+ + before Abraham was, I AM + +
Again He said to them, "I go away, and you will seek Me and die in your sin, where I am going, you cannot come." They said, "Will He kill Himself, since He says, 'Where I am going, you cannot come?"'
He said to them, "You are from below, I am from above; you are of this world, I am not of this world. I told you that you would die in your sins, for you will die in your sins unless you believe that I am He." They said to Him, "Who are You?" Jesus said to them, "Even what I have told you from the beginning: He Who sent Me is true, and I declare to the world what I have heard from Him." They did not understand that He spoke to them of the Father.
Jesus then said to the Jews who had believed Him, "If you continue in My word, you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free." They answered him, "We are descendants of Abraham, and have never been slaves to anyone. How is it that you say, 'You will be made free'?"
Jesus answered them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. Now the slave's place in the house is not assured, but the son's place is assured. So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed. I know that you are descendants of Abraham; yet you seek to kill Me, because My word finds no place in you. I speak of what I have seen with My Father, and you do what you have heard from your father."
They answered Him, "Abraham is our father." Jesus said to them, "If you were Abraham's children, you would do what Abraham did. But now you seek to kill Me, a Man who has told you the truth which I heard from God; this is not what Abraham did. You do what your father does."
"We were not born of prostitution," they went on, "we have one Father: God." Jesus said to them, "If God were your Father, you would love Me, for I proceeded and came forth from God: I came not of My own accord, but He sent Me. Why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot bear to hear My word. You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father's desires. He has nothing to do with the truth; when he lies, he speaks according to his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies. He who is of God hears the words of God, the reason why you do not hear them is that you are not of God. Truly, truly, I say to you, if anyone keeps My word, he will never see death."
The Jews said to Him, "Abraham is dead, and the prophets are dead, and yet You say, 'If anyone keeps My word, he will never taste death.' Are You greater than our father Abraham, who is dead? Who do You claim to be?" Jesus answered, "Your father Abraham rejoiced that he was to see My day; he saw it and was glad." The Jews then said to Him, "You are not yet fifty years old, and You have seen Abraham?" Jesus said to them, Truly, Truly I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM.
So they took up stones to throw at Him; but Jesus hid Himself, and left the Temple.
+ + + The Man Born Blind + + +
Once as Jesus was going along with his disciples, they saw a man who had been born blind. The disciples asked Jesus, "Who sinned, this man or his parents, so that he was born blind?" But Jesus answered, "Neither he nor his parents sinned. He was born blind so that through him people can see how God works." Jesus then spit on the ground to make a little paste. He anointed the blind man's eyes with this, saying to him, "Go, wash in the pool of Silouan." So he went and washed and came back seeing.
The people who knew the blind man were puzzled. Some said, "It is not the same man, but only looks like him." But the man who had been blind told them himself that it was he. "Then how is it that you can see?" they asked. He told them what Jesus had done. "Where is he?" they asked, but the blind man said, "I don't know."
They showed him to the Pharisees. Now, it had been a Sabbath, the day of rest, when Jesus gave the man sight. They said, "Jesus cannot be from God, because He doesn't keep the Sabbath." But others said, "How could a sinner do such miracles?" So they argued. They asked the blind man, "What do you say about this Jesus, now that He has given you sight?" "He is a prophet," he answered.
But they would not believe that he had been blind without asking his parents. His parents did not want to get in trouble, because the Pharisees had already said that anyone who accepted Jesus as the Christ, the Messiah, would be thrown out of the Temple. So they said, "We know he is our son and we know he was born blind. We do not know how it is that he can see now, and we do not know who gave him sight. Ask him; he is old enough to speak for himself."
So the Pharisees sent for the man again. They said to him, "Do the right thing before God; we all know this Man is a sinner."
"I don't know whether He is a sinner," the man said, "all I know is that I was blind and now I see." They kept on, "What did He do to you? How did He open your eyes?' He replied, "I told you once and you wouldn't listen. Why do you want to hear it all again? Do you want to become His disciples, too?" This really stung them. "You can be His disciple," they said, "we are disciples of Moses. We know that God spoke to Moses, but we do not even know where this Man comes from." The man replied, "Now here is an astonishing thing indeed! He has opened my eyes, and you don't know where He comes from!! We know God does not listen to sinners, but He does listen to holy men who obey Him. Ever since the world began, no one ever heard that anyone opened the eyes of a man born blind. If this Man did not come from God, He couldn't do a thing." "Are you trying to teach us?" they asked, "And you a sinner through and through, since you were born?" And they drove him away.
Jesus heard about this. When He found the man, He asked him, "Do you believe in the Son of God?" "Sir," the man replied, "tell me Who He is, so that I may believe in Him." Jesus said, "You are looking at Him. He is speaking to you." The man said, "Lord, I believe," and worshipped Him.
+ THE RULERS ARGUE OVER WHO JESUS IS +
Everyone listened to Jesus preaching, and followed Him, and said how wonderful His miracles were.
The chief priests and Pharisees and other religious leaders in Israel were more and more enraged by this. "Soon," they thought, "no one will listen to us at all. We must get rid of Jesus somehow." And they began looking for a chance to take Him prisoner and have Him killed.
When the police they sent to arrest Him came back without Jesus, the chief priests and Pharisees asked them, "Why haven't you brought Him?" The police replied, "There has never been anyone who spoke like Him." "So," they asked, "has He conned you also? Do you see any of the priests or Pharisees believing Him? This rabble knows nothing about the laws of our ancestors; they are damned." One of them, Nicodemus - the one who had come to Jesus earlier - said to them, "But surely our laws do not allow us to judge a man without giving Him a hearing to find out what He is about?" They only answered, "Are you from Galilee as He is? You can read the writings of our prophets and see for yourself: prophets do not come from Galilee."
