before

You know that limp Jacob had? I gave it to him.

Elijah saw my backside.

Abraham argued with me. A lot.

Sarai laughed at my words. 

Adam and Eve thought leaves could hide their deeds from my sight.

"Before Abraham was, I am." Jesus declared.

The fact that Jesus existed before he took on human flesh is a confounding truth of Christianity. Flesh is begotten, lives a brief time and dies to return to elementals. The soul or spirit was an unknown quantity to the Jews. Think of an unknowing ghost, a wisp of the past for an idea of their conception. Only God had an active spirit life that was before and after a human's span.

For one man from Galilee to claim pre-existance in a true active form was way out of the understanding of the ruling, teaching elites. Even the very phrase 'I Am' was revealed as the one true name of God (to Moses). Jesus used it in reference to himself directly in this passage, but also when he described himself: "I am the good shepherd", "I am the living water", "I am the bread of life". 

And so Jesus is claiming the right to speak of the unseen world and how to live fully in that world. His teaching opened a door that noone else dared to believe existed. How could there be a life after death? The concept was far too advanced for the religions and philosophies of man's mind. There is just not frame of reference from man's perspective to conclude there is a heaven and we were made for it. Jesus spent a good deal of time talking about it, giving references to rooms, mansions, praises, thrones, the hosts who had gone before. At the Transfiguration Jesus spoke with Moses and Elijah in bodily form, for a brief time. Thinking, relating, planning, sharing are all done in this spirit life. 

This is our goal and hope: that this Fallen life will be redeemed for an Eden life with Jesus in a real place we call Heaven. Why can we hope for this? Because it was the hand of Jesus that squeezed the clay and puffed into it to make the man. It was Jesus who then fashioned clay, added a rib and blew into it to make the woman. It was Jesus who brought the right male sperm and the right female egg together to make you. And Jesus told us that if we believe in him that is our future too. 

before... and after.