CHAPTER 15
Jesus tells us new variations of the same old statements
about how important he is. He also tells everyone that his commandment is:
“love one another as I love you.” I’m
intrigued by his ideas and wish to subscribe to his newsletter if he has one.
Right after he discusses the importance of loving one
another, he immediately shits and tells his followers that they’ll be
hated. Yeah, this gospel was written
after persecution of Christians had begun.
CHAPTER 16
This chapter picks up right where the other one left off –
talking about how the faithful will be persecuted. The second sentence of the chapter says, “They will expel you
from the synagogues; in fact the hour is coming when everyone who kills you
will think he is offering worship to God.”
That is a bleak statement – and an intriguing one. It helps explain the problem this gospel has
with Jews. Throughout it an
undifferentiated mass of Jews constantly wants to kill Jesus and on multiple
attempts start gather rocks to stone him to death. Yes, he’ll die in all gospels, but there is a much more pervasive
and literal threat to Christ’s life in this gospel – and the threats start
much, much earlier than in the other gospel.
Now we have Christ talking about how people from the synagogues will do
that to you. Maybe there is a
connection.
This reminds me of a theory mentioned in “Jesus,
Interrupted” by Bart D. Ehrman. He
notes a theory (not original to him) about John. This began with a community of Jewish believers in Christ who had
increasingly worsening relations with the others, leading to full expulsion
from the community. It’s just a theory and it could be wrong, but late Chapter
15 and especially early Chapter 16 serve as good pieces of evidence for it.
Anyhow, after discussing the horrors the Christians will
have to endure, Jesus saves it with a wonderful analogy – a parable, if you
will. He compares the suffering of the
Christians during their time of strife to the pains of a woman experiencing
labor. But, just as a woman who has
gone through so much agony will feel so much joy once she has her kid, so will
the Christians feel so wonderful and blessed once they’ve come out the other
side of persecution. OK, that’s a
terrific analogy! Way to go,
Jesus! It’s a damn shame this gospel
writer doesn’t do more analogy, because he sure is good at it here.
CHAPTER 17
Christ gives a final prayer before he’s arrested. Hey wait – I didn’t see the Last Supper
scene at all. That’s odd, especially
since John spends so much time on this last night. But for John, the last night is a time for a last speech – it’s
like an abbreviated version of Deuteronomy or something. Still, giving how important it is to Christianity,
you’d figure John would remember to include it. Nah. Christ does give some Last Supper-ish talks earlier in this
gospel, but that’s as close as he gets here.
Previous gospels had Christ pray to his Father to avoid his
fate, but here he begins by saying, “Father, the hour has come. Give glory to your son so that your son my
glorify you, just as you gave him authority over all people, so that he may
give eternal life to all you gave him.”
Yeah, the other gospels are mostly about what happened, but the theology
is more central to John – and the theology is a lot more developed here as
well.
Later on, Jesus makes a comment about “the evil one” and I
realize – there really isn’t that much Satan in these gospels. Oh sure – he’s
there. He certainly plays a bigger role
than in the Old Testament. But he’s
still barely around. He’s the bad guy,
but Christ’s teachings really aren’t about Satan at all. He’s much more marginal to Christ than he’ll
later be to Christianity in general.
CHAPTER 18
No more time for talk.
Now we start the real end game, as Jesus gets arrested. The arrest story isn’t as poetic as in
previous editions. There is no kiss of
betrayal by Judas. Instead, Judas comes
with soldiers and the soldiers ask who Christ is. (Why bring Judas along if you’re just going to ask?) Jesus says, “I AM” (all caps in the
original) and the soldiers, “turned away and fell to the ground.” Huh?
That’s ….huh? Yeah, I know, he’s
the Son of God – but the soldiers clearly don’t feel that way.
Well, they get up eventually and are going to arrest him,
when the ear slicing incident occurs.
Odd – John left out the kiss but left in the gory part. In fact, he even provides names. Malchus is the servant who loses the ear
(actually, John calls him a slave; the other gospels said servant). The man with the sword is St. Peter himself.
St. Peter denies Christ thrice. Meanwhile, Jesus is brought before Jewish authorities, who turn
him over to Roman authorities.
Christ has his first interview with Pilate. When asked if Christ is king of the Jews,
Jesus responds, “My kingdom does not belong to this world. If my kingdom did belong to this world, my
attendants [would] be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the
Jews.” (Brackets in the original). Hmmm… This response is supposed to show that
Pilate finds no grounds to execute Christ (which is exactly what he says 17
seconds later), but I don’t know if that’s a good answer. If I’m Pilate, I get that Jesus is denying
the main charge, sure – but there is also an undercurrent of a threat. Hey – about this if stuff – what if you turn
around and decide that your kingdom really is in this world after all? Then what?
Folks, Pilate is a Roman official. He isn’t looking for justice above all else. He’s looking to maintain power and control
over all else. Jesus isn’t innocent
until proven guilty. Pilate isn’t
looking for a reason to release an accused rebel, but a reason to execute
one. The undercurrent is reason enough. Besides, in order to preserve peace and
justice, why not execute the troublemaker the local religious leaders want you
to whack? All roads lead to Pilate
wanting to kill Jesus. All the gospels
try to play this down or deny it. They
don’t want to anger Roman authorities (especially not after the big failed
rebellion ended in 70 AD). And the main
problems for Christ come from Jewish leaders, not Roman. But the image of Pilate here isn’t realistic
at all. It’s designed just to fit the
purposes of the narrative for the new religion.