+ + + Jesus Raises Lazarus + + +
Jesus' good friend, Lazarus, lived in Bethany with his sisters, Mary and Martha. The sisters sent Jesus a note to tell Him that Lazarus whom He loved so much was sick. Jesus said, "This sickness will end, not in death, but in God's glory." He waited two more days before He went there.
When Jesus and His disciples got to Bethany, they found that Lazarus had been in the tomb four days already. Martha went to meet Jesus, and said, "If You had been here, Lord, my brother would not have died." Jesus said to her, "Your brother will rise again." But Martha did not understand that Jesus meant Lazarus would rise right away. She went and called Mary.
When Mary met Jesus, He was not far from the tomb of Lazarus. As soon as she saw Jesus, she fell down at His feet. She said, weeping, "Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died." When Jesus saw her tears, and the tears of the others who were there, He said with a deep sigh that came straight from His heart, "Where have you laid him?" And Jesus wept. Some who were there said, "See how much He loved Lazarus!" But others said, "He made a blind man see; couldn't He keep Lazarus from dying?"
Jesus moved to the tomb: a cave with a stone to close the opening. Jesus said, "Take the stone away." But Martha said to Him, "Lord, he has been in there four days already. By now he stinks." Even so, they took the stone away. Jesus lifted up His eyes and said, "Father, I thank You for hearing My prayer. I know You always hear My prayer, but I say this so these people will believe that it was You Who sent Me."
Then Jesus cried out in a mighty voice, "Lazarus, here! Come out!" The dead man came out. His feet and hands were bound with burial bands. A cloth was around his face. Jesus said to them, "Unbind him, let him go free."
Many who had seen this believed in Jesus. But some went to tell the high priests and Pharisees what Jesus had done. They called a meeting. "What are we doing about this Man?" they asked. "Soon everybody will believe Him." From that day on, they tried to kill Jesus.
It was near the time of Passover, and many people had come to Jerusalem. "What do you think?" they asked one another. "Will Jesus come here for Passover or not?" The chief priests had given orders: anyone who knew where Jesus was must tell them, so they could arrest Him.
+ + + Mary Anoints Jesus + + +
Six days before Passover, Jesus went to Bethany. They gave a dinner for him; Martha waited on them, and Lazarus was at the table. Mary brought in some sweet-smelling oil that cost a great deal of money, and poured it on Jesus' feet, and wiped them with her hair. The whole house was filled with the sweetness of the oil.
Then Judas Iscariot - one of Jesus' disciples, the man who was going to give Jesus over to the high priests and Pharisees - said, "Why didn't she sell that oil for good money, and give the money to the poor?" But he did not say this because he cared about the poor. He was a thief, and would like to have the money himself. Jesus said, "Leave her alone; she did this for My death and burial. You will always have the poor, but you will not always have Me." He said this because this was a kind of oil they used when burying the dead.
+ + + The Entry into Jerusalem + + +
Jesus rode into Jerusalem for the Passover on a young donkey. Crowds of people came out to meet Him. They spread cloaks and greenery in the road. They waved branches of palms. They shouted and sang, "Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is He Who comes in the Name of the Lord! Hosanna! "
All who had been with Him when He called Lazarus out of the tomb had been telling about this. Many people in the crowd came to see Jesus because they had heard of it. The leaders in Israel said to one another, "You see, there is nothing you can do. Look! The whole world is running after Him!"
They said to Jesus, "Tell Your followers to be quiet!" "If they were silent, the stones would cry out," Jesus said. All Jerusalem was in a stir. "Who is it?" people would ask. And the crowds around them answered, "This is Jesus, the Prophet from Nazareth."
Jesus Drives the Merchants from the Temple
In the Temple, Jesus found money changers and merchants selling doves and sheep and oxen. So he made a kind of whip out of cords, and drove them all out helter-skelter, with their sheep and oxen, spilling the bankers' coins and turning their tables over. "It is written," He said," ' My house is a house of prayer,' but you have made it a den of thieves." And He taught in the Temple daily.
+ + + A PROPHETIC PARABLE + + +
One day when the chief priests and other leaders were around him, Jesus told them a parable. "There was a man who owned some land. He planted grape vines on it. Then he fenced it around and rented it to tenants and went abroad. When time came for the wine vintage, he sent his servants to the tenants for the wine. But the tenants seized his servants; they thrashed one, killed another, and stoned a third. Next he sent more servants, quite a few more, and the tenants treated them the same way. Finally he sent his only son, whom he loved. 'They will respect my only son whom I love dearly,' he said. But when the tenants saw the son they said, 'This is his only son, so let's kill him and we can get his inheritance.' They seized him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. Now when the owner comes, what will he do to those tenants?" They answered, "He will bring those wretches to a wretched end, and rent the vineyard to others who will give him the wine at vintage time." Jesus said to them, "I tell you, the Kingdom of God will be taken from you and given to a people in whom it will bear fruit."
The chief priests and other leaders understood that the parable was about themselves.
They wanted more and more to get rid of Him, but they could not find any means to do it, because all the people hung on His words.
They had a special meeting to plot how to arrest Jesus by some trick and have Him killed.
"We cannot arrest Him by day. There are always crowds of people around Him. They love Him and will do anything for Him. The only way is to catch Him secretly."
+ Judas Joins the Plot against Jesus +
It was Judas Iscariot, one of the twelve apostles, who betrayed Him at last. He asked the chief priests what they would pay him to lead them to Jesus. "Thirty pieces of silver," they said.
Judas took the silver and waited for his chance.
|
