When Jesus Christ says, “Before Abraham was, I am” (John 8:58 NIV), he makes an enormous theological claim in a five word phrase. His hearers must have been scratching their heads at first. The normal expression would have been, “Before Abraham was, I was.” But Jesus switched tense. And after a few moments, they realise that what he meant was 'Abraham came to be. But I simply AM.' Maybe a couple more seconds elapse and they realise it goes further than that. I am the I AM! As soon as that sinks in, several in the crowd start to shout, to protest, then one picks up a stone and throws it. The mood turns nasty. They could not bear the idea that this man could be Almighty God. They regarded his words as blasphemy. But are we so different? Do we allow Jesus Christ, his words, his works, to define God. Or do we take what we know about Jesus and somehow try to squeeze Him into the previous understandings of God as evidenced in the Hebrew scriptures?

You may have spotted that we rarely use the name of God in our worship, or in our prayers. I think we avoid the use of Jehovah, because of it's reminders of the cult of Jehovah's Witnesses. The word Jehovah or Yahweh is simply an English way of saying the four letter word which theologists call the tetragrammaton - JHVH or YHWH. But neither is a helpful name. Because God reveals himself as I AM. And JHVH in Hebrew script is the ancient word for HE-IS. God revealed himself to the Hebrews as I AM and thereafter, they referred to him as HE-IS. So whenever any one of those Israelites referred to their god, they said not merely his name, but confessed that HE-IS the I AM — the One who is the original, uncaused, essence of existence. Perhaps in scripture we never should have replaced JHVH with LORD, but instead used I AM. Otherwise we have lost the impact of that revelation.

The I AM is the one whose BEING creates the possibility of the existence of everything else.

And astonishingly, this One wants to reveal his nature, his character to you. The Old Testament records how He did this time and again for men, women and children. But the Old Testament context limited how He was understood. People encountered I AM through actions (rescuing, judging, providing) and covenant roles (shepherd, warrior, king). These were real, but always partial, because they were filtered through human perception, historical circumstance, and Israel’s own evolving perception of God.

The revelations of I AM to those early Hebrews was perfect, but they could only perceive them and record them in an incomplete way, and often misinterpreted. Limited in scope, cluttered by circumstance, and twisted by cultural expectation. How could it ever be otherwise? The cosmic, immortal, perfect essence of the existence of all time and space and every miraculous lifeform ever conceived? The origin of quantum particle physics, of romance between lovers, of the mysterious hydrogen bonds that constitute water, of the purity of mathematics, of the hundred trillion galaxies each containing a hundred trillion stars, of the tiny hand of the newborn child. And we read that record having passed through the understanding of the world of two millenia ago, then translated again into our post-enlightenment scientific framework. Astonishing but true then that I AM still reveals himself primarily through that record of his revelation of thousands of years ago. This is why reading scripture is so important. Israel, in their day, could see God’s acts, but they struggled to grasp His heart. They knew that "I AM provides" - YHWH-Jireh, but still regarded Him as capricious and selective. They knew "I AM heals" - YHWH-Rapha, but still believed suffering should be understood as divine punishment. They knew "I AM leads the army" - YHWH-Tseva’ot, but did not understand his non-violent method of winning battles. Throughout history, the I AM has taken pagan human practices - sacrifice, circumcision, slavery, tribal loyalty, warfare, judgement - and stripped away the cruelty and misconception until their pure meaning stands revealed. This is why the prophets often say things like, "For I desire mercy, not sacrifice" (Hosea 6:6) — God’s character was being progressively clarified. But there is a limit how far prophets and scriptures can reveal him.

To declutter and untwist people's understanding. So he says to the crowd, "Before Abraham was, I AM". But the moment they grasp that huge all-encompassing claim to divinity, they try to kill him. And every time Jesus says any of the "I AM" sayings, He is deliberately stepping into the divine self-revelation first spoken at the burning bush. But now, something radical happens. Because these are not disembodied words, or flashes of lightning, or thunder, or a blinding glow of light. This is a man, living, walking, acting, humbly self-giving - the I-Am-who-I-Am in flesh and blood.

Life gets more complicated every year. Paying the electricity bill used to mean posting a cheque to the same board you’d known for decades. You even knew the address by heart. No stamp—just write "OHMS" and off it went. Now? You can’t even find a bank, let alone deal with one. Services shrink, fees grow, and if you try to return something you bought online—good luck. Is it Royal Mail, Evri, Amazon? Do you need a label? A stamp? A map? Life used to be simple. Now it feels like a full-time job just staying alive. Then comes the guilt. We remember these are first-world problems, while much of the world faces far worse. So we heap guilt on top of confusion. We’re supposed to be Kingdom people, bringing light into darkness—but half the time we’ve no idea how to do any good at all. It's like climbing a mountain.

You might recall this scene. Two men stand on a mountainside. Father and son. Isaac is tied up, Abraham picks up the knife, God tells Abraham to put down the knife, and provides a ram tangled in the thorny bush. Abraham names the place - The I AM sees my need. The I AM provides for me. - YHWH-Jireh. Abraham has just a tiny glimpse of God's character - that he cares for us and that he can be trusted. Jesus fulfills this name - he says - I AM-THE-BREAD-OF-LIFE (John 6:35) We move on and come across Moses, fearful, uncertain, in deep discussion with God. Moses must go to the authoritarian dictator Pharaoh and say 'let my people go'. He wants some backup! God says 'Tell him I AM WHO I AM sent me' Now this is the first indication of the beyond-cosmic scale of God. No words, no actions can define him. The only true definition of God is God himself. The only way to understand God is to know him personally, relationally, rather than out of a book academically. Because no words suffice. We walk on a little further and spot a lad looking after sheep. He's singing to himself. It's a song we know - The LORD-IS-MY-SHEPHERD , I'll not want ... Only he doesn't sing "LORD"... He sings I AM is my shepherd - YHWH-Ra’ah - and he's following a tradition that's established generations ago - that God cares and provides and relates to us as a shepherd to his sheep. And David grew to be an adult, and made mistakes, and disappointed himself, and deliberately crossed the line, and frantically justified it to himself.

