but I do not belong to this world.
That is why I told you that you will die in your sins.
For if you do not believe that I AM,
you will die in your sins."
So they said to him, "Who are you?"
Some years ago a group of mathematicians imagined a two-dimensional world. As I understand they had a lot of fun re-configuring gadgets and tools of our three-dimensional world to fit their imaginary world. What would a house look like. How would roads be built? What conveyances would they use to travel? What games would they play? And so on.
Most interesting, perhaps, what would the people of that world make of three-dimensional persons. Madeleine L'Engle, in her book A Wrinkle in Time, toyed with the idea.
Saint John's Gospel is like that. Jesus has come to our world of three dimensions from another dimension and they don't know what to make of him. He explains himself very clearly and with irrefutable logic and he might as well be speaking a foreign language.
To be precise, Jesus comes from the Kingdom of Truth, a place Pontius Pilate had heard of but had never seen.
Jesus sees through the tangled web of illusions, delusions, desires, preferences, expectations, romances and fears which clouds our eyes. Not only did he see through the lies, he also saw the lies for what they are. He understood their misunderstandings but he was never subject to them.
And so he could say, "I do not belong to this world."
And, fearfully, they would say in reply, "Who are you?"
That's a wonderful question. It's one of the right questions we should ask of Jesus. To learn the answer we will have to travel with him daily, for the rest of our lives. And by so doing, we will come to know the Truth.
Who are you, Jesus? Yep! Good question. God continues to reveal Himself to us although our simple human minds can never fully understand.
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