3/31/2020 Lenten Luminaries
Posted on Mar 31, 2020
by ACS
[So Jesus said to them,
“When you lift up the Son of Man,
then you will realize that I AM,……”] (Jn. 8:28a)
“When you lift up the Son of Man,
then you will realize that I AM,……”] (Jn. 8:28a)
As Jesus once again engages in conversation with the Pharisees about His identity, Jesus points His interlocutors to an instance of God’s saving love in the Book of Numbers (… in the twenty-first chapter of the Book of Numbers Moses makes a bronze serpent, mounts it on a pole, and lifts bronze up in the air. Whenever someone looked at the bronze serpent, they were healed of their fatal snake bite.
God showed His great love for the Israelites via the bronze serpent that was lifted up, and so much more will God show His love via His Son Who will be lifted up on the cross. Jesus is God incarnate and therefore Love Himself in the flesh (1 Jn. 4:8). By drawing His contemporaries’ attention to this inherent typology, Jesus reveals that He is God. He tells the Pharisees that they will come to know His identity for certain when they will “lift up the Son of Man”, that He is God (I AM).
Jesus revealed that He is God to the Pharisees by drawing their attention to created things, to God’s saving action in creation. Take some time today and look around you. Look at the beauty of God’s creation. Think of all nature’s intricacies and the brilliant and loving One to create it all. Take some time to look at creation, thank God for it, and know He is God. He is I AM.