Just like you and I actually.

Ultimately what David, and you and I need is not only daily bread, but more importantly, someone to carry away our failure, our waywardness and take it away! Sometimes we feel out of sorts with God, and need someone to bring forgiveness and to reconcile us back to God. Sometimes we feel the struggle is killing us and we need someone to give us new life! And here is how I AM provides - "God so loved the world that He gave His only Son" (John 3:16). So Jesus says - " I AM-THE-GOOD-SHEPHERD " (John10:11-14) and often described the work that he was doing in terms of the shepherd and the sheep. And his life demonstrates how I AM fulfills the role of shepherd.

When the nation of Israel finally escapes the clutches of Egypt, they flee into the desert. After three days they are thirsty, and the only water available is tainted. Some drink bad water, and get sick. In response to their distress, God heals them and also cleans the water. And they name the place I AM makes us whole. - YHWH Rapha – (Exodus 15:26) But this goes far beyond individual bodily sickness. Rapha refers to physical, emotional, mental and spiritual healing for the individual. Psalm 147:3 — "He heals the brokenhearted". More than that, this wholeness is offered to the entire society, the whole corporate nation. "I will heal their land" he says. (2 Chronicles 7:14) The Hebrew word yesha and the Greek sōzō both mean to save, to deliver, to heal, to make whole. Jesus never said "I AM the one who heals you", but his very name Yeshua actually means I AM makes you whole. Little wonder the whole country came running to him once they saw how he made them whole. The blind see, the lame walk, the insane are brought to their right mind, the oppressed are released, the marginalised accepted, the poor honoured, the sinner forgiven. Wholeness for bodies, minds and spirits. But those people who he healed still got old, and eventually passed away. So it's encouraging to know that one day, Jesus' healing will go far beyond what even his contemporaries saw. The day will certainly come when all the doctors and medical tech in the world won't save me. And my body will be in the grave. Locked in death. But just as certain will come the day when the key rattles in the door, and it swings open, and I will come awake. And the first person that I will see will not be my grandma, or my parents. It will be him who holds the keys of death and the grave. The one who said, "I AM the resurrection and the life" (John 15), and I'll step out - totally healed.

All too often, what hurts us most is those struggles in our relationships with others. Complex situations not easily resolved, disagreements not easily ignored, situations too complicated for us to untangle. I want to take you to a battle! The children of Israel are fighting their long-standing enemy, the Amalekites. The children of Israel are descended from Jacob. The Amalekites are descended from Esau via Edom. The way the Old Testament tells the story, Amalek was a grandson of Esau (a.k.a. Edom). Hence the Amalekites were direct descendents of Abraham and Isaac. But while scripture records that God instructed Israel not to despise Edomites because they are "brothers" nevertheless, their antagonism to Israel estranged them. Hence the battle. And now they're actually fighting. And Moses is sat on a hill in full view of the battle, holding up a long stick. It's the stick with which Moses hit the water, divided the Nile river. The stick which he used to whack the rock and release water in the desert for the thirsty nation. And as Moses holds it up, the soldiers get motivated and fight harder. And whenever Moses' arm's ache and the stick drops down a bit, the army loses hope. It's performing the same function as a flag on the battlefield. So a couple of people help Moses to keep the stick aloft. They win the battle, and Moses names the place - I AM IS MY BANNER - my rallying point, my flag, if you like. YHWH-Nissi Now Jesus comes to clarify what we are supposed to learn from this, when we are faced with battles. He knows the story of Moses lifting up the banner, winning the battle, and calling the place YHWH-Nissi. So what is Jesus’ fulfillment of this name YHWH-Nissi. What is the battle? And what is the banner of God's victory? What gets lifted up, which enables us to carry on? Jesus' battle was against sin - that is what he came to save us from. Our tendency to fail, to give up, to make the wrong choices, all deriving from our self oriented egos. So he says, "And I, when I AM lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself." (John 12:32) The greatest battle of all makes it crystal clear that essence of triumphant power is a self-giving willingness to die for others. And in our relationship struggles, we must look to that banner.

Jesus wants his hearers to understand that this is how God wins battles.

The self giving, the humility, the dying of the cross is not some special role or character that Jesus temporarily steps into, any more than is the washing of his friend's feet. This is who the I AM always was and is. This one, who while being the essence of all life, is only ever and always giving up that life for others. How far have we humans travelled away from God! This is why Jesus says I AM-THE-WAY, I AM-THE-TRUTH. (John 14:6) Jesus bluntly corrected Israel's thinking about how enemies should be treated in his mountain sermon. Love your enemy. But Israel misunderstood (and sadly still misunderstand) how to treat their enemies. As do many Christians. And perhaps we still misunderstand how to treat each other. This is how God wins the relationship battles, and I need to learn to do battle like that, and maybe you do too.

So let me just pick a few more to leave with you. YHWH-Shalom. I AM peace – Which God said to Gideon in Judges 6:24. YHWH-Ori. I AM light YHWH-Yishi. I AM rescue YHWH-Maoz. I AM your safe place- Which David understood from his relationship with the great I AM YHWH-Tsidkenu. I AM righteousness - which Jeremiah learned. May our understanding of God from now on be shaped by our personal relationship with Jesus Christ - the I-AM-WHO-I-AM, rather than through what other people have told us.