Ramblings on John 13-14, and a little on the syncritical theory of the gospels

All through the Fourth Evangelist’s story of Jesus, we see a common motif of misunderstanding either on part of the disciples or others who encounter Jesus but fail to see, or hear on a higher plane. As the disciples, and Jesus are gathered around the table, what is no doubt being understood by John’s first hearers as the Eucharist, Jesus and his intimates are sharing a meal, and Jesus is preparing them for the hour of his departure. We see misunderstanding all through our text for the week; at the foot washing, where Peter is thinking on a lower level of dirt removal, at the hint of betrayal at the sharing of bread, and then on in to chapter 14 with the disciples asking Jesus where he is going, and how to get there.

But, what I found striking this week is Jn. 13:18-30, Jesus says that his word has made all but one of them clean, and that one who shares his bread will lift his heal against him (v.18). There is uncertainty, as Moloney points out (383), over who it was that would betray Jesus. I am wondering, trying to picture this scene in my head, as Jesus says v. 18, were all the rest of the disciples reaching out, and holding bread? Of course, the disciples wanted to know who it was, and Peter, asks the BD/reclining in the breast of Jesus to ask Jesus who it is that will betray Jesus (v.25). Jesus answer comes in v. 26, of course the disciples don’t fully understand, but the reader learns that the one who is given the morsel of bread that had been dipped into the bowl is/will be the betrayer. The reader learns that Judas Iscariot was given the bread, and then we read that Satan entered into Judas, and he exits into the night. Judas sitting in the presence of the light of the world, chooses to exit, and walk in the darkness. I think the conversation Jesus has with the disciples and Peter about his departure and Jesus caution to Peter that he too was going to deny Jesus (13:38) helps us see Jesus as in control of what happens to him and the knower of future things.

Two points from our lecture and our readings are significant to me here:

1. The articles we read about the literary milieu and the genus syncrisis that the Fourth Evangelist uses to not only draw a comparison between Jesus, John and Moses, but also Peter, the BD, and Judas is a helpful tool that will aid not just graduate students in thier NT studies, but is a helpful too to promote a careful reading of the text. Also, to see the comparisons between the Gospels as falling into a certain ancient literary genre helps us to see the author a little more clearly as well. Clearly, the author’s of the gospel would have been trained then, if I accept Dr. Martin’s thesis, in the literary milieu of their day. Dr. Martin’s chapter outlined quite well the progymnastic topics that ancient writers would have used to chronicle the life of an important person.

2. From our readings this week, at least a highlight for me was that Jesus is pictured as loving those whose understanding isn’t the best, and loving those who would let him down, and loving those that even would betray and reject him. I thought Moloney’s words on 383 were helpful. After talking about the passing of the morsel to Judas, we read, “in a final gesture of love Jesus shares the dipped morsel with his future betrayer (v.26), only to be definitively rejected as Satan enters into Judas (v. 27a).” I am humbled by this amazing gesture of Jesus. I have always read this just as passing bread, I haven’t ever seen the love here, but now I am humbled for all the times that I have shared bread with Jesus, only to find myself at times denying him with my careless words, and contradictory actions. For in spite of my failings, and fallings, Jesus loves me and offers me pardon. I want to close with another qoute from Moloney, “Disciples always have and always will display ignorance, fail Jesus, and deny him. Some may even betray him in an outrageous and public way. But Jesus never-failing love for such disciples, a love that reached out to the archetype of the evil disciple, reveals a unique God (cf. 18-20). This is what it means to love eis telos (v. 1)” (Moloney 384). The phrase eis telos, Moloney also points out has two meanings, Jesus loves them to the end of his life, and he loved them in way that surpasses all imaginable loving (Moloney 374).  Moloney goes on to say that John’s marriage of these two understanding of eis telos reveals a major theme of the rest of the narrative: “the death of Jesus makes known his love for his own, and thus makes God known” (Moloney 375).

Moloney, Francis J. The Gospel of John. Liturgical Press, 1988.

