is realized repeatedly throughout history, starting on the day of Pentecost, when the Jews are "cut to the heart" by Peter's preaching (cf. Acts 2:37) and as the Acts of the Apostles reports three thousand people are baptized and join the communion of the Apostles (cf. Acts 2:41). It is realized in the fullest sense at the end of history, when, as the seer of the Book of Revelation says, "Every eye will see him, everyone who pierced him" (Revelation 1:7)
At the end of the disputes reported in chapter 8 of John's Gospel, Jesus utters once again the words "I am," now expanded and interpreted in another direction. The question "Who are you?" remains in the air and it includes the question "Where do you come from?" This leads the discussion on to the Jews' descent from Abraham and, finally, to the Fatherhood of God himself: "Abraham is our father... We were not born of fornication; we have one Father, even God" (John 8:39,41).
By tracing the origin back beyond Abraham to God as their Father, Jesus' interlocutors give the Lord the opportunity to restate his own origin with unmistakable clarity. In Jesus' origin we see the perfect fulfillment of the mystery of Israel, to which the Jews have alluded by moving beyond descent from Abraham to claim descent from God himself.
Abraham, Jesus tells us, not only points back beyond himself to God as Father, but above all he points ahead to Jesus, the Son: "Your father Abraham rejoiced that he was to see my day: he saw it and was glad" (John 8:56). At this point, when the Jews objects that Jesus could hardly have seed Abraham, he answers: "Before Abraham came into existence, I am" (John 8:58). "I am" - once again, the simple "I am" stands before us in all its mystery, though now defend in contrast to Abraham's "coming into existence." Jesus' "I am" stands in contrast to the world of birth and death, the world of coming into being and passing away. Schnackenburg correctly points out that what is involved here is not just a temporal category but "a fundamental distinction of nature." We have here a clear statement of "Jesus" claim to a totality unique mode of being which transcends human categories" (Barrett, Gospel II, pp. 8of.).
Let us turn now to the story recounted by Mark about Jesus walking on the water immediately after the first multiplication of the loaves (cf. Mark 6:45-52). a story that closely resembles the parallel account in the Gospel of John (cf. John 6:16-21). H. Zimmermann has produced a painstaking analysis of the text ("Das absolute 'lch bin,'" pp. 12f). We will follow the main lines of his account.
After the multiplication of loaves, Jesus makes the disciples get into the boat and sail to Bethsaida. He himself, however, withdraws to pray "on the mountain." The disciples, in their boat in the middle of the lake, can make no headway because the wind is against them. While he is praying, the Lord sees them, and comes toward them over the waters. Understandably, the disciples are terrified when they see Jesus walking on the water; they cry out in "total confusion." But Jesus kindly speaks words of consolation to them: "Take heart, it is I [I am he]; have no fear." (Mark 6:50).
At first sight, this instance of the words "I am he" seems to be a simple identifying formula by means of which Jesus enables his followers to recognize him, so as to calm their fear. This interpretation does not go far enough, however. For at this point Jesus gets into the boat and the wind ceases; John adds that they then quickly reach the shore. The remarkable thing is that only now do the disciples really begin to fear; they were utterly astounded, as Mark vividly puts it (cf. Mark 6:51). But why? After their initial fright at seeing a ghost, the disciples' fear does not leave them but reaches its greatest intensity at the moment when Jesus gets into the boat and the wind suddenly subsides.
Obviously, their fear is of the kind that is typical of "theophany" - the sort of fear that overwhelms man when he finds himself immediately exposed to the presence of God himself. We have already met an instance of this fear after the abundant catch of fish, where Peter, instead of joyfully thanking Jesus, is terrified to the depths of his soul, falls at Jesus' feet, and says: "Depart from me, for I am a sinful man" (Luke 5:8). It is this "divine terror" that comes over the disciples here. For walking in the waters is a divine prerogative: God "alone stretched out the heavens, and trampled the waves of the sea," we read in the book of Job (Job 9:8; cf. Psalms 76:20 in the Septuagint version; Isaiah 43:16). The Jesus who walks upon the waters is not simply the familiar Jesus; in this new Jesus they suddenly recognize the presence of God himself.
The calming of the storm is likewise an act that exceeds the limits of man's abilities and indicates the power of God at work. Similarly, in the earlier account of Jesus calming the storm on the Sea of Galilee, the disciples ask one another: "Who is this that even wind and water obey him?" (Mark 4:41). In this context too, the "I am" has something different about it. It is more than just a way for Jesus to identify himself. The mysterious "I am he" of the Johannine writings seems to find an echo here too. At any rate, there is no doubt that the whole event is a theophany, and encounter with the mystery of Jesus' divinity. Hence, Matthew quite logically concludes his version of the story with an act of adoration (proskynesis) and the exclamation of the disciples: "Truly, you are the Son of God" (Matthew 14:33).
