Bible Text: John 8:42-59 | Preacher: Pastor Christian Preus
They call Jesus a Samaritan and say He has a demon. Jesus doesn’t respond to the insult. He says nothing at all about NOT being a Samaritan. Instead Jesus defends His Father and His Word. And this is a lesson for us. We want to defend ourselves, our reputations, when we are insulted. It’s our first instinct, and it shows us our own inborn selfishness. What gets me more upset? That someone mocked God or slandered His Word? Or that they insulted me? I have been part of and witnessed many teenage and grown-up arguments, where in the end, no one really knows what they’re arguing about, they’re just arguing for their own pride, their own right to say, I’m right. And this is the kind of argument Jesus absolutely refuses to get into. He doesn’t respond to insult. He defends God’s Word.
Our care for our own reputations is not a bad thing. It’s one of the things we ask for in the Lord’s Prayer, when we ask for daily bread. You can’t provide for yourself or others if you’re reputation is destroyed. No one will hire you and life with others will be impossible, if no one trusts you because your reputation has been slandered. Your reputation is a gift from God, and just as you would defend your house or your spouse from danger, you should protect your reputation.
There is the example of Pastor Walther, who was the founder of our LCMS. He sued someone for 50,000 dollars (which according to Google is $1,212, 484.73 today – a lot of money) because the man had publicly accused him of nasty sins, which would ruin his reputation and make it impossible for him to be a pastor or a father or a husband. Normally, Christians don’t sue anyone, and God strictly forbids us from suing other Christians. If we have a complaint against another Christian, we deal with it in the church. And if it has to do with money, we’d be better off losing our wealth than bringing shame to the name of our God by airing Christians’ dirty laundry in front of the world in court. Our riches are found in the church, not in the bank. We shouldn’t value money so much and we shouldn’t want to take vengeance against those who sin against us. We live by mercy. But Pastor Walther was right to sue, because his reputation as a Christian father and husband and pastor was at stake. And that meant God’s reputation was at stake. And happily the man apologized publicly and the case never went to trial. A reputation is worth defending.
But the whole point is for us to identify our reputation with God’s reputation. We are His children. The reason we should care about what people think about us is only because we care what they think about our Father. This is what we pray in the Lord’s Prayer, “Hallowed be Thy name.” “How is God’s name kept holy? God’s name is kept holy when the Word of God is taught in its truth and purity, and we, as the children of God, also lead holy lives according to it.” We defend our reputations only to defend God’s, because we bear His name, and that is our treasure, our boast, and our life.
But you don’t need to defend your pride. In fact, Jesus says you are blessed if you are insulted for His sake, “Blessed are you when they revile you and persecute you and say all kinds of evil against you for My sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven.”
If the enemies of God insult us and call us bigots for insisting that marriage is between one man and one woman for life, our response is not to be offended that anyone would call us names. The insult isn’t worth responding to. But the content is – you double down, you hallow God’s name. God created them male and female. What God has joined together, let not man put asunder. You aren’t defending yourself, you’re defending God and His creation. If the pseudo-intellectual insults you, calls you uneducated or stupid for believing the Bible is true and without any error, you say you’d rather be a fool with God than wise with the world. Jesus said, “The Scripture cannot be broken” and Jesus rose from the dead. Take it up with Him. We simply keep His Word because it gives life to our souls. If they call you hateful or unloving for insisting that Jesus is the only way to the Father, that all other religions are false, then you don’t defend yourself, you defend the Gospel, that God is love, and that love is found in His Son, who loved the entire world of sinners by taking their human nature into His Person and bearing their sin and suffering and dying to win them life with God.
Our first instinct needs to become defending God’s Word, because God’s Word, in the end, is what defends us. Who are we? We’re Christians. We belong to Jesus. First and foremost. This is why Jesus says, “Whoever keeps my Word, he will by no means see death ever.” The word “keep” there means “guard,” “cling to,” “hold on to and not let go.” We guard Jesus’ Word as our dearest treasure, because it is what establishes our reputation with God Himself. So Paul asks the question, “Who can bring any charge against God’s elect? It is Christ who died, who furthermore is risen.” No insult, no charge, lands on those who cling to the crucified and risen One.
That’s why it’s beautiful to see Jesus defending Himself. He doesn’t respond to insult, but He defends Himself and His reputation. And when He does it, He’s defending His Father and He’s defending you.
