I begin with the Gospel lesson for Ash Wednesday and the discussion of the temptation narrative in the Synoptic Gospels, which is the Gospel lesson for each of the three years of the lectionary.
The Gospel Lesson for Ash Wednesday continues with the prophetic theme of the Old Testament Lesson and urges the obvious sincerity expressed by the psalm for this day. Matthew 6:1-6, 16-18 discusses righteousness before God. One might think of this text as the Magna Charta of true piety. Jesus exposes hypocrites for their self-centered piety. He calls for a higher righteousness than that exhibited by the finest religious people in Galilee. As Matthew puts the theme, Jesus urges his listeners to beware of engaging in religious practices in the presence of others. When people do good works with the purpose that others see them, they are going down the wrong path. Jesus expresses concern for that which threatens the person who seeks the will of God. Traditional Jewish practices are to be evidence of rightness with God. The three instructions contain vivid warnings about how not to practice piety, followed by a radical commandment of how one should do it. They warn especially against conspicuous behavior. Some parallels exist in ancient literature.[1] One striking example is Cicero, who expresses the concern that people value too much what other people consider honorable. People must avoid assuming the rightness of what the multitude think. He urges a lofty elevation of soul that does not depend on the people and does not aim at applause. It derives its satisfaction from itself. Everything becomes more commendable, the less we court people and the fewer eyes there are to see it. His point is that regardless of the public nature of a virtuous act is not as important as our consciousness of it. An analogy would be the matter of “conspicuous consumption,” the idea being that if no one sees me using my wealth, then I do not benefit from the increased status that my wealth should bring me. In the setting Jesus addressed, increased social status came through displays of religious practice. His concern is that one practice them for the right reason, and thus, do them privately. The only status that matters is that which God recognizes. Refraining from showing piety is a witness to the pious world, allowing for one’s life to reflect what has happened in private. The temptation, especially in a secular world, is to publicize piety rather than let the piety one has speak for itself.[2] One engages in traditional religious practices to glorify God and point others toward glorifying God. Jesus also raises the matter of reward, which is what one experiences within and provide the conditions for happiness and joy. The focus is intention and motivation. Thus, religious acts done for the purpose of receiving a reward will find disappointment while such acts performed with love receives its reward. Motivation and intention are important in finding a flourishing human life.
Thus, in a saying unique to Matthew, Jesus addressed the religious practice of almsgiving. The point is not to engage in in conspicuous charity that gives you religious and moral status. To do so is to become an actor in religious life, a false and artificial devotee. Jesus directs attention to the motive. Jesus offers the paradoxical saying that one should not let the left hand know what the right is doing. The paradox invites us to consider that the act of almsgiving or charity needs to become so inconspicuous that one barely notices it oneself. Later in Matthew 25:31-46, the righteous sheep who come before the Son of Man are not cognizant of their righteousness. If one engages in such acts secretly, hidden from human recognition, the Father will see and give the only reward that matters. We find our greatest joy in doing a secret good (Emerson).
In a saying unique to Matthew, Jesus offers a saying on prayer as a regular religious practice that one could put on display for others on the street or in the synagogue during the regular or daily prayer. Such a public action has received the reward it seeks, approval from others. Prayer can become a means for pious self-presentation. However, Jesus urges his followers to prayer by shutting the door to their rooms. Jesus will make a point of going to solitary places to pray (Mark 1:35, Matthew 14:23, Luke 5:16). Jesus urges us to consider right motivation in prayer. Prayer needs to have an orientation toward God alone. Prayer should never have another purpose than to speak with God. One does not address prayer to anyone else but God.[3]The only reward in praying one needs is what one receives from the Father.
In a saying unique to Matthew, Jesus offers advice concerning how engages in public fasting. The Jewish community usually reserved the fast for extreme situations. Individual fasting is an expression of mourning and repentance, an act of humility that intensifies the experience of prayer. It could give one the reputation of being a saint. For Jesus, his disciples are to act in ways that others will not notice they are fasting. The orientation of the fasting person is toward God alone. The only reward that matters is what the Father gives.
The Gospel Lesson for Ash Wednesday ends with Matthew 6:19-21, a saying from Q on possessions. They have the character of general folk sayings. Such sayings may reflect common wisdom of first century Judaism, connecting Jesus to his Jewish context. The text presents a radical view of material possessions, selling, and giving to the poor. Jesus is offering the advice regarding possessions to adopt the perspective of eternity. As participants in the rule of God that the ministry of Jesus is bringing, they do not need to worry about food, clothing, or shelter. Earthly wealth is transient, perishable, and at risk, while the wealth we store in heaven has an enduring quality. That which we treasure reveals orientation of our hearts. Our relationship with our possessions is an important one. Acquiring them, holding them, and sharing them, is a complex matter. Precisely because of that, we need the wisdom of Jesus to help us chart the course through this complexity.
The lead text on the first Sunday in Lent is the temptation of Jesus, so I will begin with it as setting the tone for this Sunday.
Mark 1:9-15 (Year B, First Sunday in Lent) contains two segments.
Mark 1:9-11 is a story about the baptism of Jesus by John. In 28 AD, Jesus was part of the crowd that heard John the Baptist preach. We know from other sources that nationalist uprisings occurred when Jesus was two and twelve. However, a non-violent protest by peasants occurred in Caesarea occurred against Pilate. A few months later, Jesus will come to the Baptist for baptism. It will be the first crucial decision he makes publicly. We can understand the ministry of the Baptist as inviting people to leave “Egypt,” that is, Jerusalem and the corrupt ways of institutional life in Israel and come to the wilderness. The Baptist patterned his ministry after Moses, Elijah, and other prophets. Significantly, however, Jesus does not stay with John in the wilderness. He will return to Galilee. Before he does so, he freely submits to this baptism by John. Given the private revelation Jesus receives, we know that he did not need repentance and forgiveness that the baptism by John suggests. He offers a theological interpretation of the event. He refers to the violent act of the heavens being torn apart and the long absence of the Spirit ends as the same Spirit that hovered over the waters of chaos and brought order and life descends upon Jesus in the form of a dove. Such an image is not common in Judaism. An interesting recognition among scholars is that in the Roman imagination, the descent of a bird was a crucial omen for the life of a great leader. Usually, this bird was an eagle, the symbol of Roman legions and military might. Mark uses this trope but subverts it, placing the peaceful dove instead of the aggressive eagle. The reign of God, for which Jesus is the sole leader, comes as a peaceful and sacrificial dove instead of the Roman eagle. The dove descends upon him, or even into him, but resting upon him is a feature of prophetic literature (Isaiah 11:1-3). The point is that the living presence of the Holy Spirit will empower the ministry of Jesus. John had promised that the one to come after him would be different, and we see here the first expression of that difference. The baptism is the beginning of the eschatological age, which the theological significance of the Father tearing open the heavens and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. A voice from heaven, which we will not hear again until the Mount of Transfiguration, identifies Jesus as the Son of the Father, reflecting Psalm 2:7, a royal psalm, and is the Beloved, with whom the Father is well pleased, as in Isaiah 42:7 in referring to the suffering servant. We have here the impartation of the Spirit and the thought of adoption.[4] Jesus is the elect Son of God.[5] As such, Jesus becomes a model of election as serving humanity for the mission God gave him.[6] The baptism of Jesus in these ways has a unique role in identifying who Jesus is as uniquely the Son of the Father. The heavenly voice validates Jesus as the bearer of divine revelation, both in his teaching and in his person. Mark can begin his gospel seriously, having revealed to us the unique nature of Jesus of Nazareth. It reveals the future of Jesus as king and servant, as enthroned and as the suffering servant. Mark will show the reader throughout the gospel. Mark has set the stage for the one who is more powerful than the Baptist, who will baptize with the Holy Spirit. The one whose identity we as readers of this gospel know will contest with human beings who stand opposed to the good news and the rule of God.
