Jesus said to them, “Amen, amen, I say to you,
before Abraham came to be, I AM.”
What’s in a name? More than we would suspect. I think all of us know from our own personal experience how important our own name is. Our parents invariably expended a great deal of loving thought in giving us the name that we bear and cherish. A name not only identifies us as a unique individual but it ties it generationally to those ancestors who have preceded us.
It is no wonder, then, that we understandably respect those who value the importance of our name to remember it and honor it. We are far more responsive to folks who call us by name rather than the ‘hey you’ that we sometimes hear. It is a sign of respect for the inherent dignity that we bear as a person to remember and call another by name.
In God’s Holy Word today, the Lord calls Abram by name. So important was this call and the mission that he was to entrust him, that the Lord would change his name to “Abraham,” which means, the father of many nations. The Lord called him to a unique and irrevocable covenant or bond that continues to this day with his descendants, the Jewish people.
Jesus startles his contemporaries while honoring the great Patriarch, Abraham, startlingly proclaims to his hearers that before Abraham came to be, I AM. Jesus once again uses the sacred name of God to refer to himself – I AM. For those unwilling to accept the Word made flesh, such an assertion was utter blasphemy. But for those who are enlightened by faith, they are promised to never see death.
In these challenging times, despair gives way to hope in the great I AM who is there to love us into eternity.