​Forrest Gump dies and goes to heaven. He’s at the Pearly Gates, met by St Peter himself. St Peter says, "Well Forrest, it's good to see you. Before you come in, I’d like you to answer three questions.

1) What days in the week begin with the letter T?

That is an easy one. That’s 2. That'd be Today and Tomorrow."

"Forrest that's not what I was thinking... but I’ll give you credit for that answer. How many seconds in a year?"

"Now that’s harder!" says Forrest, "but I guess the only answer could be twelve."

St Peter says, "Twelve? Forrest, how could you come up with twelve seconds in a year?"

"There's gotta be twelve," he said, "January 2nd, February 2nd, March second."

"Hold it," interrupts St Peter, "I see where you are going with this, and I'll have to give you credit for that one too. Lets go on with the last and final question. Can you tell me God's first name?"

"Sure," Forrest replied, "It's Andy."

"OK, I can understand how you came up with your answers to the first two questions, but just how in the world did you come up with the name of Andy?"

"That was the easiest one of all," Forrest replied.

"ANDY WALKS WITH ME,
ANDY TALKS WITH ME,
ANDY TELLS ME I AM HIS OWN."

St Peter opens the Pearly Gates and says, "Come on in, Forrest!”

     That third question is an interesting one. You might think that if a culture has a lot of different names for God that it must be serious about religion. We certainly have a lot of different names for God in the English language: First of all, there is the name God. What are some others? Higher power. Divinity. Deity. Heavenly Father. The Almighty. The Immortal One. Lord. Savior. Creator. Redeemer.

     The Hebrews, those who gave us the Old Testament, had many names for God.
The most basic was El (Powerful).
Elohim (Fullness of Deity).
El Shaddai (the One of the Mountains),
El Elyon (Exalted One),
El Olam (the Everlasting One),
El Bethel (the God revealed in the shrine Bethel),
El Roi (God who sees me),
El Berith (God of the Covenant). 
Adonai (Lord).

Parenthetically, El was a part of a good many human names and still is today.
Israel (One who struggles with God).
Elijah (Jehovah is my God). 
Daniel (God is my Judge),
Michael (he who is like God).
Gabriel (God is my strength).
Ariel (Lion of God). 
Eliana (My God has answered).
Bethel (House of God).

     But let’s get back to the names for God.  With all of the various designations for God in Old Testament times, none of those that I’ve mentioned is a personal name for God.  It’s like, if I met you for the first time and you asked my name, and I say, “Well, I’m a person, I’m a human being. I’m a husband, father, and grandfather.  I’m a Champaignite, I’m in an Illini.  I’m a Buckeye. I’m a priest.”  But I haven’t given you my name. And in not giving you my name, I have withheld a very important part of who I am.

     You remember that God appeared to Moses in the burning bush that was not consumed. God told Moses that he had chosen him to deliver the Hebrew people from their bondage in Egypt and return them to the promised land, to Israel. Moses was shaken up by that revelation, and wanted to make sure he got all of the details. Among them, he asked God, “Who am I to tell them told me this? What’s your name?“

God said, “Tell them ‘I am who I am sent you.’”

     And what does his name sound like? It is spelled YHWH. There are no vowels in his name because there are no vowels in the Hebrew alphabet. Because there are no vowels, we don’t know exactly what his name sounds like. In all of the scriptures there are no vowels, but we know what the words sound like because of oral tradition. 


    “Well, then, what’s the problem?” you ask. The problem, is that these words were spoken by God in the 13th century BC, they were written down sometime thereafter, but in the fifth century BC — that’s some 2500 years ago — it became a commonly accepted belief that God‘s name was too holy to say aloud. So in the text, when a reader came to God‘s name, wherever it was found in scripture, the reader would substitute one of the other names for God, Elohim or El Shaddai or Adonai for example, and so it continues to this very day. The consonants are YHWH.

     Many of our Bible English translations recognize the sacredness of God‘s name so they don’t even put it in print. They substitute the word LORD for God‘s name. If you come to the word Lord in your English Bible and it’s spelled in the normal way, then it’s just a translation of the word Lord. But if you come to the word LORD in your English translation and it’s in all capital letters, you have stumbled upon a part of the text that was not translated literally but the word Lord was substituted for the holy name of God. Look at the psalm from this morning. See that the word LORD when it appears is all in capital letters. That means in the Hebrew text it was the word YHWH. 

     Well, I may have taken you into the weeds for a while, but I do have a reason for that. When we get to today’s Gospel, our Lord Jesus says, “I am the vine, and you are the branches.” This is one of seven such statements by Jesus. “I am the bread of life…, I am the light of the world…, I am the Gate…, I am the resurrection and the life…, I am the good Shepherd…, I am the way, the truth, and the life, and I am the vine.

