Blog

• Jesus

It was a Wednesday night back in the late 90’s. We wore our baggy clothes to Dr. Sam and Dr. Cathie’s each week to sing, study the Word, and fellowship as a group of Harding students, grateful to be in a real home one evening a week.

There were many occasions for sidesplitting laughter in the midst of Bible discussion. Yet the most infamous material, that has provided much laughter for many years since, was a Wednesday night in which only one of the guys showed up.

We girls begged and begged him to lead some songs for us, but he was hesitant as he himself admitted, “I can’t carry a tune in a bucket.”

“That doesn’t matter,” we responded enthusiastically. “Just start the song and we will all jump in immediately. All you have to do is start it.”

The gaggle of girls wore him down and he finally relented, having been assured that all he needed to do was start the song.

“Are y’all ready?”

A chorus of yeses was the quick response.

He took a deep breath and we all waited in anticipation as his deep monotone voice said, “Jesus,” immediately followed by, “You didn’t jump in!”

We stifled laughter as we exclaimed, “But you didn’t tell us which Jesus song!” Every single person in the room proceeded to list a different song that had first come to mind, asking if that was the one he had started.

But his moment of bravery had passed. After the “Jesus” episode, we were never to convince him to lead singing again for the Wednesday night Bible studies…

Nearly twenty years later, the memory of that night still brings tears to my eyes—tears of laughter at the hilarity of the moment, but also now, a tear of joy in recognizing the beauty found in each of us having a different Jesus song that came to mind.

What’s your Jesus song?

• Jesus

“Very truly I tell you,” Jesus answered, “before Abraham was born, I am!” (John 8:58)

Neither Jesus nor the translators of the book of John have a lapse in grammatical clarity in John 8. The Jews conversing with him at the time react in full acknowledgement of his claim in that moment—equality with the great I AM.

When God freed the Israelites from Pharaoh’s rule in Egypt, who did he tell Moses to say had sent him to save them?

God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’” (Ex. 3:14)

For the Jews in Jesus’ day, his words reeked of blasphemy, but we know them to be a true and faithful declaration of Jesus’ identity as God in the flesh, who came and dwelt among us (John 1:14).

While living as a human on earth, John records seven times in which Jesus makes a descriptive declaration of his divine nature—who he is as the great I AM.

Which I AM description of Jesus do you need to be reminded of today?

• I AM the bread of life, John 6:35
• I AM the light of the world, John 8:12
• I AM the gate for the sheep, John 10:7
• I AM the Good Shepherd, John 10:11
• I AM the resurrection and the life, John 11:23
• I AM the way, the truth, and the life, John 14:6
• I AM the true vine, John 15:1