Mark 1:12-13 is the story of the temptation of Jesus.
Part of the context involves Jesus alone in prayer. Jesus frequently withdrew from the crowds and the disciples. He usually sought a deserted place to pray. After the feeding of the 5,000, Jesus dismissed the crowds and "went up the mountain by himself to pray" (Matthew 14:23; cf. John 6:15). After Jesus spent a day preaching and healing, the next morning, "while it was still very dark, he got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed" (1:35). He prepared himself for choosing the twelve as "he went out to the mountain to pray; and he spent the night in prayer to God" (Luke 6:12). Crushed by the crowds who wanting healing, Jesus frequently withdrew to deserted places to pray (Luke 5:16). What Jesus gives us about prayer is primarily by his own example, which, most of the time, is to withdraw to a deserted place to do it. This practice teaches us a few things. For one thing, it suggests that we need to be intentional about finding a time and place to pray and listen. His practice can also help us think differently about deserted places in our lives. Such a place might be physical. It could also mean the places in our lives where we forget to invite God. If we are open, we can turn any moment, even a long drive, into a moment of prayer. A deserted place can also refer to places where we lack what others of have. A deserted place may be the place we feel alone because of temptation, rage, discouragement, doubt, or some other inward experience. Such moments are times to pray.
We then learn that the Spirit moved upon Jesus in a strong, even violent, compulsion to bring Jesus into the wilderness, where he was forty days, the days Noah waited after the flood, tempted by Satan. What was this that Jesus encountered in his temptation?
For us he was baptized, and bore
His holy fast, and hungered sore;
For us temptation sharp he knew,
For us the tempter overthrew.[7]
Temptation refers to allurement or enticement to do evil. Temptation is like a trap into which the unwary can fall (I Timothy 6:9). Any test of moral virtue is a temptation to the one tested. Satan tempts because he wants to destroy. Human beings succumb to temptation because they have strong desires toward sin and evil.[8]Temptation distracts, beguiles, and bullies us off the path. It makes real life different from the world of our dreams. Our dreams imagine a world that we can mold to our aspirations and ambitions. We meet a world of trial that we do not have the character or virtue to surmount. We encounter seductions we do have the virtue to resist.[9] It may well be that
The last temptation is the greatest treason;
To do the right deed for the wrong reason.[10]
Jesus was with the wild beasts in the wilderness. This may refer to the dangers Jesus confronted in the wilderness. It may also be a peaceful reference to the messianic ideal of a restoration of the heavenly peace as in Isaiah 11:6-9, where lion and lamb are at peace and children can play with poisonous snakes. Patristic era commentators took this approach. For them, the presence of the “wild beasts” drew a parallel with Adam while in the garden of Eden. Once more Satan is tempting the “human one” amid the beasts, but this time the “human one” prevails and to the point where angels ministered to him, rather than the angels driving him out, as we find in Genesis 3:22-24. On this reading of the “wild beasts,” the “wilderness” is not a satanic and Godforsaken place. Rather, God is present with Jesus throughout this trial in the same way God was present with Adam in Eden and Israel in Sinai. Yet whereas both humanity generally (Adam) and the chosen people of God (Israel) have failed such temptations in the past, this time the “human one” succeeds in plundering Satan’s house (Mark 3:27). Further, Jesus received divine protection in the presence of the angels with him. This story could suggest that there are terrors, and there are gracious powers to help us face them. All of this could mean than that this passage signals that the eschatological warfare is beginning, centering upon Jesus. This passage is intense and shows the trials of the experience which Jesus endured. Many at this time believed wild beasts to be demon possessed. Yet, God’s protection was there during the trial. Thus, Jesus fully identifies with the people of God, who have their own wilderness to go through in life. It could be a preview of the struggle to come. The scene could portray both the danger of the wilderness and the protection of Jesus as Son of God. It is also important to ask how the wilderness sojourn functions in the introduction of Mark’s gospel. The wilderness sojourn prevents readers from assuming that the ministry of Jesus will be one of exaltation and glory.[11]
From the very start of the gospel of Mark, the ministry of Jesus is a contest. Jesus relived the experience of Israel in the wilderness, with the difference that Jesus did not fail the test. "Jesus' opponents in this gospel will turn out to be human beings. The struggle lies in the distance between the human and the divine." Jesus ends up fighting the scribes from Jerusalem, who accuse him of using demonic power (3:22-27). Jesus struggles with Peter, and even calls him "Satan," because Peter rejects the passion of Jesus and refuses to accept the plan of God (8:33). The real contest, you see, is between humans and Jesus, between old humanity and the new Son of God. Mark opens his gospel by "preparing the way" for the Christ, using all available symbols and appropriate images from the Old Testament.
Mark 1:14-15 provides a summary of the preaching of Jesus. Jesus calls for a response to the coming rule of God. These verses form the threshold of the entrance of Jesus into the Galilean ministry, which is by far the most extensive portion of Mark's gospel. In Mark, the rule of God is a reality of the near or immediate future. Indeed, the appearance Jesus and the appearance of the rule of God are the same. Mark rarely defines the content of the preaching of Jesus. Where Mark specifies the message of Jesus precisely, it is the announcement of the rule of God. The tangible power of the rule of God is also apparent from the way others react to Jesus and his message. First, the public ministry of John ends with his arrest by the authorities. His end anticipates the end of the public ministry of Jesus as well. Jesus chooses this moment to begin his ministry in Galilee. The ministry of Jesus will be among the cities and towns of Galilee rather than in the wilderness. He will make Bethsaida, Chorazin, and Capernaum the center of his public activity.