     In each of these statements, Jesus is saying, I am God, for he uses God‘s name first of all, and then he gives something of the essence of who he is along with that. 
So my first point in telling you all of this is that this among other aspects of Jesus’s teaching reveal that Jesus is God and that he told his disciples that in various ways and at various times.

     Some people say, “Well, I can believe that Jesus was a great man and a great teacher, but I can’t go so far as to say, I believe that he is God.“  This is what CS Lewis says about someone who says that:

     “You must make your choice: either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon; or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”

     In saying, “I am the true vine,” Jesus was saying if you want to have life, you have to be connected to the source of life. All of the other connections which seem so important pale in comparison—family, friends, nation, even humanity—our connections are meaningless without the one connection that is true life itself: our relationship with Jesus, who is God.

     Do you want to have meeting in your life? Strengthen your relationship with Jesus, who is the true vine.
 
 

​     We are in my favorite season of the year, Easter, the season of resurrection.  This season lasts 50 days, beginning with Easter day and ending on the fiftieth day, Pentecost.  Each Sunday during this season the Gospel focuses of a different aspect of the resurrection.  The first Sunday, Easter Day, we heard about the empty tomb.
    
     One such Easter Day a young priest used the tomb of Jesus to drive home a point about contemporary burial practices.  He said, “People waste many thousands of dollars on ornate coffins, fancy mausoleums, and monuments to their dead bodies.”  The young priest continued, “Jesus was so unconcerned by death that he had to use a borrowed tomb.”  From the back of the church a voice said, “Father, he only needed it for three days.”
 
    That’s the message of the account of the empty tomb.  Jesus only needed it for three days.  After that, the tomb was empty, and no matter how hard skeptics try to explain away and demythologize the resurrection, they find it very difficult to explain away the significance of the empty tomb.
 
     The Second Sunday of Easter, last Sunday, we heard the account of the risen Christ appearing to the disciples in a room where the doors were locked.  In this incident we gain some insight into the nature of Jesus’ resurrected body.  They could see him.  He could be touched.  He could breathe on them.  They could even see the print of the nails and the pierce in his side.  It was his body all right, but he could appear and disappear at will.  St. John the Evangelist also makes clear that the doubter among the disciples would settle for nothing less than physical evidence in coming to belief in the resurrection.
 
     Thus, on the first two Sundays of Easter, we hear about two classic pieces of evidence for the resurrection.  Today, the Third Sunday of Easter, we hear once again another argument for the truth of the resurrection.  St. Luke tells us about that same experience that the disciples had in the locked room where Jesus stood among them.  Like John, Luke reports a Jesus who has been physically raised from the dead.  But he doesn’t leave his story at that.  He points out that the risen Jesus tells his disciples how his resurrection had been foretold in Scripture and was a fulfillment of Messianic prophecy.
 
     An empty tomb, hundreds of witnesses, and fulfillment of Scripture—these accounts and arguments are set forth for the Church’s hearing year after year during Easter.  Make no mistake about it—our faith rests on the bodily resurrection of Jesus from the dead.
 
     There have been skeptics from the beginning, even in the Church.  St. Thomas was the first, although when he did see the risen Christ he made one of the greatest statements of faith ever made.  In response to seeing Jesus he exclaimed, “My Lord and my God.”  Read the 15th chapter of the First Letter of Paul to the Church at Corinth to find out about Christians in that church who did not believe in the resurrection.  In our own day, especially at this time of year, the media take great delight in Christians who doubt the resurrection of our Lord.  Articles appear in magazines and newspapers about biblical scholars and even clergy who state a lack of belief in the resurrection.  Such skepticism has always existed and will continue to exist until the end of time, I suspect.
 
     I believe in the bodily resurrection of Jesus because that clearly is the witness of Scripture.  That is the witness of the Church through the ages.  I believe in the resurrection because I don’t think those first disciples would have been on fire for the proclamation of the Gospel after Jesus’ death except for the resurrection.  The crucifixion was a defeat of all of their hopes in Jesus.  It was only after the risen Jesus’ appearance that they knew he had not been defeated.  They believed it so strongly that they were willing to suffer and die for him.  I don’t believe they would have been willing to do so for a metaphor. 
 
     But most of all, I believe in the resurrection because I know the resurrected Christ in my own life, and in the lives of others.  We have not had the experience of the physical presence of the risen Christ with us.  Since the coming of the Holy Spirit, we have had his spiritual Presence. Yet that presence is the most powerful, truest reality in this life.  In other words, I experience the presence of the risen Christ as I live in community with the members of his Body.  People living according to their faith in a culture that is faithless; integrity in the midst of hypocrisy; charity in a society that is self-serving; people leading Christ-centered lives when it would be much easier, and more natural, and more generally accepted to lead self-centered lives—these things are what ring true, and bear witness to the reality of the resurrection in our own day. 
 
     May God grant each of us the grace to live as we believe and truly to witness to the reality of the resurrection in our lives each day.