Listening or Hearing? 5th Week of Lent- Tuesday- John 8: 21-30

The frustration is pouring out and this time it’s not the Jews. Yup! It’s Jesus. His exact words are, “why do I speak to you at all?” (I kid you not, those are His exact words). Maybe its not a statement of frustration as much as it is of judgement, and if so, what’s got Him all riled up?

Jesus is in the treasury of the temple and has declared Himself to be ‘the light of the world’ to the Jews who were quite evidently, spiritually blind. This blindness is manifested in their line of questioning, “where is your Father?” This will prompt Jesus to clearly indicate that He is the Son of the Heavenly Father and that ‘He is from above and they are from below.’

Did they get the point? Absolutely not! So they carry on with their mindless three and four word questions; ‘Who are you’?, ‘Where is your Father?’ ‘Is he going to kill himself?’ In response to these questions Jesus makes some extraordinarily explosive statements. In verse 23 He repeats those controversial ‘I am statements’, which end with judgement; if they don’t believe that He is ‘I am’ then they will die in their sin of disbelief. Jesus simply declared Himself to be God.