JOHN 8:21-24 HOW DO I GET THERE FROM HERE?

21 Once more Jesus said to them, “I am going away, and you will look for me, and you will die in your sin. Where I go, you cannot come.”

22 This made the Jews ask, “Will he kill himself? Is that why he says, ‘Where I go, you cannot come’?”

23 But he continued, “You are from below; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world. 24 I told you that you would die in your sins; if you do not believe that I am the one I claim to be, you will indeed die in your sins.”

Where is Jesus going? He is going to the Father.

Why will they look for Jesus? They are looking for salvation even though they do not know that Jesus is salvation.

Why will they die in their sin? There is no atonement for their sins because in denying Jesus they will have denied the only vehicle for the forgiveness of their sins.

Where is it that they cannot come? They cannot be in the presence of the Father, because sin cannot come into the presence of absolute holiness.

What does this have to do with where we are from? To be from below is to be focused on the human and worldly, while to be from above is to be born of the Spirit (John 3:5).

Although Jesus is talking to Jews in first century Palestine, the content of his dialogue still speaks to us today. If Jesus is who he said he is, then we have to believe all of what he is recorded as having said. To conclude anything else is to deny that he is who he said he is, because we would then be calling him a liar and deceiver (not to mention blasphemer). If we believe our assessment, then Jesus cannot be the way to the Father and we must seek another way. But if he is who he said he is and we deny that, then we have denied the only means of our salvation and we can search every moment of very day of the rest of our lives but we will never find another way to the Father. Christian faith, through which we open ourselves to salvation, grows when we allow all our ways, even the way we think, to be reborn of the Spirit. Ultimately it is only those who are born from above who can recognize the One who came from above. What a gracious gift from the Father.

Father, I give you thanks for your love, mercy and grace expressed through your sending your Son to dwell with us and your Spirit to dwell within us. May I all that I am, I think and I do be baptized by your Spirit so that my life will be a revelation of your truth to those with whom I dwell. Use me and bless me in the propagation of your saving word so that my neighbors might know to follow Jesus. Amen.