Mark describes the message of Jesus as proclaiming (κηρύσσων) the gospel or good news (εὐαγγέλιον) of God, which may explain why the early church used the term “gospel” for the comprehensive presentations of the Jesus tradition.[12]
The first part of the summary is that in the arrival of Jesus, we find Jesus proclaiming 15 and saying, “The time (καιρὸς) is fulfilled (Πεπλήρωται). God is the one fulfilling time in this way. Mark is not referring to chronos (extended time), but kairos (the right time for something to happen). According to Mark, the right time is after the arrest of John and the right place is the moment of the arrival of Jesus in Galilee. At this time, God steps into human history in a unique and decisive way. The time of John the prophet is over; the time of Jesus and fulfillment has begun. John predicted the coming of the One who would baptize with the Spirit. If the arrival of Jesus fulfills the time, it indicates that the ministry of Jesus will bring about the age of salvation anticipated by the prophecy of John. “Fulfilled” refers to a completion of the past, and thus a keen sense of continuity. Scripture, Law, and the purpose of the old covenant find their fulfillment in Christ. “The time you have been waiting for, the time announced by the prophets, is finally here! The glorious new day of the rule of God has just dawned!" We can see here a partial basis for saying that Jesus is Lord of time. In Matthew 13:16-17, this generation receives so much blessing from God because it has seen and heard Jesus. In Galatians 4:4, Paul refers to the fullness of time as being the moment when the Father sent the Son into the world. Ephesians 1:10 says that in the fullness of time, God is summing up all things in Christ. The promises and prophecies of the Old Testament find their fulfillment in the arrival of Jesus. If the time finds its fulfillment, the fulfillment comes in a moment, an event, in the arrival of Jesus. This real event occurs as a particular event and a particular time, a center around which all other times will revolve. The time before has moved toward Christ. The time after Jesus moves away from this event. Humanity has time because Jesus had his time. We have the fullness of our time because we orient ourselves to and live our lives from the perspective of the time Jesus has. The purpose of our time after this decisive event is to allow space before the rule of God to repent and believe. Those who do believe have as their primary purpose to make known this event. They too must wait expectantly, even as the universe waits, for this last event.[13]
The second piece of the proclamation of Jesus: and the kingdom or rule of God has come near (ἤγγικεν). Jesus spoke of the rule of God as close or already present but hidden, and thus in a way that frustrates ordinary expectations. The central content of the message is the dawning of the reign of God, indeed in the sense that God has already entered upon that reign. Note the similarity of this message to the central theme of Jesus as identified by this verse, although in relation to its future Jesus saw the divine reign as still in the process of dawning.[14] It implies the irruption of the reign of God into history is imminent. Even if we translate that the rule of God “has come,” it would refer to God revealing it in moments like the resurrection. Until the full revelation to all persons comes, we can only pray for the coming rule of God. Yet, we can see the subtle notion of the presence of God when Jesus says that he casts out devils by the Spirit of God, then the rule of God has come upon them (Matthew 12:28). The salvation promised for the end is a present reality in the healings and exorcisms of Jesus. The rule of God is in their midst (Luke 17:21). Jesus even sees Satan falling (Matthew 11:12).[15] Scholars debate what this summary says. Does it mean the reign of God is about to arrive or that it is already here? These passages suggest the answer could be both. For Mark, the rule of God has both present and future dimensions. We have already seen this in John the Baptist's message. John announces Jesus' imminent arrival, and Jesus appears. As Jesus begins his public ministry, the rule of God lay in the immediate future. As the story of Mark's gospel unfolds, those who encounter the power of God through the words and works of Jesus experience the rule of God as present yet hidden; the fullness of the rule of God remains the object of prayer and expectant waiting but is mysteriously present in the ministry of Jesus.
The third piece of Jesus' proclamation is the same message John preached - the call for people to repent (μετανοεῖτε). The prophetic theme of conversion is not prominent in the message of Jesus, even though this passage brings it to the fore as a theme of the preaching of Jesus. Yet, one could say that the summons to subordinate all concerns to seeking the reign of God in human life naturally implies very strongly a conversion to God. Conversion, for Jesus is not a precondition of participation in the reign of God. At the center of his message is the imminence and presence of the rule of God for believers.[16] To repent does not mean merely to turn away from a specific sin but turning toward God in faith and obedience. Repentance meant a complete about-face, a turning around of the mind, a changing of life and lifestyle, the taking of a radical new direction. The primary theme of the preaching of Jesus is that the rule of God has come near. This theme naturally leads into the call to hearers to turn around, to shift the direction of their lives, to look, listen and give their full attention to the arrival of the rule of God. Such repentance means complete re-orientation, both inward and outward, of the whole person to the God who truly has turned to humanity in time.[17] Such repentance implies genuine knowledge of oneself that includes our participation in sin.[18]
The final piece of the summary of the proclamation of Jesus is the call to believe (πιστεύετε) in the good news (εὐαγγελίῳ). In Mark, belief is trusting in the coming rule of God. It involves a letting go of the things to which we cling to for security and identity. Believe the good news that the rule of God is arriving. Where Jesus is, there the rule of God is actively at work. However, this truth is not self-evident. For one to see it, one must believe it. It involves a letting go of the things to which we cling to for security and identity. The call to believe is not an intellectual exercise, but a call to trust. To believe in the good news means to wager one's future on the reality of God's involvement in the world through the person and ministry of Jesus Christ, despite the skepticism of the modern worldview. In the work of Jesus, the call for conversion rests on the message of the inbreaking of the future of God in the coming of Jesus and for those who accept the summons in faith. The proclaiming of the presence of the rule of God and its salvation in those who in faith rely on its all-determinative future is now a motive for conversion to God on the part of the hearers.[19] Faith means the unquestioning trust in this God that is the positive side of this re-orientation; the new life that is the only possible life after this event in the time that follows it.[20]
We can see the paradox contained this summary. The time is fulfilled, but has also come near, both now and not yet. It is good news that is a call to repent. The call to repent precedes the call to believe.
In Matthew 4:1-11 (Year A, First Sunday in Lent) and Luke 4:1-13 (Year C, First Sunday in Lent) The story of the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness is from Q. The story foreshadows the life and destiny of Jesus. It has its basis in theological and Christological reflection. The test of Jesus alone in the wilderness mirrors the temptation of the human representative, Adam/Eve. It also mirrors the wandering of Israel in the wilderness as they also succumbed to the temptation to turn from the covenant established through Moses. In contrast to both Old Testament stories, Jesus conforms who he is as the Son and the path of obedience to the Father that will characterize his life. The Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness to experience testing (πειρασθῆναι) by the devil (διαβόλου). Mark simply refers to this experience of testing (1:12-13). It is 40 days, mirroring the 40 years Israel spent in the wilderness. Hebrews 4:15 also testifies to Jesus' temptation episode. The author of Hebrews used the temptation narrative to show that Jesus, like us, faced threats to his own fragile humanity. The background for this role of the devil is Job 1-2, whereby the one testing Job is part of the heavenly court. He is the prosecuting attorney. His job is to read the charges and to hold humanity accountable for them.[21] We see here a similar relationship between the Spirit and the devil. The Spirit, in a sense, sends Jesus to Satan, confident (as God is of Job), that he will resist the temptations offered him and be proved worthy of his calling. It is as if the ancients felt that without the test of temptation, loyalty was cheap and not to be trusted. What was required was steadfastness of purpose, which can only be demonstrated in the face of testing. Thus, while Israel proved to be a disobedient son in the wilderness, Jesus will prove to be a loyal and obedient Son. He represents the people of God in a way that Israel failed to do. His long fast had the design of bringing him close to the Father. The Spirit led him to the wilderness for that reason.
