Before Abraham came to be, I AM

THURSDAY 2 APRIL (Jn 8,51-59)

Jesus is not only before Abraham, He is also the God of Abraham. Jesus is the Eternal Word of the Father, his only begotten Son made flesh:  “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came to be through him, and without him nothing came to be. What came to be through him was life, and this life was the light of the human race; And the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us, and we saw his glory, the glory as of the Father’s only Son, full of grace and truth. From his fullness we have all received, grace in place of grace, because while the law was given through Moses, grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God. The only Son, God, who is at the Father’s side, has revealed him” (Cf. Jn 1,1-18). I am is the name of God. That is how he revealed himself to Moses at Horeb: “But,” said Moses to God, “when I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ if they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what am I to tell them?” God replied, “I am who am.” Then he added, “This is what you shall tell the Israelites: I Am sent me to you.” God spoke further to Moses, “Thus shall you say to the Israelites: The Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, has sent me to you. “This is my name forever; this is my title for all generations”  (Ex 3,13-15). As a man, Abraham is before Jesus. As a true God, Jesus is before Abraham. His before is an eternal before. The Word is without beginning and without end.

It is the eternal truth of Jesus that makes the difference with every other man. If the Father and the Son, in the Holy Spirit, are one eternal mystery of love, truth, justice and light, why are Christians today separating this mystery? They do not know that if they separate the Father from the Son and the Son from the Father, no salvation will be possible anymore. It will not be possible because it is the Father the one who saves. The Father saves through Christ Jesus, in the Holy Spirit. If we separate Jesus from the Father, the Father might not save. He lacks his one and only Mediator. The Father gives everything for Christ, he gives everything in Christ, everything is lived and realized with Christ, in his body. Christ is separated from the Father, the Church is also separated from the Father. She is no longer a mediator of salvation, because salvation is a gift that descends from the Father and is given to men through the body of Christ which is the Church. Many disciples of Jesus go a great way far from the hostility of the scribes and Pharisees of Jesus’ time. We are sinking into a kingdom of darkness, from which it will be difficult to come out tomorrow. Having destroyed Christ, everything is destroyed.

Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever keeps my word will never see death.”  (So) the Jews said to him, “Now we are sure that you are possessed. Abraham died, as did the prophets, yet you say, ‘Whoever keeps my word will never taste death.’ Are you greater than our father Abraham, who died? Or the prophets, who died? Who do you make yourself out to be?” Jesus answered, “If I glorify myself, my glory is worth nothing; but it is my Father who glorifies me, of whom you say, ‘He is our God.’ You do not know him, but I know him. And if I should say that I do not know him, I would be like you a liar. But I do know him and I keep his word. Abraham your father rejoiced to see my day; he saw it and was glad. So the Jews said to him, “You are not yet fifty years old and you have seen Abraham?” Jesus said to them, “Amen, amen, I say to you, before Abraham came to be, I AM.” So they picked up stones to throw at him; but Jesus hid and went out of the temple area.

Can we abandon our foolishness and ignorance and return to the purity of the truth of Christ Jesus? Today folly and foolishness, error and falseness, heresy and lies about Christ are no longer abandoned, by decree, by law and not even by excommunication. These were means of the past. Today we leave the well of the abyss for personal conviction in the Holy Spirit and for perfect exemplariness in the confession of faith in its evangelical purity. Let whoever wants to get out, invoke the Holy Spirit and get out. Let him take his faith in his hands and carry all his days in it. Today it is the strength of the individual believer that must be the driving force for others to believe. Holy way!

Mother of God, Angels and Saints, obtain for us a strong and invincible conviction in the Spirit.