The following sermon was delivered by the Reverend John W. Howe, Rector of Truro Episcopal Church in Fairfax, Virginia, on April 24, 1983. The title is, The Double Grip, and the scripture reference is the Gospel of John, chapter 10, verses 22 through 30. 

The Holy Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, according to John. I'm reading from the 10th chapter and beginning at the 22nd verse. It was the feast of the dedication at Jerusalem.

It was winter and Jesus was walking in the temple in the portico of Solomon. So the Jews gathered round him and said to him, How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly.

Jesus answered them, I told you and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father's name, they bear witness to me, but you do not believe because you do not belong to my sheep. My sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me.

And I give them eternal life and they shall never perish. And no one shall snatch them out of my hand. My Father who has given them to me is greater than all and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand, I and the Father are one.

The Gospel of the Lord. If you're willing to do a little bit of digging, I think you'll find that almost always the timing of things in the Gospel story is relevant to what particular incident is being related. Not at all accidental.

Jesus picks the timing. God the Father picks the timing and it is almost always relevant to what is unfolding before us. For instance, it's at the Feast of Tabernacles which has to do at least in part with the promise that God would pour out His Spirit in the latter days upon all flesh.

It's at that feast that Jesus stands up in the middle of a temple area and He says, if anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. As the Scripture has said, out of his heart shall flow rivers of living water. And John, who records the incident, adds the editorial comment, this he said about the Holy Spirit who was to be given.

You see what's going on. Jesus is very deliberately capitalizing on the Feast of Tabernacles. He's laying claim to it.

He's saying, I'm the one who fulfills what this is all about. The timing is relevant. We're in the midst of Easter season and I trust it's very clear to everybody that it was at the time of the Passover that Jesus had that Last Supper and instituted the New Covenant.

When He took bread and broke it and said, this is My body, it was the Passover bread. The feast already had a meaning. They were already celebrating.

God's deliverance of ancient Israel out of Egyptian bondage. And Jesus deliberately chose that moment and identified Himself with what was going on as if to say, you can't even think about being delivered from bondage without seeing Me in that story. I'm the One who delivers from bondage.

I was there involved centuries ago, but I've come now to deliver you from a much greater bondage. And once again, He lays claim to what Passover is all about. And in fact, fulfills it.

Fills it fuller than it ever was before. And so we come to this passage, John 10, verse 22, and we read that it was at the feast of the dedication at Jerusalem. Jesus was walking in the temple that this particular incident took place.

Most Christians are probably not as familiar with the Feast of the Dedication as they are with various other great festival seasons in the Old Testament and in ancient Israel. The reason is very simple. This one doesn't come out of biblical history per se.

It comes out of the period between the Old and the New Testament. You can read about it in the Apocrypha. You can read about it in the books of the Maccabees.

It has to do with the Maccabean uprising, the Maccabean revolt. And what had happened needs to be recounted very quickly. Back around 170 B.C., Antiochus the king of Syria, who at that point was in charge of the Syrian occupation of Palestine and also the surrounding areas, got the bright idea, wouldn't it be terrific to have one common religion?

So I'll impose a single unified religion on all the people who have come under my rule and authority. Ostensibly, what he was imposing was the religion of Zeus. But as a matter of fact, it was really the religion of Antiochus.

It's a fascinating thing. You can go back and you can see the coins that were minted during his reign, and successive mintings, each of which has the face of Zeus on them, look more and more like Antiochus himself. You talk about an ego problem.

As a matter of fact, his surname was Epiphanes. Sounds like Epiphany, doesn't it? It means the same thing.

The manifest God. he called himself Antiochus the manifest God God come into your midst God in human form and the religion that he was attempting to impose on everybody was worship me bow down and worship me on pain of death to say no and he went so far as to erect a statue of Himself in the Holy of Holies in the temple in Jerusalem. Can you imagine the impact of that on faithful Jews?

A place that was considered so holy that nobody could enter it except the high priest and he only once a year to make atonement for the sins of the people. And here this, Daniel called it the abomination of desolation. A statue of a human being.

God has said no graven images ever anywhere. And here is a graven image of a human being. A bloodthirsty tyrant demanding that men worship Him in the holiest place on the face of the earth.

Come and offer sacrifices in the temple dedicated to the one true God. Only offer those sacrifices in worship of me. In brief, that's what the Maccabean Revolt was all about.

Everywhere else, that was acceptable. Not in Palestine. The Jews said, no way are we going to do that.

First, Matthias Maccabeus, and then much more so his son, Judas Maccabeus, led an army uprising, a guerrilla army against the Syrians, and they drove him out for one brief shining moment. they drove him out and what the feast of the dedication is all about is Judas Maccabeus coming through and cleansing the temple of that abomination tearing down the statue, destroying it tearing down all the rest of the paraphernalia of idolatry and blasphemy rebuilding the altar to the one true God and rededicating the temple you can read in 1st Maccabees chapter 4 at the very season and on the very day that the Gentiles had profaned it the temple was rededicated with songs and harps and lutes and cymbals and all the people fell on their faces and worshipped and blessed heaven who had prospered them and they determined that every year at that season the days of the dedication of the altar should be observed with gladness and joy. That's the background.

So much for the first sentence of our reading. That's the background. I wonder if that informs your appreciation of what's going on.

Do you see the picture? Here Jews are streaming in to Jerusalem from all over Palestine, indeed from much farther afield than that, coming for one of the great festival celebrations, coming to worship God, to celebrate Him, and to proclaim by their very actions, never again will we bow down before a man as if he were God. That's what the Feast of the Dedication is all about.