Let us move on now to the sayings in which the "I am" is given a specific content by the use of some image. In John there are seven such sayings; the fact that there are seven is hardly accidental. "I am the Bread of Life," "the Light of the World," "the Door," "the Good Shepherd," "the Resurrection and the Life," "the Way, the Truth and the Life," "the True Vine." Schnackenburg rightly points out that we could add to these principal images the image of the spring of water - even though it does not literally form part of an "I am" saying, there are nevertheless other sayings in which Jesus presents himself as this spring of water (cf. John 4:14; 6:35; 7:38; cf. also 19:34). We have already considered some of these images in detail in the chapter on John. Let it suffice here, then, to summarize briefly the meaning that all these Johan-nine sayings of Jesus have in common.
Schnackenburg draws our attention to the fact that all these images are "variations on the single theme, that Jesus has come so that human beings may have life, and have it in abundance (cf. John 10:10). His only gift is life, and he is able to give it because the divine life is present in him in original and inexhaustible fullness" (Barrett, Gospel II, p. 88). In the end, man both needs and longs for just one thing: life, the fullness of life - "happiness." In one passage in John's Gospel, Jesus calls this one simple thing for which we long "perfect joy" (John 16:24).
This one thing that is the object of man's many wishes and hopes also finds expression in the second petition of the Our Father: thy Kingdom come. The "Kingdom of God" is life in abundance - precisely because it is just private "happiness" not individual joy, but the world having attained its rightful form, the unity of God and the world.
In the end, man needs just one thing, in which everything else is included; but he must first delve beyond his superficial wishes and longings in order to learn to recognize what it is that he truly needs and truly wants. He needs God. And so we now realize what ultimately lies behind all the Johannine images: Jesus gives us "life" because he gives us God. He can give God because he himself is one with God, because he is the Son. He himself is the gift - he is "life." For precisely this reason, his whole being consists in communicating, "in pro-existence." This is exactly what we see in the Cross, which is his true exaltation.
Let us look back. We have found three terms in which Jesus at once conceals and reveals the mystery of his person: "Son of Man," "Son," "I am he." All three of this terms demonstrate how deeply rooted he is in the Word of God, Israel Bible, the Old Testament. And yet all these terms receive their full meaning only in him; it is as if they had been waiting for him.
All three of them bring to light Jesus' originality - his newness, that specific quality unique to him that does not derive from any further source. All three are therefore possible only on his lips - and central to all is the prayer-term "Son", corresponding to the "Abba, Father" that he addresses to God. None of these three terms as such could therefore be straightforwardly adopted as a confessional statement by the "community," by the Church in its early stages of formation.
Instead, the nascent Church took the substance of these three terms, centered on "Son" and applied it to the other term "Son of God," thereby freeing it once and for all from its former mythological and political associations. Placed on the foundation of Israel's theology of election, "Son of God" now acquires a totally new meaning which Jesus had anticipated by speaking of himself as the Son and as the "I am."
This new meaning then had to go through many difficult stages of discernment and fierce debate in order to be fully clarified and secured against attempts to interpret it in light of polytheistic mythology and politics. For this purpose the First Council of Nicea (A.D. 325) adopted the word consubstantial (in Greek, homoousios). This term did not Hellenize the faith or burden it with an alien philosophy. On the contrary, it captured in a stable formula exactly what had emerged as in comparably new and different in Jesus' way of speaking with the Father. In the Nicene Creed, the Church joins Peter in confessing to Jesus ever anew: "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God" (Matthew 16:16).
- PAGE FOUR -
Why do you call Me, "Lord, Lord" and not do what I say?' "Everyone who comes to Me and listens to My words and acts on them - I will show you what he/she is like. He/She is like a man/woman who when he/she built his/her house dug, deep, and laid the foundations on rock; when the river was in flood it bore down on that house but could not shake it, it was so well built. But the one who listens and does nothing is like the man/woman who built his/her house on soil, with no foundations: as soon as the river bore down on it, it collapsed; and what a ruin that house became!" - Luke 6:46-49 -If we live by the truth and in love, we shall grow in all ways into Christ Jesus, who is the head by whom the whole body is fitted and joined together, every joint adding its own strength, for each separate part to work according to it function. So the body grows until it has built itself up, in love." - Ephesians 4:15-16 -
I still have many things to say to you but they would be too much for you now. But when the spirit of truth comes, he will lead you to the complete truth, since he will not be speaking as from himself, but will say only what he has learnt; and he will tell you of the things to come. He/She will glorify me, since all he/she tells you will be taken from what is mine. Everything the Father has is mine; that is why I said: all he/she tells you will be taken from what is mine." - John 16:12-15 -
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