CHAPTER 19
The first half of this is more back-and-forth between Pilate
and the Jewish leaders over whether or not Christ should be executed. This is the same as all the other gospels –
the point is to blame the Jews, not that Roman official Pilate for Christ’s
execution (even though it was inarguably ordered by Pilate). In this account, the Jews just bully and
wear down Pilate. They finally find the
winning argument with, “If you release him, you are not a Friend of
Caesar. Everyone who makes himself a
king opposes Caesar.”
EXACTLY! This is
exactly right! This is exactly why the
real Pilate had Christ executed with hardly any second thought. He shouldn’t need a bunch of locals to point
it out to him. The historical record on
the real Pilate shows he was willing to be ruthless. But the Bible had to downplay that. (Otherwise, they’re worshipping a guy executed by authorities as a
Jewish rebel – and he lived just a generation before the Big Jewish Rebellion
in the region).
Jesus is crucified.
John goes to great pains to repeatedly inform us that it takes place the
day before Passover. The other gospels
had it occur on Passover itself, but here it’s the day before. This points to theological differences in
the gospels. I forget the significance of crucifying Christ the day before
Passover (it’s in “Jesus, Interrupted” by Bart D. Ehrman), though. Rats.
(A death on Passover is easy to understand – Christ is the sacrificial
lamb).
The soldiers divide up Christ’s good, just as they do in the
previous gospels. There is an extra
element here, though. The soldiers cast
lots in order to fulfill a prophecy in scripture. Oh, sure – like the soldiers know/care about Jewish
scripture!
Christ is dying, but sees his mother and “the disciple who
he loved.” Who was that? Again, this book never says. Mary of Magdala (Magdalene) is there with a
few others. They give him some wine
when he thirsts. He dies, and a Roman
soldier pushes his lance into Christ’s side to make sure he really is dead. Christ is buried and the chapter ends.
CHAPTER 20
Unlike the other gospels, we get a pair of chapters on the
resurrection. Sure, why not – he sure
shows himself to enough people this time.
First, Mary of Magdala notices the stone is rolled away.
Rather than go in, she reports back to the apostles. Peter and “the other disciple whom Jesus loved” find the tomb
empty. While they were in the tomb,
Mary of Magdala waited outside and saw two angels. Then Jesus appears to her, so she’s still the first to see
him.
Later, the disciples are locked in a room. They’re staying behind closed doors in
Jerusalem, in case anyone wants to come after them next. Suddenly, in their locked room, Christ is
there. Yeah, they’re pretty happy. But it turns out that all the apostles
weren’t there. Thomas wasn’t. (Well,
neither was Judas I assume, but never mind that right now).
Thomas hears about it and – of course – doubts. That’s what he’s famous for, after all. That’s where we get the phrase “Doubting
Thomas” from. (It’s not much of a claim
to fame, but then again we really don’t know a damn thing about apostles
Thaddeus or Bartholomew). Thomas says
he’ll only believe Christ is back if he can put his finger into the nail marks
on Christ’s hand. Naturally, Christ
shows up to him and lets Thomas do just that.
CHAPTER 21
The gang goes back to Galilee, and Christ appears to seven
of them: Simon, Thomas, Nathaniel, Zebedee’s sons (John and James) and “two
others of his disciples.” That’s right
– the Bible never makes clear who they are.
Between Andrew, Phillip, Bartholomew, Matthew, James of Alphaeus,
Thaddeus, and Simon the Zealot only two were on hand.
Also, the statement of “Zebedee’s sons” is the only direct
referent to John and James in the entire gospel. Between that and all the
cryptic references to “the apostle Christ loved” (as well to what happens at
the end of this chapter – people generally feel that John is the beloved
apostle who wrote this gospel.
Anyhow, they don’t recognize Christ – not until he does a
miracle. He helps them gather an
enormous amount of fish very quickly.
It’s the same miracle Christ does to win over Peter at the beginning of
Luke’s gospel, only now it happens here at the end. They all celebrate Christ’s glory together.
Unless I missed it, Jesus doesn’t ascend to heaven at the
end. Interesting. I wonder where the
story of him spending 40 days on earth after the resurrection comes from? I assume it’s one of the gospels, but I
missed which one gives us a day count.
Probably Luke.
At any rate, at the end, the gospel writer tells us that he
is Christ’s beloved disciple and this is his account of Jesus’s life. Yeah, I don’t but that. All signs point to it being written later,
and much doesn’t make sense. Biblical
scholars noted that not only was it written in Greek, but some of its wordplay
indicates that ancient Greek was the author’s primary language.
CONCLUDING THOUGHTS
This one has some great moments, like the “let he who is
without sin cast the first stone.” But
it’s probably my least favorite gospel.
All throughout the Bible I’ve found myself more engaged when the Bible
is at its most human; when it deals with the real problems and issues and
emotions of humanity. This gospel is
almost all Christ and virtually no
Jesus. He is portrayed so much
as the Son of God that there is no room left over to be Mary’s kid.
It’s not bad, but it’s hard for me to be that engaged. I guess the gospels are ordered pretty
well. Matthew is the best, then Mark,
then Luke, then John. None are bad, but
that’s how I’d order them, too.
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