John 1-5We have moved into a different world today--away from the synoptic gospels into the world of John--and it appears the voice of a different narrator! As if we needed another reminder!
The verses from John 1 are those that we read every year on Christmas Eve--"And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father's only son, full of grace and truth." But I was struck by the fact that I seldom go much farther in this chapter. I have always thought of Luke as being a gospel aimed at the Gentiles, but right off the bat John opens up his telling of the Jesus story to everyone. "Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ."
And the differences just keep on coming! The geographical alignment of John is totally different. In the previous stories we have Jesus primarily in Galilee, but John puts him in Jerusalem. Jesus cleans out the temple right off the bat--which could explain why the religious leaders were after him from the get-go! In many ways John is literally turning the story upside down--and maybe that is what we need! It gets so familiar doesn't it? Or at least I thought it was before I started listening!
But what really caught my attention were the questions that are raised in the early chapters. People come to John the Baptist asking, "Who are you?" (Where is The Who soundtrack when you need it?) John's disciples ask Jesus, "Where are you staying?" Nathaniel asks the skeptic's question, "Can anything good come from Nazareth?" All these questions when what we usually want are answers. And note that Jesus usually responds, "Come and see for yourself." There isn't A answer--but the answer comes from the experience.
I was also struck by the story of the woman at the well. Actually, I was struck by her. What had happened to her? She had been married several times previously--and was now living with someone to whom she wasn't married. Had she been widowed? Divorced? Either way these were things that had happened to her. In that world she couldn't divorce her husband. So what was the background? Isn't that a typical response? We want to know what has happened, what are the circumstances? Jesus just deals with what is in front of him. We want to assign blame, or at least understand the circumstances. Jesus is just "full of grace," to the point that it just overflows.
He is a bit more speechy in John, but so far is showing a lot more grace! Surprising for me! What are your reactions?
1 comment:
John 1 never fails to give me chills. No birth story here, no genealogy, we go all the way back to THE beginning, and there's the Logos, the Word. Then, incredibly, this eternal force of creation becomes flesh, takes on skin and bones, the messy corporeal stuff WE are made of. Some of the stories may get old for me after hearing them so many times, but that one never does. One of the great openings ever written, for sure.
And here we go with all the stories we haven't heard from the other three. For the first time we have the water into wine at the wedding, the nighttime conversation with Nicodemus, the woman at the well. You made a good point, Don. I had always heard her portrayed as something of a "loose woman," who flitted from one husband to the next five times over then shacked up with this new guy. But of course you're right, she couldn't do that as a woman in that time! Either her husbands died or THEY left HER, not the other way around. She would've had no power to leave them in her culture. I can't believe I always missed that! She has gotten an unfair reputation, it seems. As I was hearing it this time, the thought also occurred to me to wonder what the disciples must've thought when they came upon Jesus talking to her -- an unmarried (so far as we know) Jewish man sitting alone with a woman, much less a Samaritan woman, talk about scandalous! Did they assume something inappropriate was going on and that's why they didn't ask him? They probably had a very low opinion of her, being culturally conditioned to think the worst of her race and gender. I'm just curious what they were thinking.
You're right, this is a wordier Jesus, but so far, I like him better. I just wish I could know for sure how John got SUCH a different story from the others, if they were all supposed to be hanging around with Jesus at the same time. I know it had been a few years by the time they wrote it all down, but you'd think the others would've at least remembered the water to wine thing, and that they could agree on whether he cleansed the temple near the beginning of his ministry or near the end. Oh, and I know there are even bigger differences to come! We haven't gotten to Lazarus yet!
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