Discovering Who Jesus Is: Seven Days on the Seven I Am StatementsSample

A Beginning

When I look at the moon, I marvel. I marvel because it is so far away, yet it shines so bright. I marvel because its brightness is not its own but belongs to another. I marvel because it’s still there even if hidden by cloud cover. It is veiled but present. Obscured but ever vigilant. And I marvel because in the summer of 1969, a man in a tiny spaceship, who flew 240,000 miles with bread and wine in his possession and then thought of the body and blood of Jesus, ate the Last Supper for the first time in the history of the universe on that celestial body. His name was Buzz Aldrin.

When I look at the sky at night and see the moonlit wonder, the explosions of stars, I ask God,How is it that you even notice me?

He had come for all mankind. The night before He was crucified, He took the meal that Buzz Aldrin remembered.

Jesus’ hands held a cup. He lifted it toward his friends.

You will betray me.

Deny me.

Abandon me.

This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins (Matt. 26:28 NIV).

Jesus’ hands held a cross.

Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do (Luke 23:34). His hands did not shake. For this purpose he had come.

Jesus’ hands hold the world.

“Through the Son everything was created, both in the heavenly realm and on the earth, all that is seen and all that is unseen. Every seat of power, realm of government, principality, and authority—it was all created through him and for his purpose! He existed before anything was made, and now everything finds completion in him” (Col. 1:16–17 TPT).

The meal was pregnant with meaning.

As his body began to assimilate the bread and wine, making them a part of his cellular structure, he prepared for the mission he had come for.

As Eugene Peterson paraphrased, “He was supreme in the beginning, leading the resurrection parade, and he is supreme in the end. From beginning to end, he’s there, towering far above everything, everyone. So spacious is he, so expansive, that everything of God finds its proper place in him without crowding. Not only that but all the broken and dislocated pieces of the universe—people and things, animals and atoms—get properly fixed and fit together in vibrant harmonies, all because of his death, his blood that poured down from the cross” (Col. 1:18–20 msg).

Where Jesus' life ended, yours began. His final breath put new air in your lungs.

He did not come to make bad good but bring the dead to life.

That spark of the gospel, that victorious resurrection-life that comes into the human heart at salvation, is just the start. Where it ends only you can decide.

I fear we think of the cross and resurrection too little and too lightly. It comes up in the days leading up to Easter. At our best, we take a Lent journey or Passion Week trip in our minds in the same way we count down to Christmas. Then we pack it all up and put it into the boxes in the garage, between Halloween scarecrows and Christmas lights, until next year.

We do this not only with decorations but also deeper within our hearts. When Jesus died on the cross and rose from the dead, it wasn’t the last chapter but the start of a whole new story. Not an end but a beginning. A beginning to a new way to be human. A fresh way to be you—as you were intended to be and are capable of becoming. Childlike but not childish. Without insecurity and toxic thoughts driving how you behave. With vulnerability and empathy. Tapped into kindness and selflessness. Noble, light, and free. Transparent, triumphant, and tender. For the next seven days, let’s look at who this Jesus is. Who this King and Savior and risen Lord is. We will do so by looking at the seven “I am” statements in scripture. This is an opportunity to lose and find yourself in one of the remarkable sevens that guide us through the death, life, and heart of Jesus and what he is calling you to right here and right now.