10 years and counting

Today is a new day. Yesterday’s failures are history. I choose this day to dwell in the mercy and grace of our Loving and Good God. I am a sinner redeemed by the blood of Jesus. I struggle day in and day out, sometimes I get knocked down, and other times I live in the victory. I feel like at times I should be farther along, and then I find myself in the midst of a storm. Is the way my walk will be forever? I have been a follower of Jesus for 10 years. I hope that the last 10 years have pointed others who are observing to the conclusion that I am mine no more, that I am Christ’s. I don’t feel like much progress has been made, sometimes I feel this way. I think about what I struggled with at the outset of my walk, and 10 years later there are still traces and sometimes giant stains of the old life. I am not perfect. My wife can testify to that, and yet somehow, the Bible promises us that for those who are in Christ Jesus are being conformed into Christ likeness. What an amazing thought. It gives me hope still to think that God isn’t through with me yet. His work is quite done. I don’t resemble Christ enough yet. I am encouraged by what God still has left to do in me. This journey is unlike any other. There is blessing, poverty, joy, love, hope, struggle, sin, tears, peace, patience, kindness, even more love, mercy, and grace. It is an incredible adventure to be able to follow Jesus. I want to be open everyday to his leading, to his words, and to do the works he has placed in front of me to do. I want to be his voice, and hands to my wife and daughters, to my church community, to my city. I want to be more like Jesus. I want to remember everyday, that the battle with sin has been won already at the cross, that I have a choice each day as to what kind of day I can have. I want to live in such a way that the kingdom of God is being seen. I want to help to extend the borders and boundaries of the kingdom. I want to be a place where heaven and earth overlap, and draw others into this incredible offer of life, forgiveness and hope.

John 10-11

There is a unity between chapters 10 and 11 and three themes that Talbert mentions that are essential for our text this week and how as the themes are introduced in chapter 10, they are reframed in chapter 11. These three themes are: 1. The language of the good shepherd who lays his life down for the sheep which looks ahead to chapter 11 and how Jesus raising Lazarus precipitates his own death. 2. The sheep hears his voice, and he gives them eternal life and how in chapter 11 this points to the important place that Jesus voice plays in the raising of Lazarus. 3. The gathering of sheep into one flock, and how Jesus death does just that.

In addition to above mentioned three themes that connect chapters 10 and 11, Jesus language of the good shepherd helps the reader to see the impact of Jesus’ words in chapter 10, and as well as see Jesus as the fulfillment/supersession of the Feast of Dedication. As the people of Israel gathered at the Temple for the Feast of Dedication to remember the Maccabean revolt and celebrate the good leaders or good shepherds contrasting that of the bad leadership they had suffered under. Jesus refers to these bad leaders as thieves and robbers (John 10:8), Jesus offers himself as the good shepherd who lays down his life the sheep. He is the one being presented as the one who gathers the flock. I am convicted of the need for there to be good leadership in our churches. Good leaders are selfless, dedicated gathering the lost sheep and remember that they first and foremost serve God. If Jesus throughout John is being lifted up as our example to follow, what better picture of leadership to follow than Jesus himself, the Good Shepherd. I guess as a minister, what I find so distressing is that all too often our shepherds/leaders aren’t self-sacrificing enough. I know Jesus doesn’t mention it, but I feel it is important to the conversation about shepherds and sheep, is that a good shepherd is one that will smell like his sheep. Look at the passage we are talking about. As the gate for the sheep, he is placing himself in harm’s way, sheep would be near him and he them. They knew his voice, because of the love, care and time that he has spent with them. May those of us who lead, smell like our sheep.

I found the key verse I guess in v. 30 of chapter ten. Jesus at the Feast of Dedication, a feast that celebrated the rededication of the temple, says that he and “the Father are one.” As the temple had to be consecrated to be filled once again with the presence of God, he says that he is in fact, the one who is set apart or sanctified by the Father (Jn. 10:36) to be the person not the place where the presence of God would dwell. From the Prologue (cf. 1:14,18; 1:51; 5:17; 8:58) to now in our reading the claim has been made that Jesus and the Father are one, that Jesus is the visible presence of God on the planet. It appears that Jesus not only fulfills the hope of Dedication, but effectively does away the need for a Temple. I think this would have been comforting for those of the Johannine community who had been kicked out of the synagogue. I imagine for many who were kicked out of the synagogue that they lost family, friends, maybe even social standing and to be told that Jesus is the presence of God that would have been a message of hope. All that they had lost in a former way of life was replaced by the Sent One, come to call a new people into his flock. The one who offers abundant wine, abundant bread and an abundant life would effectively and perpetually sustain them. He stills offers the same abundance!

