"Father Abraham" John 8:31-57

There's a children's song I learned that sings:

"Father Abraham had many kids, and many kids had father Abraham. I am one of them and so are you. So let's just praise the Lord."

Then you sang it swinging your right arm, then left arm, then right and left, then add left leg, then right leg, then left and right leg (now you're marching), add nodding head, then turn around in circles. You get the picture. When I taught this to children's choirs (and the kids were extra hyper), I would add verses after "turn around". When the congregation said goodbye to me as their music director, they did a roast with puppets. The puppets said, "Let's sing our favorite song" and then turned around in circles to "Father Abraham" until they fell down. I don't remember doing that literally to the kids, but I was tempted.

In these verses from John 8, a major controversy erupts over who really are children of Abraham. The problem is in one of my favorite verses of Jesus, "You shall know the truth and the truth shall see you free." As Jews, they never acknowledged to be slaves to anyone, not the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Persians, or the Romans. It didn't matter if their land was occupied or not. They were no one's slaves, because they were the chosen people of God. Jesus didn't have a quarrel with that. His quarrel was that their sense of freedom was based more on heritage and tradition than in true faith and righteous practice. Their rejection of him and their plot to take his life was inconsistent with who they said they were.

Then the argument becomes more intense as they accuse Jesus of calling them "illegitimate children". They are "children of God." Jesus pushes it further saying their attitudes and behavior (their rejection) showed they were not God's children. They call him "Samaritan" and "demon-possessed." But Jesus responds by tell them in verse 51 that if anybody keeps His word, they won't see death. The final straw is when Jesus claims to know Abraham and even claimed to exist before he did - "Before Abraham was born, I am." The use of "I am" in this way links him with the God of the burning bush who named Himself, "I Am that I Am." The key religious charge against Jesus was one of blasphemy - for claiming to be the Son of God. This argument would have been one of the items use to substantiate that charge.

Of course, what his opponents missed was that Jesus was talking about freedom of a different kind, a spiritual freedom that liberates the mind, heart, soul and relationships of an individual. It was freedom from the inside out. All along, people wanted Jesus to be the champion of an outward freedom, and to those he was a disappointment. But for those who allowed that inside-out freedom to enter their lives, nothing was the same. As Jesus said in John 8:36:

"If the Son set you free, you will be free indeed."

I like to call this my "Declaration of Dependence." How about you?