After the 40 days Jesus is hungry, so the tempter (πειράζων) begins a series of three temptations. He begins with the Christological affirmation that refers to him as the Son of God. Since Jesus is hungry, and if he is the Son of God, he should command the stones to become bread. Thus, as Moses provided the Israelites manna in the wilderness, Jesus could provide himself bread in his hunger. He refuses by referring to Deuteronomy 8:3, part of the wilderness wanderings, that one does not live by physical bread by the word of God. Jesus showed the path to passing the test. The temptation Adam and Eve faced was to “take and eat” of the fruit of a divinely forbidden tree, thereby becoming like God. They were not even hungry. Jesus will resist the one tempting him where Adam and Eve failed. Jesus will later teach his disciples to pray for their daily bread, trusting that their heavenly Father will provide such needs (Matthew 6:11). He will teach them not to be anxious for their daily needs, for their heavenly Father knows they have such needs, so they should seek first the rule of God, for each day has enough troubles of its own (Matthew 6:25-34). The point is, the temptation Jesus faces here has nothing to do with filling his stomach and everything to do with fulfilling his call to obedience and fidelity before God. If he would override God's will by creating bread in this wilderness, Jesus would participate in an act of willful disobedience against God. Such behavior, even about such a small act, would undercut Jesus' identity as the obedient, loyal Son of God.
A second temptation involves the devil taking Jesus to a high mountain and showing him the kingdoms of the world in their glory and claiming to give it all to Jesus if he will fall at his feet and worship him. He wants only what God deserves. The promise is that the God will give the kingdoms to the Messiah (Psalm 2:8) and to the Son of Man (Daniel 7:14). The devil claims such pre-eminence in this world. Here is a seductive gift, but only if he will give up his identity and acknowledge the pre-eminence of the devil. Political power is always tempting. The response of Jesus is to send Satan (Σατανᾶ) away, referring to Deuteronomy 6:13 that one ought to worship and serve the Lord only. Jesus would later teach the disciples to pray that their heavenly Father would hallow the name of God and would accomplish the will of God on earth as it is in heaven (Matthew 6:9-10). He will teach them to realize that their true treasure is in heaven (Matthew 6:19-21). He will teach them that they cannot serve two masters, and thus, cannot serve God and wealth (Matthew 6:24).
A third temptation led Jesus to the holy city and placed him on a part of the Temple columns that flared out and begins with the Christological affirmation of Jesus being the Son of God. This time, the devil urges him to throw himself down, using Psalm 91:11-12 to remind Jesus of the promise that the angels will bear him up and protect him. A twisting of scription can become a vehicle for a test of who we are. Such an act would have denied the Incarnation and his full participation in human life. The response of Jesus is to refer to another part of the wilderness wandering in Deuteronomy 6:16 that one ought not to put the Lord to the test. The point of this story is to show that Jesus passes the test by being obedient to the Father. Jesus teaches us to pray that God would not lead us into such temptation (Matthew 6:13). He also taught them that properly hearing and doing what he teaches will lead to a life that can withstand the trials of life (Matthew 7:24-27). It was not fitting for him to test God.
Jesus would experience other tests, such as from Peter (Matthew 16:23). Temptation would face Jesus on the night he was betrayed and deserted. The story concerns who Christ is and explains why Jesus was not the Messiah zealots desired and expected. This temptation narrative foreshadows the whole of Jesus' ministry by indicating that to remain obedient, this Messiah must claim the way of humility, service, and suffering. An interesting parallel to the story of the temptation is the parable of the sower (Matthew 13:1-23). In both stories, a believer is faced with three threats to faithfulness. In the parable, the three threats are Satan (the bird that comes to snatch the Word away); trouble and persecution, like Jesus' hunger (the rocks that cause the Word's roots to fail); and the cares of the world, including the lure of wealth (the thorns that choke the Word as it begins to grow). By resisting this same sort of temptation in the wilderness, Jesus models for disciples the will to resist those things that destroy a growing faith.
The great significance of this temptation narrative is not that Jesus withstood these trials, but that in them Jesus' true nature and identity as the "Son of God" are celebrated. His fidelity to God and unshakable commitment to carrying out God's plans are what reveal Jesus' genuine "Son of God" identity to the believing reader. As the Devil tries to sabotage the unique quality of this relationship between God and his son Jesus, he begins with a small, even innocuous test of Jesus' power.
Two stories, one in Genesis and the other in Matthew and Luke. Watch the parallels in both (the temptations of the antagonist), and the differences with which each protagonist meets the tempter.
The first tale:
Humanity is the protagonist in the person of Eve.
That she is alone puts her in the way of danger.
The Tempter challenges the word of God: “Did God say …?”
The Tempter will, in the end, look for an act that manifests her separation from the word, and from the God who spoke it. She will take of its fruit and eat.
She chooses to answer in her own (human) words and herself undermines the sufficiency of the word of God: “Neither shall you touch it.” Her personal addition to the divine prohibition (a kind of a childish whining: “You never let me have anything”) prepares her to hear the universal lie:
“You shall not die.” God wants no other gods around. That lie, should she believe it, turns God into humanity’s (the Protagonist’s) antagonist!
She believes it and humanity begins its long dying.
The second tale:
Jesus is the protagonist, the tempter, the antagonist
That he is alone puts him in the way of danger
The Tempter challenges the word of God: See 3:17 and the Voice whose words are, “This is my son. …” Three verses later: “If you are (what God said) the Son of God.”
The Tempter looks for an act that manifests his separation from the word, and from the God who spoke it. “Command these stones to become loaves of bread.”
He chooses to answer not in his own words but in the words of Scripture (in God’s words). Even so does he refuse to manifest a separation, but rather to manifest an intimacy. He did not take or eat. Moreover, his answer is a direct hit at the Tempter’s effort to implant doubt: “We live … by every word … from the mouth of God.”
By his choosing always to respond with God’s word and not his own, the protagonist becomes (for now) proof against the following blandishments of his antagonist.
Mark
Mark 8:31-38 (Year B, Second Sunday in Lent) contains the first prophecy of the passion in Mark and a group of sayings around theme of loyalty in following Jesus.
Mark 8:31-33 is the first prophecy of the passion. Mark has provided the reader with a summary of his understanding of the gospel message, reflecting the belief of Jesus that the Son of Man, the Messiah, must suffer like the suffering servant in II Isaiah. Considering the hostility of Jewish leaders, the suffering reflected in II Isaiah and by the prophet Jeremiah and even by Elijah, as well as the arrest and death of John the Baptist, it would be surprising if Jesus did not consider this potential for his own fate. The suffering servant passages, as well as Psalm 22, contain the exaltation of the one suffering, which Jesus would have communicated to his disciples. However, the details of the prophecy reflect the preaching of the post-Easter church. As Mark understands the gospel message, the Son of Man must suffering from the religious establishment, kill him, and stating briefly that the Father would raise him from the dead.