Talbert, Charles. Reading John. Smyth and Helwys, 2005.

Reading through John 7-9

As we have been working our way through the text, this week’s reading according to Talbert is the 6^th of seven episodes where Jesus is portrayed as fulfilling/superseding some aspect of Jewish worship. Moloney sees this is the 2^nd of four feasts where Jesus fulfills/supersedes some aspect of Jewish worship. Talbert’s episodes up to our text for this week are as follows:

1. Jn. 2:13-21 the cleansing of temple – Jesus supersedes/fulfills the ritual sacrifice (Jn. 1:29)

2. Jn. 3:21-4:3 – Jewish is baptizing more than John, he is fulfilling/superseding Jewish purification water rites.

3. Jn. 4:4-54 –Jesus fulfills traditional worship in whatever form

4. Jn. 5:1-47 – Jesus fulfills/supersedes the Sabbath as the apprentice, dependent Son the giver of life and judgment

5. Jn. 6 at the Passover, Jesus fulfills/supersedes Passover, he is the true manna from heaven

6. Jn. 7-9 at Tabernacles, Jesus fulfills/supersedes the water and light ceremonies of this feast. The Tabernacles Feast was a vivid reminder of the Israelite’s time in the wilderness, and the water ceremony would have reminded the worshipers of the care and substance of God in the wilderness, particularly the water provided at the rock. But, Talbert points out, that water ceremony “also pointed forward to the Messianic era when there would be an abundance of water (Ezek 47:1-2; Joel 3:18; Zech 14:8) (Talbert, 155).

What I found fascinating here was that Talbert points out the “expectation of living water is sometimes connected with the gift of the Spirit (Isa 44:3; Joel 2:28) (Talbert, 155). Even though the Spirit has not been given yet in John’s gospel, that Jesus, the one who fulfills some traditional aspect of Jewish worship is offering living water, is the one who would give the Spirit.

The Light ceremony of Tabernacles as the backdrop for Jesus words, “I am the light of the world,” helps us again to see Jesus as the fulfillment of the hope of Tabernacles. Talbert (158) says that the light from the candlesticks in the temple illuminated the entirety of Jerusalem. Similar to the water ceremony, the light ceremony looked backward and forward. Looking back, the time of wandering in the wilderness and a reminder of the pillar of fire (Exod 13:21; 14:24; 40:38). Looking forward to the end time, when it was believed that the pillar of fire and cloud would return (Isa 4:5). Along with the use of the “ego eimi” in this chapter, particularly verse 58, Jesus has just definitively declared his divinity (cf. 1:14). He is the presence of God on earth (1:51), and now he is creating a new community (1:19-1:51), a community of followers that will worship in spirit and in truth (Jn. 4:23).

I also want to mention the timetable of Jesus. As chapter seven opens Jesus is being provoked by his brothers, asking him if he were going to be going up to or at the Feast (Tabernacles). In Johannine fashion, there is misunderstanding and irony here in Jesus’ brother’s words. They use the langue going up in a lower sense, and Jesus understands going up in a higher sense (Jn. 3:13-15). Yes, Jesus would be going up at a feast, but his time was not now. Jesus, the dependent son/apprentice has already spoken to doing what he sees his father saying and doing. For Jesus, his agenda is to do and say what the Father says and does (Jn. 5:19; 5:15). He does go to the Feast of Booths, but it is not under the compulsion of dictation of his brothers or anyone else for that matter (Jn. 2:3-5).

All through John’s gospel, the disciples, the Jews, the crowds, and others all wrestle with the identity of Jesus. Chapter seven is no different. The people are wondering who Jesus is and where is from, on in chapter eight. The readers of the Johannine community would of course know that Jesus is from the Father, that he preexisted, and that his human origin is indeed descended from David (7:41-42). In chapter nine, as if to answer the questions of his identity, Jesus once again performs a miracle, and we see a blind man come to faith in Jesus in stages, if you will. The ex-blind man’s statement in 9:33 should have been a wake up call to the Pharisees, “if this man were not from God, he could do nothing.” A question I have here is, is it wrong to see here in echo of Luke 4:17-19 and even allusion to Isaiah 61? Also, the uniqueness of the miracle performed in chapter nine, really is commentary on John 8:12, Jesus is the light of the world. Those who believe Jesus is from God have this light, and those who reject Jesus are blind.

