Easter 5 (Fr. Fred)

​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.