Paul in I Corinthians 15:3-4 wrote a summary of the core beliefs he received, undoubtedly soon after his conversion, which would have been about three years after the death of Jesus. It contains a summary that relates the death of Christ for our sins “in accordance with the scripture,” and of God raising him to life “in accordance with the scripture.” Luke uses similar terms. In Acts 2:23-24, Jesus the Nazarene received death through the power of the Jewish leaders and the foreknowledge of God, crucifying him through Gentile powers, but God raising him to life, freeing him from Hades, for Hades did not have the power to hold him. In Acts 3:15, Peter again says that they killed the prince of life, but God raised him from the dead. In Acts 3:18, God said through the prophets that the Christ would suffer. In Acts 13:27-31, Paul relates that the people of Jerusalem and their rulers fulfilled the prophets. Jesus was innocent, but they condemned him and asked Pilate to have him put to death. They carried out scripture foretold. Then, they took him down from the tree and buried him in a tomb. However, God raised him from the dead. He appeared to his companions, and they became witnesses. The summary shows that Mark knew the two steps of Paul. Therefore, Mark composed a gospel climaxing with the cross and the promise of resurrection. The early tradition behind the passion story seems simply to have recognized the divine necessity of the innocent suffering and death of Jesus in fulfillment of the prophetic testimonies of scripture, a view we find here. This early tradition contrasts with later theological interpretations that give the death of Jesus an expiatory significance.[22] However, this view of the death of Jesus corresponds well with Galatians 5:2, which says that Christ loved us and gave himself up for us. Much of historical scholarship would not think of Jesus as making crucifixion the goal of his message and ministry.[23]
Jesus saying such things that were so contrary to Jewish expectations of the time regarding the Son of Man and the Messiah leads Peter to rebuke Jesus. He challenges the authority of Jesus as he expresses a harsh truth. Thus, Jesus rebukes Peter and reasserting his authority in these matters, inviting Peter to accept his role as a disciple, and refers to Peter to as Satan. The temptation Jesus experienced in the wilderness after his baptism has returned in the person of Peter. The all-too-human concerns of Peter and in sharp contrast with the divine necessity Jesus has expressed. Jesus knew he could not skip the hard part of his path as he understood the will of God. In Peter we can see that the way of Jesus is confusing to us. The temptation is always present to think in an ill-informed and earthly way, the way human beings usually think of things, rather than from the perspective of eternity. Peter represents us all in that we keep experiencing this temptation. The disciples will show that they do not get it (9:10, 32; 10:24, 35-45).
Mark 8:34-38 is a collection of sayings around the theme of following Christ. They have to do with loyalty and fidelity by the followers of Jesus when faced with circumstances that call for courage and sacrifice. We learn some hard lessons about discipleship here. Yes, salvation is free and a gift. Yet, discipleship will cost you your life.[24] At this point, it becomes quite clear that theology is necessary to make preaching as hard for the preacher as it must be.[25] I will not try to soften the blow. What Jesus now says is that just as their perception of the Messiah needs to change, so does their perception of faithfully of the Messiah need to change. Having spoken to the disciples about his identity, he will now share them their identity as disciples and the cost of following him. This instruction occurs while they are on the way to Jerusalem. They are on the way to the cross. This road is one that every group of disciples in every generation must walk.[26] Jesus called them to follow him, and Jesus defines a discipleship that has the cross in its sights. The sayings provide the conditions for following Jesus.
First, Jesus says, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves, and their self-centered concerns. The first condition we need to meet to follow Jesus is to deny the self. Though denying oneself is language we find psychologically familiar today, this was an odd phrase for both the Hebraic and Aramaic ear to hear. The concept of a freestanding "self" was unknown in that ancient Near Eastern culture. Thus, instead of using this text as evidence of an early martyr-complex, it would be more accurate to think along family lines and kinship ties. In that culture, any life of an individual did not define the self. Rather, relationship within the family group defined the self. This kinship group controlled the individual, gave identity, and maintained the world within which the individual existed. Thus, the demand of Jesus is radical, something like saying, "Give up your world." Give up the human family that defines you, and instead make Jesus your only family, your only reference point for authority and guidance. The challenge here is that to follow Jesus, one simply must renounce, withdraw, and annul, any existing relationship of obedience and loyalty, namely, to oneself. Self-denial in the context of following Jesus involves a step into the open, into the freedom of a definite decision and act, in which it is with a real commitment that people take leave of themselves, the person of yesterday, of the people they were. They give up their previous form of existence. What matters now is not the self, but to follow Jesus, regardless of the cost.[27]
Further, disciples must take up their cross. The second condition to follow Jesus relates to the cross. This statement pulls the individual even farther away from the safety of the family unit. The cross was a familiar form of public execution by the Romans, designed to keep conquered people submissive. The insistence of Jesus that a potential disciple must not only deny all old familiar ties but must be prepared to suffer horribly because of their identity as a disciple is unprecedented. After two millennia of "cross" imagery, our senses are not as shocked by this reference, as listeners to Jesus must have been. The pain, brutality, and degradation of a death by crucifixion ‑‑ including the spirit‑stripping practice of making the condemned "take up his cross" on this final death march to the execution site ‑‑ was a torture reserved for only the most despised of state criminals. Yet this is the very image Jesus chooses to represent as the fate of his most devoted disciples. This means that each disciple has a cross to take up, rather than to fear, hate, avoid, evade, or escape the affliction that falls on the disciple. Discipleship becomes a matter of each Christian carrying one’s own cross, suffering one’s own affliction, bearing the definite limitation of death that in one form or another falls on one’s own existence.[28] Paul said he died self every day (I Corinthians 15:30). Jesus is already suggesting that to follow him means co-crucifixion, a theme we find in Paul as he refers to his own crucifixion so that his life is a matter of Christ living in and through him (Galatians 2:19-20). Thus, it pulls individuals even further away from the safety of a self that the kinship group defines. We need to find our cross, that for which we will spend our lives for the sake of the calling God has issued. Many people have discovered joy and happiness in life only when they chose to die to the selfish pursuit of happiness. They have found joy in discovering a mission that will require sacrifice for something grand and meaningful. Discipleship is a matter of forming a new identity in the destiny of Jesus. The bearing of your cross is the consequence of the special calling and sending we receive from God. The way of Jesus is the way of the cross, so the disciple follows in that destiny.[29] Just as following Jesus means denial, so also it means death. Dietrich Bonhoeffer famously said in his Cost of Discipleship, that when Christ calls us, he bids us to come to him and die. Thomas à Kempis wrote,
In the Cross is salvation;
in the Cross is life;
in the Cross is protection against our enemies;
in the Cross is infusion of heavenly sweetness;
in the Cross is strength of mind;
in the Cross is joy of spirit;
in the Cross is excellence of virtue;
in the Cross is perfection of holiness.
There is no salvation of soul,
nor hope of eternal life,
save in the Cross. (The Inner Life)
"If you bear the cross gladly, it will bear you"
(The Imitation of Christ, 2.12.5).