Moloney, Francis J. The Gospel of John.Liturgical Press, 1988.

Talbert, Charles. Reading John. Smyth and Helwys, 2005.

The giver of life

This week again, I am again convicted of how poorly I have read the Gospel of John prior to this class. I am intrigued; maybe astounded is a better word for how I feel, by how the author frames Jesus against the backdrop of Jewish feasts. Since Jn. 1:16-17, we see Jesus as the gift that is the fulfillment of a gift. As the narrative has unfolded, the author has continually held Jesus up as one that supersedes/fulfills some aspect of Jewish worship. As our text for the week unfolds, we see Jesus fulfilling the Sabbath, then in chapter six, Jesus is presented as the one who fulfills/supersedes Passover. (I know in the coming weeks we continue to read this large thought unit that portrays Jesus attending feast days with the fulfillment of Tabernacles and Dedication coming up.) As chapter six opens, the echoes of the Moses narrative are all over. In the opening of chapter six, Jesus is doing what Moses did, in that he crosses a body of water, a large crowd gathers, he goes up the mountain, and he feeds them, he crosses the water again and offers the true bread from heaven to those that will take him into themselves, eating his flesh and drinking his blood.

What stands out to me this week the most, is the portrayal of Jesus as judge and giver of life (Jn. 5:21-22). The Jews hear Jesus correctly, he is indeed breaking the Sabbath, Jesus doesn’t deny he is working, but he is calling himself equal to God. The Jews misunderstand what Jesus is doing and says, and see his words as a statement of independence, when in actuality Jesus is really claiming dependence. Moloney helps frame what takes place here, when he writes, “The Son is not another Sabbath God, but in a totally dependent relationship where the Son has the privilege of intimacy. The Son sees all that the Father does, and thus is able to do exactly what the Father has done” (Moloney 178). I like what Moloney says just a little later as well, “Only the Lord of the Sabbath is the master of life and death, but because of the relationship that exists between the Father and the Son this has activity has passed on to the Son” (Moloney, 179). Jesus is doing the works of God, and is described as an apprentice to the Father. Jesus is one who sees and hears what the Father is doing and has done, it is a two fold work that Jesus is engaged in. The key here, is heeding the words of Jesus. For those that are apparently blind and deaf to the presence and words of the Father, if they would but pay attention to Jesus words and works they would see the Father.
What follows in the text, is Jesus presented as being on trial, and then he offers four witnesses for his accusers. John the Baptist is the first witness (Jn. 5:33), the works Jesus does witness to what and why he is working (5:36), the Father is testifying on his behalf of his Son (5:37). And then Jesus offers the fourth and final witness, Moses or the Scriptures (5:39). Jesus comes down hard on the Jews for staking their defense and claim to eternal life coming from their diligence in studying the Scriptures, and points to their misinterpretation of the Scriptures by missing the true source of life, Jesus.

Jesus words about studying the Scriptures to find life are intriguing. How many conversations have we had in churches were someone or even ourselves have claimed that the Scriptures give life. Jesus is not dismissing the Scriptures. Afterall, they point us to Him. But, the foundation for ministry, the foundation for life is Jesus. He is the lifegiver.

John ramblings

Been reading a lot of the Gospel of John and have been absolutely enthralled. It is amazing how much I have missed. I am trying to be a more careful reader of Scripture. One of things that has stood out to me so far in my John class is that Jesus is framed throughout the fourth Gospel against a Jewish background. While, I have noticed before the tension that permeates the gospel between Jesus and “the Jews,” what I have recently come to see that has outstanded me has been that the author of the fourth gospel is portraying Jesus as the One who has come to fulfill/supersede all that came before. He is the fulfillment of the gift (Jn. 1:16).

got to go, my littlest one is trying to hijack my computer.