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Jesus said to the people, "I am the light of the
world. If you follow me, you won't be stumbling through the darkness, because
you will have the light that leads to life." The Pharisees replied,
"You are making false claims about yourself!" Jesus told them,
"These claims are valid even though I make them about myself. For I know
where I came from and where I am going, but you don't know this about me. You
judge me with all your human limitations, but I am not judging anyone. And if I
did, my judgment would be correct in every respect because I am not alone, I
have with me the Father who sent me. Your own law says that if two people agree
about something, their witness is accepted as fact. I am one witness, and my
Father who sent me is the other." "Where is your father?" they
asked. Jesus answered, "Since you don't know who I am, you don't know who
my Father is. If you knew me, then you would know my Father, too." (John
8:12-19 NLV). Did
you see the story in the news this week about the exhumation of Billy the
Kid’s body to do DNA testing? There are many stories about the death of Billy
the Kid, with the prevailing history saying that Billy was gunned down by one
the state’s most famous Wild West lawmen, Sheriff Pat Garrett. There are
others who say the Kid fled to England and died of old age, while another story
has the gunslinger dying in Hico, Texas at the age of 90. Tom Sullivan, a
sheriff in Lincoln County, New Mexico earlier this month opened case number
2003-274, in which his office, with the cooperation of the state of New Mexico,
will use 21st century technology to hopefully put to rest questions about what
actually happened at shoot-outs in 1881. Sheriff Sullivan says that DNA testing
can prove where the body of the real Billy the Kid rests and that Sheriff Pat
Garrett shot him dead on July 14, 1881 in a house in Fort Sumner, New Mexico. It
will be interesting to follow this story to see the outcome. As I read more about it though, I began to think about knowing Jesus. That thought brought me to our reading this morning. Jesus explained to the people in His day that if they knew Him they would know the Father. Isn’t it strange that we place so many different definitions around the concept of “knowing” someone or something? When they test the DNA of Billy the Kid, will they really know anything about him? Of course not! There is a deeper sense of someone than merely knowing their name and their physical existence. So it is with Jesus. Even when the people could actually see the miracles He did, they still could not know Him. Scientific methods will not bring that kind of knowledge to us. It is the exercise of faith that opens our minds and spirits to the knowledge of God. That kind of faith comes before “seeing.” John Wesley said, “My brother Charles, amid the difficulties of our early ministry, used to say, “If the Lord would give me wings I would fly. I used to answer him, ‘If the Lord bid me fly, I should trust Him for the wings.’” How’s your faith?
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