Jesus then offers the invitation to follow me. The third condition is to follow Jesus. In context, Peter must be the first to do this, of course. Yet, the way of the cross was for the multitudes and not just for the disciples. To follow Christ involves denial of self in the sense of yielding freely to this total service and therefore refusal to save their lives for themselves. Jesus lays out requirements for discipleship that go far beyond any usual conversion practices. Jewish proselytes had to decide to accept Jewish faith and law freely, willingly rejecting old pagan relationships and acquaintances. The focus on discipleship is identification with the destiny of Jesus. Mark makes clear that Christology and discipleship are inseparable, and that the way of Jesus to the cross is also the way the disciple must follow.[30] Such a saying is hard because we want to avoid suffering. Yet, we forget how intimately love and suffering are connected. You cannot love a dog without experiencing the suffering involved in putting the dog down at the end of its life. To avoid suffering is to cut ourselves off from the one thing that eases it, which is the love we share for others and the love others share with us. Anyone who really wanted to get rid of suffering would have to get rid of love before anything else, because there can be no love without suffering. When we know that the way of love, this exodus, this going out of oneself, is the true way by which man becomes human, then we also understand that suffering is the process through which we mature. Anyone who has inwardly accepted suffering becomes more mature and more understanding of others and becomes more human. People who have consistently avoided suffering do not understand other people. They become hard and selfish. We have no literary, psychological, or historical answers to human tragedy. We have only moral answers. Yes, in the face of suffering at the hands of other human beings we may despair. Yet, hope also comes from other human beings. [31]
The next saying (also in Luke 17:33) is a paradoxical secular proverb. Those who save their lives (psyche, life, soul, self) will lose it, while those who live their lives for the sake of following Jesus and for the sake of the gospel will save them. We cannot have fullness of life by preserving a life defined by the past. We can see here the supreme value of the soul or the true self. We cannot put a price on it. Setting aside our definition of the self will lead to happiness and real living. Such a life is meaningful. As the Prayer of Saint Francis puts it, “For it is in dying to self, that we are born to eternal life.” When we choose the self, we lose what we seek.[32] We renounce the self in favor of Jesus.[33] If we concern ourselves with the self in our practice of discipleship, we will miss the very thing discipleship offers. You will achieve the desire of your heart as a follower of Jesus if you lose your focus upon the self.[34] The first person to live out this pattern was Jesus. Jesus saved his life at the cost of proclaiming his message of the rule of God. Had he saved his life, he would have made himself independent of God. He would not have been the Son by an unending finite existence. Jesus chose an earthly existence consumed in divine service. He did not cling to his life. He showed obedience to the mission, regardless of the consequences.[35] Yet, we might also ponder the matter of personal identity that animates every individual life. We have a natural desire for self-preservation. We recognize the hint of truth in the saying that to love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.[36] How can one save one’s life by losing it? “Soul,” meaning even if death is the result, the disciples has preserved the true self. Such renunciation is in favor of the living Lord, Jesus Christ.[37] This claim is the form of the Gospel, of the promise of the free grace of God by which alone human beings can live, but by which one may live in the full sense of the term.[38] In a sense, by choosing oneself, one loses what one seeks, becoming supremely non-human. To do so is to give oneself to the pride that is the heart of human behavior.[39]
Jesus offers another proverbial or secular wisdom in the form of a rhetorical question. What would it profit anyone to gain the entire world and forfeit one’s life? What will you give in return for your life? It would be a bad exchange. The point of the question is to deepen our understanding and appreciation for the value of the self. One can only offer one’s life in response to the gift of life. Adolf Harnack thought with good reason that he had found a Magna Carta of the message of the infinite value of every human soul.[40] Our devotion needs to be to the people and tasks of our lives to find life. Much of modern notions of self find their critique here. Many parts of psychology have faith in the pursuit of selfhood as we form our identity. Yet, excessive focusing on our identity is a deformation of the theme of a human life. The goods and tasks of our lives and our openness to God need to be primary and therefore the source of our identity. We can see a parallel in Plato as he suggested that the upright and good are happy, while the pursuit of happiness for its own sake is egocentric and leads us astray. Only those who seek the good for its own sake will find happiness and identity (Gorgias 491bff, especially 506c.7ff and 470e.9f).[41]
The notion of denying self is difficult for many people in the West today. I think the difficulty arises from at least two fronts. One is that we have learned how fascinating self is. Whether in spiritual formation or in psychology, we explore the richness and fullness of the self. Two is that studies in addictive and co-dependent behavior have taught us that too often we get ourselves in relationships in which we sacrifice ourselves for no redemptive purpose. Each of these insights makes us justly suspicious of any call to self-denial. However, if we focus too much upon self, if we protect self too much, if we seek security in self, we open ourselves to the possibility of losing who we are? I understand it seems paradoxical. Yet, focusing on saving our lives may well derive from fear. Losing ourselves may well arise out of faith. A large part of learning what you really want in life is learning what you are willing to give up getting it.[42] We may find our purpose in life as we take up the symbol of punishment, the cross. We may find our true self as we lose ourselves in following Jesus.
Theologian Reinhold Niebuhr has a wonderful prayer with this theme.
O Lord, who has taught us that to gain the whole world and to lose our souls is great folly, grant us the grace so to lose ourselves that we may truly find ourselves anew in the life of grace, and so to forget ourselves that we may be remembered in your kingdom.
The section concludes with a sentence of holy law (verse 38 = Matthew 10:32-33 and Luke 12:8-9). The final eschatological scene offered here by Jesus reminds his listeners that whatever choice they make, for Jesus or against him, there will be consequences. He raises the issue of shame. In a saying influenced by Daniel 7:13-14, if we have shame before our contemporaries, the Son of Man will be ashamed of them when he enters the glory of the Father and the angels. Such a saying stands at the beginning of Christian confession. It refers to publicly taking sides in a conflict, in this case, the conflict relating to the message and person of Jesus.[43]Jesus becomes the head of the elect community. Holy law promised definite eschatological ramifications to the fulfillment of human actions. It offers strength and solace to first century followers of Jesus. Here, Jesus attributes the judgment that the Son of Man will pronounce in correspondence to the message of Jesus and hence according to the criterion of confession or rejection of Jesus.[44] The passage draws a parallel between response of people to Jesus on earth and the reception they can expect from the Son of Man. The suffering and rejection involved in the path Jesus has chosen as Son of Man and Messiah, that results in the same for the disciple, will lead to power in the future. This power, though, does not have its grounding in the perspective of the world, whose sands shift over time. The passage exhorts the follower of Jesus to this life of power and success, but power and success defined as faith in God through a life of rejection and sacrifice. These motifs will continue to surround Jesus as he makes his way to Jerusalem and actualizes his predictions of suffering and death, but they also surround the church who continues to try to follow Jesus today.
Luke
Luke 13:1-9 (Year C, Third Sunday in Lent) is a pronouncement story concerning repentance. Implied in the exchange is the assumption that our allegiance and loyalty to God is at stake here. How can we worship and serve a God who allows such suffering to occur in this world? How are we to worship a God who has created such an undeniably chaotic world where the innocents are victims of random acts of violence? What does God have to say for himself in the face of such suffering? Jesus turns the questions back upon us. What do YOU have to say to God?
