Jn 8:21-30
21[Jesus] said to [the Pharisees] again, “I am going away and you will look for me, but you will die in your sin. Where I am going you cannot come.” 22So the Jews said, “He is not going to kill himself, is he, because he said, ‘Where I am going you cannot come’?” 23He said to them, “You belong to what is below, I belong to what is above. You belong to this world, but I do not belong to this world. 24That 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.” 25So they said to him, “Who are you?” Jesus said to them, “What I told you from the beginning.
26I have much to say about you in condemnation. But the one who sent me is true, and what I heard from him I tell the world.” 27They did not realize that he was speaking to them of the Father. 28So Jesus said [to them], “When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will realize that I AM, and that I do nothing on my own, but I say only what the Father taught me. 29The one who sent me is with me. He has not left me alone, because I always do what is pleasing to him.” 30Because he spoke this way, many came to believe in him.
I AM. God used this same identification when asked by Moses who he was. So what does “I AM” mean? That God is true, God exists, or God is for real? Many thinkers and pseudo-philosophers express similar statements: I think, therefore, I am; I am, therefore, I think; I earn, therefore, I am; I love, therefore, I am; I am loved, therefore, I am; I serve, therefore, I am; I am rich and my own man, therefore, I am.
For Jesus, it is simply I AM! Or perhaps, to be more precise, there is an attachment: my Father is! He is because of his Father. His existence flows from the Father who is the reason for everything he does and has. The Father is generous and forgiving—that is Jesus’ I AM.
When one knows what or whom one is living for, one can weather any how. Jesus is able to bear pain and suffering, even the cross, because he is very clear about who he is, of what he is, and why he is—it is all because of his Father.