You do get the impact of that. And here, walking in that very place, in the very temple, cleansed from an abomination of sacrilege, is a man who, it's rumored, is claiming to be God. You got it?

And so the Jews say, Declare yourselves! What are you claiming? Is it true?

Do you claim to be God? Or have the rumors been distorted? Who do you think you are?

And Jesus answers very straightforwardly, I've already told you. The problem is you don't believe. Yes, as a matter of fact, I am.

And then He says, the works that I do in My Father's name bear witness to Me. That was all He needed to say. The works that I do in My Father's name claimed God to be His Father.

Please make no mistake about this. Sometimes people say Jesus never claimed to be God. He just claimed to be the Son of God.

And people misunderstood what He was saying. He was not claiming divinity. He was simply claiming a relationship that we all have.

No, no, no, no. When Jesus claimed, God is my Father, He knew exactly what He was saying, and so did everybody else. Listen to what verse 33 says. The Jews answered Him, it is not for a good work that we stone you, they took up stones to stone Him, but for blasphemy, because you being a man, make yourself God.

In chapter 5 of John's Gospel, we read the very same thing episode. It says, this is why the Jews sought all the more to kill Him, because He not only broke the Sabbath, but He called God His Father, making Himself equal with God. He just didn't say that.

There might be a general sense in which God is the Father of us all, but when Jesus said, God is my Father, He was claiming divinity and everybody understood it perfectly, clearly. Perfectly. If there any doubt, he pressed the issue yet further.

He said, my Father and I are one. The very thing the Jews most hated, most feared might ever happen again is happening right in front of their eyes. Right in the temple.

Here's a man claiming to be God. Blasphemy! Abomination!

Sacrilege! Get rid of him. you see it was unless it's true those are the only two choices there really is no middle ground Jesus has not left us any middle ground some of you even at this late date having been in this church or some other for Sunday after Sunday year after year it's possible that even now, you're still in doubt.

Is He or isn't He? You've got to make that choice. It boils down to this.

Either Jesus is a man presuming to be God, or else He is God who has condescended to be a man. Do you follow that? Those are the only options.

either he is a man presuming to be God which is blasphemy or he is God who has condescended to become a man there are no other alternatives oh you could say he was crazy he thought he was God it's interesting that Antiochus Epiphanes had the nickname given by his enemies Antiochus Epimenes which means the madman those are all the alternatives he either is who he claims to be or he is the worst blasphemer who has ever come down the pike or he is crazy crazy I mean to think that he's God and not be but notice what he says my works bear witness to me you understand He is making exactly the same claim that Antiochus had made two centuries before. Exactly. He is claiming to be epiphanies.

God come among us. The God manifest. The difference is, he says, I act like it.

Take a look at my life. Look at what I'm doing. Look at my activity.

How do you explain that? If I am a blasphemer or if I am a lunatic, how do you explain my character? How do you explain my ministry?

And that's all he has to say on the subject. He immediately changes the topic of conversation. See, he says, you don't believe.

The facts speak for themselves, but you're not willing to listen. However, my sheep hear my voice and in it they recognize the voice of God and they follow me. No argument.

Not even any further discussion. He says, I haven't come to win an argument. I've come to win lost sheep.

And immediately he begins talking about those who do listen rather than those who don't. And praise God, that's not where the conversation ends. He moves on really to give us the most important part of it. He says, My sheep hear My voice and follow Me, and I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish.

And no one is able to snatch them out of My hand. Aren't you glad? You know, when I am walking sometimes in the middle of the city with Jonathan or Jessica, we'll come up to a busy intersection.

You know, their safety getting across that highway does not depend upon their ability to hang on to me. It depends on my ability to hang on to them. That's the kind of shepherd, the kind of Savior, the kind of Lord that we have.

He forces Himself on nobody. But He says to all who would come to Me and just reach out their hand, I will grasp that hand and nobody will snatch them out of it. And if that weren't enough, my Father who is in heaven wraps His hand around mine.

There's a double grip and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand. I believe that Jesus would say much that sort of thing to us today. if you by any chance up to this moment have not come to Him not believed in Him not trusted Him I guarantee you He's not going to argue with you He doesn't do that sort of thing I guarantee you He's not going to try to force Himself upon you He doesn't do that sort of thing but He would say take a look at my life judge for yourself explain it away if you possibly can my works bear witness to me look at my life look at my ministry look at what I've done do you not see God in all of that and if you do then just trust me and I'm prepared to give you the gift of life eternal you will never perish your body may die you will never perish and no one will snatch you out of my hand do you want that kind of assurance today?

I do let's bow before him if you've never done it before or if there's any doubt about it. Pray this prayer with me. Lord Jesus Christ, thank you for loving me.

I love you. thank you for dying for me I would live for you thank you for coming to me this morning I come to you and I reach up my hand and ask You to take it in Your strong grip, that double grip that never lets go. So that even if I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.

Because You're with me. Lord, I would receive Your gift this morning. The forgiveness of my sins and the promise of life eternal.

Come into my life and be my shepherd, my Savior, my Lord. Give me new life from God in the Holy Spirit. thank you Lord thank you Lord then Lord all the rest of us sheep also join in that prayer and we thank you for your continuing love for us and again this morning perhaps more deeply than we ever have before we would reaffirm our trust in you and thank you for your love for us thank you that in contrast to all the petty tyrants and all the blasphemers of all history you're the only one who has ever claimed to be God and acted like it thank you for coming among us to show us the Father we pray in your name Amen