Luke 13:1-5, unique to Luke, occurs in the context of judgment, end-time events, and the importance of discerning the times. In referring to Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifice, this is the only reference to the incident in ancient literature, although it is typical of his bloody and brutish reputation. It may be that when Pilate siphoned money away from the temple treasury for an aqueduct project he wanted, he created this fiasco. Are the informers attempting to trick Jesus into saying something evil about Pilate to bring a charge against him later? Alternatively, are they attempting to provide Jesus with a real-life example of the type of judgment about which he has been speaking?[45] Jesus assumes the second reason and incorporates into the theme of judgment. He does not condemn Pilate for engaging in such behavior. His response to the informers suggests that those who told him about this event believe that somehow the Galileans were culpable for their own fate and, therefore, worthy of the judgment of death. The belief that one's sins cause one's suffering and death appears in various places in Jewish literature (cf. Exodus 20:5; Job 4:7; 8:4, 20; 22:5; cf. John 9:2-3). The response of Jesus, however, suggests he rejects such a claim. Among the many problems of this idea is that suffering is so widespread among other living things in the prehumen world and cannot result from human sin.[46] The Galileans' status as sinners has nothing to do with their fate. Since all of us are sinners unless we repent (μετανοῆτε) we will also perish. The event foreshadows end-time judgment. He shifts the focus from the Galileans to his audience he is addressing. He refers to another incident, this one involving when the tower of Siloam, a reservoir close to the southeast corner of the walls of Jerusalem, but again, this is the only reference to its collapse and killing of 18 persons. He asks if these persons, who may have been strengthening the water supply for Jerusalem, were worse offenders than the rest of the city. He again focuses upon the audience, saying that what happened to them anticipates end-time judgment and the need for his audience to repent. The point here is not to explain random acts of violence or natural disaster, but to use them as a moment for us to reflect upon how we are living our lives, given how precarious life is. The most natural thing any of us does is to fail the tests of life. We have done so and will do so again. Further, most of our sins are not as bold as scarlet, but shades of gray, colorless, tired sins of omission, inertia, and timidity. Thus, we always need to have respect for admitting we are wrong, seeking forgiveness, and repenting. Repenting involves turning from rebellion and toward submission to the will of God.
Luke 13:6-9, unique to Luke (although overlapping with the image in Mark 11:12-14, 20-22 = Matthew 21:19-22), is a parable concerning the unproductive, barren fig tree, which connects to the call to repentance. The fig tree was an important food source in ancient Israel. The owner looked for fruit and found none, which in Jeremiah 8:13 was a sign of judgment from the Lord. In Isaiah 5, the Lord tended the vineyard, but it bore no fruit, a sign of the disobedience of Israel. The owner was patient in waiting three years for fruit, but that patience is over, so he tells the gardener to cut it down, since it is taking up the nutrients of the ground from other trees are producing fruit. However, the gardener urges the owner to allow another year, stressing the immanent nature of the judgment, as the gardener the fig tree both grace and time and a richer environment. It implies hope. Human beings have a brief period until judgment arrives. We do not know if the owner accepts the advice of the gardener. The patience of owner and gardener will not last forever. The parable takes on the nuance of the human life marked by unproductivity. Those who need to repent (bear fruit) have a time-frame within which to do so, another sobering indication about the shortness of the time at hand. The connection between fruit and repentance echoes the call of John the Baptist in Luke 3:8-9, who calls upon his audience to bear fruits worthy of repentance and one throws into the fire a tree that does not bear fruit. The parable reiterates the call of John the Baptist. The additional year allowed by the owner highlights the owner's merciful response and, by extension, God's willingness to be gracious. The restraining of divine wrath is a sign of divine patience that has conversion as its goal. With the themes of time, repentance and mercy, this parable provides an apt summary of Jesus' discourse on judgment up to this point.[47] What time is it? The question arises from this parable. The time is at hand for repentance and judgment. To place this saying in its context in Luke, the fate of the Galileans whose blood Pilate mingled with that of their sacrifices, like that of those who perished in the fall of the tower of Siloam, becomes a symbol for the coming fate of all who will not repent. The fig-tree parable identifies Jesus' hearers as being in the last season of opportunity to change their ways.[48]
We need to trust the slow work of God. We are impatient, wanting to reach the end immediately. We would like to skip the intermediate stages. We are impatient as we are on the way to something unknown and new. Yet, if we are to make progress at all, we will make it by passing through some stages of instability and that passing through the stages may take a long time.[49]
While there is evidence of divine patience with humanity and with each of us, we are accountable for the lives we lead and the choices we make. The inevitability of divine judgment occurs in the context of divine mercy. That is why Jesus relates the parable at this time. The fig tree is hopelessly barren and ready for judgment. Yet, the parable implies an exaggerated hope. A period of grace, though brief, can be a time in which fruitfulness can redeem the tree. God offers mercy, with the understanding that repentance is to follow. The parable speaks of a God with amazing forbearance whose nature is to give us the time we need to repent of our sin.
Luke 13:31-35 (Year C, Second Sunday in Lent), unique to Luke, is a pronouncement story against Herod. Some Pharisees warn him to leave Galilee because Herod Antipas, the Tetrarch of Galilee, whose official residence, and regional capital city, Sepphoris, was four miles north of Nazareth, wants to kill him. Luke 9:7-9 has Herod confused over hearing about Jesus, thinking that he had already rid himself of troublesome prophets when he executed John the Baptist. Do the Pharisees warn Jesus out of respect for him? Do they warn him because they want him out of their territory? We do not know.
Jesus assumes these Pharisees are in the employ of Herod and tells them to tell that fox that he is casting out demons and performing cures today, tomorrow, and on the third day he finishes his work. Yet, he must be on his way, anticipating the three days between his death and resurrection. The reason is that to fulfill his divine mission as a prophet he will be killed in Jerusalem. He has a message for that city, and he will die there. Thus, a prophet is not welcome in his home country (Luke 4:24, Mark 6:4, Matthew 13:57, John 4:44), but Jesus also makes it clear that he will share the fate of other prophets before him. For the image of Jerusalem as the city that kills the prophets and stones those God sends to it, we can go to Matthew 23:37-39 as well. In Matthew 22:6 and Luke 7:52, Israel tends to kill the prophets. Jeremiah 26:20-23 has the story of Uriah, who managed to escape to Egypt, but whom King Jehoiakim brought back to the city to execute because he uttered a prophecy of which the king did not approve. Jesus understood his public utterances put his life in peril. Herod has already killed John the Baptism. Luke 11:50-51 (also Matthew 23:29-37) relate the execution of Zechariah in the courts of the temple, recording in II Chronicles 24:20-22. The king who executed Zechariah was Joash. Interestingly, the father of the prophet was the High Priest, Jehoiada, who saved the life of the king from the murderous Queen Athaliah. One can read of this intrigue in II Kings 11:1-21 and II Chronicles 22:10-23:21. Yet, Joash had Zechariah killed despite this. Among the parables of Jesus is that of the wicked tenants. Jesus likens the prophets to the servants of a vineyard owner whom the tenants kill. When the owner sends his son, they kill him as well. See Luke 20:9-19, Mark 12:1-12, and Matthew 21:33-41 for this story.