He says, “Which of you convicts me of sin?” Can we say this? Can we defend ourselves like this?
No one can convict Him of sin. He made Himself like us in every way, but without sin. Just think of how comforting this is. He did all things well. He spoke nothing but the truth. And He is ours. If no one can convict Him of sin, then no one can convict us of sin, not because we’re sinless in ourselves, but because He’s ours. God is ours. He wears our flesh. He lived for us. He died for us. He bore our sins away. He sought us out and convinced us that He alone is our God and that we are His children, He adopted us in Christ through our Baptism to be holy and blameless before Him forever.
If the question is whether we are sinners, we don’t defend ourselves, we don’t say, “who can convict me of sin?” as if our houses are so clean and our lives so amazing, no, our confidence isn’t in ourselves, it’s outside ourselves, our boast is in the truth that comes from Jesus and is bought by His blood, in the One who could and did say, “Who can convict Me of sin?” and no one could, not even Pilate who crucified Him. He said, “I find no fault in this man.” He washed his hands of it. Our Jesus is innocent. And He died in our place. So that those who keep His word will never see death.
That’s our boast. And Jesus defends Himself to give us this boast. I do not have a demon, Jesus says, but I honor my Father, and you dishonor me. He defends Himself. Because if He doesn’t defend Himself, He dishonors His Father, and all is lost and we have nothing. We need a perfect Savior. When the devil insults us, when he uses God’s own Law to mock us and prove that we are sinners who deserve God’s punishment, when the insult lands, because it’s true, we have no need to defend ourselves, but we need our defender, Jesus.
The Christian confession, the truth that sets us free, the Word that if we keep we will never see death, is not, “I believe in God.” The Jews said that to Jesus. The Muslim says it now. The generic “religious” American says it without any thought of Jesus or His blood or His resurrection. How many times have you heard someone say, “I believe in God, but I don’t believe in organized religion?” Well, here you have Jesus organizing religion. God forbid that we ever say, “I believe in God,” without thinking of the Father sending His Son to take our place. True religion is not simply that you confess God exists (the demons do that and shudder, St. James says). It is that you cling to Jesus, His only Son our Lord, and find in Him the only way to God. Because God isn’t a thought, He’s not an idea, not simply a logical necessity, not a feeling I have, not a panacea for my comfort, He’s concrete, He entered our history, He has done marvelous things, He has a name, and it is Jesus.
Jesus says, “Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it, and was glad.” They answer and say, “How? Abraham died 2000 years ago. You’re not even 50 years old, Jesus, and have you seen Abraham?” Again an insult. Mockery. And again Jesus responds by speaking the truth, which is for Him and for us, to speak of Him. “Amen, Amen, I say to you, Before Abraham was, I AM.”
That is the greatest grammatical error in the Bible. It should say, “Before Abraham was, I was.” Jesus says, “Before Abraham was, I AM,” because “I AM,” is the name of God, YHWH, revealed to Moses in the burning bush: I AM WHO I AM.
How did Abraham see Jesus’ day? He saw it when his only son, Isaac, was sentenced to death by God, and then God spared him, and God provided a ram to be offered in his place. Abraham saw in picture, with God sparing his son, what God would do for the whole world. He would spare us, have mercy on us, who were doomed to death, take our death on Himself, by sending His only Son, to be the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.
That is our reputation. That is what we defend. It’s wrong to be stubborn in defense of ourselves and our pride. Wrong to care so much about our own reputations that we would tear down the reputation of another. But we should be stubborn when it comes to God’s Word. This is a divine stubbornness, inspired by Jesus’ own Spirit. We should care so much about our Lord Jesus’ Word that we would tear down any argument, any sin in our life, anything that would challenge Him in our lives. Christ-crucified is His honor and our glory, our peace, our joy, our comfort, our reputation before God, and on the last day our reputation before the world, that we trusted in the King of Life, and this is what gives us a life worth living, which will not end, will never see death, but will bring us finally to see our God robed in our human flesh welcoming us into the joys of His heaven. Let us pray:
Jesus may our hearts be burning with more fervent love for Thee
May our eyes be ever turning to Thy cross of agony,
Till in glory, parted never, from the blessed Savior’s side,
Graven in our hearts forever, dwell the cross the crucified. Amen.