I AM

“ Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it, and was glad. Then said the Jews unto him, Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abraham? Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am. Then took they up stones to cast at him: but Jesus hid himself, and went out of the temple. ”

I was awakened in the 1960s to the voice of a new philosophy, a radical emerging proclamation that told us all we thought we knew before was false. All that we had accepted without question was now to be questioned, and if it didn't have the answers we would accept, it was to be discarded like our childish beliefs in a tooth fairy or Father Christmas. Time magazine's cover for Easter, 1966, 40 years ago, shouted the question: “Is God Dead?” in large red letters on black. Echoing the startling phrase of Friedrich Nietzsche from the 19 th century, Thomas Altizer, a professor of religion at Emory University in Atlanta proclaimed that God is Dead.

For some, it was like the Declaration of Independence. For some, it was like the Emancipation Proclamation. For some it was like the last day of school and beginning of an endless summer vacation. For some it was the death knell of all they had ever hoped for and lived for and even died for. For some it was the end of the world.

The God is Dead movement died swiftly, like it began, and professor Altizer faded from prominence, but the damage was done. Nobody returned to school in the fall. Those who thought they were now free of God continued to act like idiots, like animals. A few years later, I would take a college class in which a lab was to imagine and act out my own evolution from a rock to a plant, to simple animal life, and finally to an ape-man. I would find other ape-men and form a community, begin to develop language and make a home. This took approximately one hour. I think some of us chose to remain as rocks. Good choice. Our professor, Sim Van der Ryn, was appointed the state architect by Governor Jerry Brown. To this day, I have no idea what that class was about. Maybe the home of the ape-men was architecture. We just called it “Weird 140.”

So there we were, reading Hermann Hesse, Buckminster Fuller, Ralph Nader, and J. R. R. Tolkein. Yes there were some good books discovered in the 60s as well. I thought about this when I saw something I thought funny last Friday. It was a 1965 Corvair, a model car in which I got my first speeding ticket. As I spotted it, I said the words, “Unsafe at any speed,” the title of the book by Ralph Nader that won him national prominence, and eventually a shot at the Presidency as candidate of the Green Party. His book was about the Chevy Corvair of the mid-sixties, this very car. As I got closer to this 40 year old classic, I saw on the rear bumper a campaign sticker for, you guessed it, Ralph Nader. I was the only guy on the road behind this driver, I guessed, who had ever gotten the joke.

If the children of 40 years ago could read that “God was dead,” they could imagine anything. John Lennon sang a song called “Imagine,” in which he posed a world without God or heaven or religion or nations, where everyone could finally live in peace. It's the theme song of many people still, people who don't get the bumpersticker thing about Ralph Nader. Like Frank Sinatra's song, “I did it my way,” The Animals' “It's my life,” and many of our favorite rock songs—they comprise the theme songs of hell. Imagine a world without God. We've done it, lived it out, and ruined both ourselves and two succeeding generations, their faith destroyed by our philosophy, and who haven't thanked us for their liberation.

God is not dead. The thought is ludicrous. If there is or ever was a God, He must be what the term “God” means: supernatural, eternal, all-powerful, creative and good. If He exists at all, then, He must exist still. If He doesn't, there is a lot of explaining to do—explaining the universe I see from a mountaintop, the beauty of an early morning before dawn, the meaning of love, or the genesis of the human eye. It would take a whole lot more faith for me to believe in a godless universe than to simply say, God is.

Moses' eye was drawn to a strange sight. Moses had been brought up among Egyptians who worshiped many strange gods. He was a Jew, a captive people who believed only in a god of their forefathers: Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. He had been in the household of his father-in-law, Jethro, for 40 years, a priest of one God. And now Moses saw a burning bush that was not consumed by the flames. There was no explanation for what he saw, so he drew nearer. There, barefoot on Mount Sinai, Moses talked to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, who when asked His Name, called Himself, I AM THAT I AM . Exodus 3:13-15 This Name, I AM , in Hebrew letters YHWH , written without vowels, means I AM, but we don't know how it's pronounced. We may try Yahweh , but the Jews simply say Adonai , Lord, so they won't violate the 3 rd Commandment, taking the Lord's Name in vain. Our English Bibles write Lord instead of the original words I AM, in keeping with this precaution. Any Jewish man in Jesus' day who used the words I am in common speech was seen to be a blasphemer. It could happen accidentally, but they took great pains not to use this phrase.

