On the night in which he was arrested, Jesus identified himself by saying simply, "I am He." His adversaries were literally knocked to the ground by the astonishing weight of the statement. As fellow Jews, they knew that Jesus was powerfully asserting his divinity.

John’s Gospel climaxes in the encounter of Thomas with the risen Christ, in which the wounds in the hands and side of the resurrected Jesus evoke from Thomas the highest worship and expression of faith, “My Lord and my God!”

Additional scriptural references made in this sermon are: Acts 1: 21-22; 1 Corinthians 15:8; Ephesians 2:20; 1 John 1:1-2; John 8:19, 45-46, 58; John 12:44-45; Exodus 3:14; John 6:5.

It is indeed moving to consider the “Christmas-card images” of the Baby Jesus in a manger, but it is altogether astonishing when one begins to grasp the implications of the terrifyingly transcendent God becoming human and living among us.

Additional scriptural references made in this sermon are: 1 Corinthians 12:3; Matthew 12:40-41; Jonah 2:3-4; 1 John 1:9.

The Apostle John’s eyewitness account of the arrest of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane gives us the greatest claim, the greatest problem and the greatest mission in the history of the world.

Additional scriptural references made in this sermon are: Exodus 3:14; John 8:58; Matthew 23:33-34; Luke 10:18; Ezekiel 1:28; 2 Chronicles 5:13-14; Luke 5:8; Isaiah 6:1-5; Ephesians 6:11.