Gospel of John - Class 2

One of the students began tonight’s class by reading the familiar prologue to John’s Gospel, which begins, “In the beginning was the Word …” (John 1:1-11). John definitely intended to show that Jesus was closely related to God and that his authority came from God. This idea also parallels the Book of Wisdom, where wisdom is personified as a woman in which God descends into the world and then returns to heaven: “Send her forth from your holy heavens and from your glorious throne dispatch her that she may be with me and work with me, that I may know what is your pleasure” (Wisdom 9:10).

 

Unlike the synoptic gospels John doesn’t start with Jesus’ childhood, but instead starts with the preexistence of Jesus. Another difference is that the Synoptic Gospels start with the humanness of Jesus and work up to his divineness, while John's Gospel starts with the divineness of Jesus and works down to his humanness.

 

The various themes are concerned with the origin and destiny of Jesus the Logos, “In the beginning was the Word”, which intentionally recalls the story of creation in Genesis. The Word is used as a metaphor to demonstrate Jesus' unique access to God. Jesus was both the reveler and the revelation of God, “and the Word was with God, and the Word was God ...” (John 1:1).

 

The various responses to Jesus are light (acceptance), “But to those who did accept him he gave power to become the Children of God”, and darkness (non-acceptance), “but the world did not know him” (John 1:10-12). John assures us that the darkness will never overcome the light.

 

John also describes the relation of Jesus to John the Baptist and to Moses. God’s story has moved from the eternal (heaven) to history (earth); it is no longer a cosmic story but has become a human story, which can be seen as the key to the Gospel of John. God chose to express himself to humans through another human being.

 

Although we see John’s testimony, “Behold the Lamb of God” as pointing to Jesus who sacrificed himself on the cross for our sins, that isn’t quite accurate. At that time the Jews would have sacrificed a grown sheep, or a goat, or a cow as an offering for sin. He is, instead, referring to the Passover Lamb which was not offered as a sacrifice for sin, but to commemorate their collective deliverance from Egypt.

 

John saw the Passover Lamb of God as a symbol for the deliverance from collective sin that was sacrificed for the salvation of the world, as opposed to the atonement of individuals. Although we would all agree that Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross was for us as individuals and for our sins, it was not as the Lamb of God. Notice that in the verse “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29), the word sin is singular. It is intended to point to the one sin in the world: alienation from God.

 

A symbol makes something present that otherwise would not be present, or in other words it points to something and is that something. For instance the bread and wine points to Jesus and is (in fact) Jesus. A symbol must be tangible, in that we must be able to see it, hear it, or touch it, etc. and it must engage the person even when they don't want to be engaged. It also has a transforming affect changing the person who experiences it either in a positive or negative way, and it cannot be misinterpreted. A kiss with a loved one is intended to share intimacy, it isn’t confused with hate. The kiss of Judas on the other hand was the kiss of betrayal, and it can’t be manipulated to suggest love.

 

The Gospel of John contains seven signs; the Wedding at Cana, the cure of officials son, the cure of the paralytic at Bethesda, the story of the loaves and fishes, walking on the water, the man born blind, and the one that got Jesus into so much trouble, the raising of Lazarus. There are some interesting ideas for reflection in the story about the Wedding at Cana: such as the lack of wine, Mary’s suggestion that Jesus might be able to help, Jesus' response to Mary, and something referred to as replacement theology.

 

Our instructor asked each of us to consider what symbolism we can find in the story, and to discuss this in our small groups. Our group thought that the vast quantity of water turned into wine recalls prophecies of the abundance of God’s love. We also thought that the replacement of water might represent the revelation of Jesus. Of course we all agreed that Mary’s place at the wedding was important, and that she was instrumental in mediating the beginning of Jesus ministry.

 

The symbolism of the Bridegroom is very important in the Wedding at Cana. In Old Testament times Israel had broken their covenant with Yahweh, who was described as the bridegroom in Isaiah. Israel is described as the spouse and Baal is described as the spouse’s lover. Baal was a name for the various (false) gods, which was (is) actually anything that takes you away from the one (true) God.
 

Marriages were arranged by the family, although the heads of the house never negotiated directly. They each went through their respective deputies, and once an arrangement was agreed to the couple was considered to be officially engaged. In fact a formal betrothal was a binding agreement. Interestingly, if the negotiations failed the deputy could never marry the bride, which was a protection against false negotiations.

 

It’s easy to envision John the Baptist as the deputy who spoke for and revealed the identity of the bridegroom who was responsible for supplying the wine. In this story then, because Jesus supplied the wine He should be identified as the bridegroom. Jesus is taking the role that Israel has with Yahweh, and hopefully when the people see the signs, their response is to believe. In this verse “to believe” really means “to believe into” which is to “believe gradually”. The good wine is not the point of the narrative; the point is Jesus as the bridegroom because He will provide whatever we need in abundance.

 

Someone once said that “all stories are true and some of them actually happened”. In John’s Gospel every story is a vehicle of God’s message of salvation, because for the Johannine community scripture contained all the truth that is necessary for salvation. The evangelist was not responsible for whether the story was true, he was only responsible for the truth of the message of salvation.

 

One puzzling aspect of the story is in Jesus’ reply to his mother, “Woman ... my hour has not yet come ...” (John 2:4). John is highlighting their and uses this narrative strategy to focus the reader’s attention on Jesus’ final hour. He isn't going to do something because of his relationship with his mother, but instead is going to do something because of his relationship with his father. When Jesus looks down from the cross and says to His mother, “Woman behold your son”, and to the disciple “Behold your mother” (John 19:26-27) Mary becomes the mother of the church, and this is the moment when discipleship enters the world.

 

There is a parallel story in Luke where Jesus redefines the meaning of family when he says “who are my brothers and sister”, and another one comes when Jesus says “don't you know I must be about my Father’s business”. The real meaning of discipleship is in understanding who our brothers and sisters are.

 

The reason that Mary has such a crucial role in this story is because in the Johannine community women have equal and active roles. She is presented as a woman who is not passive, submissive, or docile, but instead deliberated with the messenger during her annunciation, and then went in hast (independently) to visit her cousin. She acts by telling the waiters to "do what they are told", taking charge of the situation and arranging things so that something good will take place.

 

John's community is moving away from their past traditions. They saw the stone water jars at the Wedding at Cana as representing a moving away from Jewish culture (Law). Notice that the story doesn't throw the jars away, but instead replaces the water used for ritual washing with the wine of the Eucharist. As John’s community finalized their break with Judaism they were re-engaging traditions in a new way, and re-interpreting old texts with new understanding.