Jesus was in the Temple confronted by the double-mindedness of a group of followers, who wanted Him as a leader, but one they might control. They secretly harbored doubts about Him, believed Him to be an illegitimate son of Samaritans, but interesting. They could play with His teachings and debate them without truly thinking about them, like we did all our voices from the 1960s. Jesus wouldn't let them get away with such duplicity. He asked if any of them knew of one sin He had committed, or if they had heard Him speak anything but the truth. If not, why did they not believe Him? He answered His own question: “It is because you can't hear God.” So they let Him know who they thought He really was, a demonized Samaritan.

Dishonored, yet Jesus proclaimed to them , “ If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death.” This incited them more, and they said, “Now we know that you are demon-possessed! Abraham died and so did the prophets, yet you say that if anyone keeps your word, he will never taste death. Are you greater than our father Abraham? He died, and so did the prophets. Who do you think you are?” John 8:52-53 Jesus said, “Your father Abraham rejoiced at seeing my day; he saw it and was glad.” v56 At this they laughed and said, “You aren't even 50 years old. Abraham lived 2000 years ago and you tell us that you have seen Abraham?” At this, Jesus rose before them like the burning bush on Sinai: “Amen! It is so!” He cried, and said again, “Amen! Before Abraham ever came into existence, I AM!”

No one misunderstood His words, for they scrambled to pick up stones to thrown at Him. It's probable, in fact, that they brought the stones into the Temple for just that reason. Jesus walked away from these false followers and was gone. He had said what no Jewish man ever said in God's Temple: “I AM.”

He would say it several others times: “I am the bread of life,” John 6:35 ; “I am the light of the world,” John 8:12 “I am one that bear witness of myself,” John 8:18 ; “When ye have lifted up the Son of man, then shall ye know that I am he,” John 8:28 ; “I am the door of the sheep,” John 10:7 “I am the good shepherd,” John 10:14 ; “I said, I am the Son of God,” John 10:35 ; “I am the resurrection, and the life,” John 11:25 ; “I am the way, the truth, and the life,” John 14:6 ; “I am the vine, ye are the branches,” John 15:5 ; “I am Jesus whom thou persecutest,” Acts 9:5 “I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last.” Rev. 1:11

Jesus asked His disciples, as He asks you and me: “But whom say ye that I am?” Matthew 16:15 He taught that God, who called Himself “the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, is not the God of the dead, but of the living.” Matthew 22:32 Proud and angry priests and Pharisees denounced Him in their secret trial of Jesus in the hours of darkness preceding Good Friday, and attempted to give perjured testimony against Him. The high priest, Caiaphas, finally stood and confronted Jesus: “Will you give us no answer to our questions? What are these accusations that are against you? Huh?” Jesus remained silent before the priest, who finally dropped his bomb: “Are you the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed One?” Jesus' silence broke as He confessed: “I AM.” As their shock set in, He continued: “And you will see the Son of man seated at the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.” Mark 14:57-64 Quoting Daniel, Jesus showed Himself to be that One who will fulfill the vision of Messiah. For this, Jesus was crucified.

Jesus is God. God was crucified, but the man Jesus Christ died. God can never die. I AM means eternally living, without beginning, without end. The man who died also rose again, meaning death is no longer permanent, not even for us, His creatures.

Who is the answer to all the world's trouble—though it threatens to engulf us in violence and hatred, sin and sickness, ugliness and despair? Jesus says, I AM. Who is it that might save us from our own devious wicked ways, our guilt and shame? Jesus says, I AM. Who provides the way from death to life, from darkness to light, from our beginning to our end, from sin to righteousness? Jesus says, I AM.

Who is your Savior who can never die, Who is God Incarnate, Who loves you, Who has shed His Blood for you, Who will never leave you? Jesus says, to you: I AM.

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