Jesus is talking to his Jewish opponents once again, this time at the Festival of Dedication. They ask him if he is the Messiah, so he tells them that he and the father are one, which is basically saying, "yes, I am."
So what do they do? Do they drop to their knees and worship Jesus because he is God? That would make sense.
No, they do what they do best, they start picking up rocks so that they can stone him. They tell Jesus that he is being stoned for blasphemy, "because you, a mere man, claim to be God." (Verse 33)
It's hard to blame them for not believing Jesus, I'm not sure what I would say if some guy told me he was God. I don't think I'd stone him, but I'd probably laugh at him or think he was crazy.
Truth is, if you read the gospels and the things Jesus said, he has to be one of two things... Totally crazy or the Messiah. Jesus is either just a mere man that claimed to be God, or he is God, who chose to became a mere man.
Why would God choose to become a mere man? Why would the creator enter creation?
The first chapter of John tells us that Jesus and the Father created the world together. They made the earth what it is, they made animals and then they made humans in their own image. These humans were the pinnacle of creation, they were created with the capacity to love and be loved. They were created to be in relationship with each other, and with God.
But humans decided that they wanted to be like God, they wanted to know what God knows and they wanted to make the rules, so they sinned. The creation that God made perfect was now full of suffering and pain... It still is.
So God came to re-create it through love. To do that, God had to know our suffering and pain, so he became one of us and suffered the ultimate pain. Every day since then people have been re-created, one person at a time, one heart at a time.
It doesn't mean we won't feel suffering and pain in this life, it just means that the suffering and pain doesn't win... love does.
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