Luke 13:34-35, from Q, contains a saying concerning lament over Jerusalem. Jesus refers to the city that kills the prophets. Barth reflects on the history of the covenant Israel had with God, where the presence of the Lord elects them in divine action and powerful work of faithfulness and goodness. Yet, Israel followed its ancestors in the wilderness in complaint and disobedience. The elect people of God will not be neutral in the face of what God said and did in Jesus. Israel had the possibility of Yes, but it also had the alternative of a No of the most radical rejection, repudiation, and resistance. He stresses they were not wicked. In many ways, they were much better than their Roman and Greek contemporaries were. Yet, everything was at stake. It was a matter of life and death. Israel understood the question that Jesus put to it and the situation that allowed it to arise. It could not accept it. It was inevitable that Jesus would meet repudiation and resistance.[50]
Jesus implies many visits to Jerusalem as he desired to gather the children of the city as a hen gathers her brood under wings, an image drawn from Isaiah 31:5, where God is a bird hovering protectively over the city. The image of the sheltering wings of God under which the people find refuge is one we find in Deuteronomy 32:11, Ruth 2:12, Psalm 17:8, 57:1, 61:4, and 91:4. Here is the only time Jesus uses a female image for himself. However, the reality is harsh in that the city was not willing. This saying views the death of Jesus as a prophetic destiny known in advance from the Old Testament.[51] God has left their house (desolate in some manuscripts of Matthew 23:38, consistent with the LXX version of Jeremiah 22:5). I Kings 9:7, Jeremiah 12:7 and Tobit 14:4 focus on the coming destruction of the temple of Solomon. This brief statement reflects a prophecy concerning the besieging and destruction of Jerusalem as a judgment of God the people of God. Early Christianity saw a fulfillment of this prophecy in the siege and overthrow of the city by Titus in 70 AD.[52] They will not see Jesus until the time comes when they say, in the words of Psalm 118:26, blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord (Luke 19:38, John 12:13). The saying presents Jesus as a heaven-sent messenger and herald of the wisdom of God commenting on the sad condition of Jerusalem. As such, this saying links the idea of preexistence, which we find in Jewish wisdom speculation in Proverbs 8:22-23 and Sirach 24:3ff, to the figure of Jesus in the tradition concerning him.[53]
Luke 15:1-3, 11-32 (Year C, Fourth Sunday in Lent) contains a brief introduction by Luke and the parable of the prodigal son. Luke notes that tax collectors and sinners were listening to Jesus. Pharisees grumble against his posture of welcoming sinners by eating with them. This chapter will deal with how and why Jesus included such persons in his table fellowship. Thus, one can never overestimate the importance of gospel narratives that place Jesus at a table because whenever Jesus is around food, the story shows him serving up lessons about the reign of God. To enact such hospitality is to initiate a kind of generosity that his critics considered as time wasted on the unrighteous or, even worse, crosses the line into unacceptable religious behavior with sinners. Jesus enacts a gracious hospitality that is prodigal. However, his prodigality signals that religious rituals and rules are a waste of time if they do not edify and encourage relationships of care among people. By addressing this group, Jesus revealed the nature of the participation in salvation that his message of the nearness of the rule of God effected in those who received it. The participation is from God, and it means the rescuing of the lost. Those who accept the message are no longer outcasts. They share in the salvation of the rule of God. The presence of salvation relates to the removal of the barrier that separates from God. The turning of Jesus to tax gatherers and sinners makes it clear that sinners are included in the saved community.[54] When he accepted invitations from others, he made known his readiness to grant fellowship with him to those who issued the invitation. Some contemporaries thought this to be especially scandalous in some cases because by his participation the table fellowship that he granted or accepted became a sign of the presence of the rule of God that he proclaimed and a sign of the acceptance of the other participants into the future community of salvation.[55]
The body of this lengthy parable contains numerous fascinating nuances that testify to Luke's storytelling prowess and finesse. A brief overview can catch only a few of the author's juicy tidbits. Note how Luke uses Hellenistic images and information to add realism to the story. In context, there is the additional emphasis on God's joy at finding what was lost. Jesus, the kingdom preacher, expresses the divine willingness to accept the repentant sinner into the kingdom. Jesus is the herald of a loving Father who shows mercy to the repentant sinner. The heart of the message of Jesus was announcing the nearness of the divine reign, but Jesus called this God the heavenly Father. In Jesus, God shows himself to be the Father who is ready to forgive those who turn to him.[56] Jesus regarded the loving and saving address of God to us, and particularly to the needy and the lost among us, as the purpose of his sending. He believed that by his sending, the Father was addressing the lost. In this parable, Jesus is defending addressing his message and work to the lost. The parable portrays God as the one who seeks what is lost and who in so doing displays the self-attesting love of the Father. The search reveals the divine love that takes place through the work and message of Jesus.[57]
11 “There was a man who had two sons. 12 The younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of the property that will belong to me.’ Luke uses Greek legal language to describe the younger son's demand to his father. Although it was not unusual for a father to distribute property in advance, as in the case of marriage, Jesus strongly implies that the younger son’s demand is disrespectful, rebellious and foolish — a clear violation of the commandment to honor one’s parents (Exodus 20:12). In a culture where family and community always took priority over the individual, the kid’s self-centered demand would have raised the eyebrows of those hearing the parable for the first time. Yet despite the legalese (or perhaps because of it), scholars still wrangle over what exactly was due to a son who would make such a demand. In addition, we wonder what legal and moral responsibilities would remain between this father and son once this division of property occurred. Whatever the cultural standards or legal implications associated with early inheritance, the younger son cast them aside. Therefore, he divided his property between them. 13 A few days later the younger son gathered all he had, that is, he converted his inheritance to cash, and traveled to a distant country, left home, family and any obligations far behind, and there he squandered his property in dissolute (aswtwV can be "extravagant" or "reckless") living. The fall of the son is rapid, complete, and catastrophic. The boy's fortunes deteriorate. 14 When he had spent everything, a severe famine took place throughout that country, and he began to be in need. 15 Therefore, he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed the pigs. 16 He would gladly have filled himself with the pods that the pigs were eating; and no one gave him anything. This son has spirit. He moves on to get a job, even as a temporary hireling, working not for wages, but only for the food he needs. Note that only the extreme desperateness of his situation that finally brings this son to consider returning home. Luke's language in verse 14-16 is coarse and colloquial when he describes how the son would have loved to eat the disgusting food he was giving to the pigs. (Some scholars profess to be able to see signs of a hasty scribal attempt to clean it up). Working for a Gentile and playing servant to swine was the bottom of all possible Jewish barrels. 17 Nevertheless, when he came to himself he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired hands have bread enough and to spare, but here I am dying of hunger! Luke's phrasing of how the young man "came to himself" is one of the few Semiticisms in this parable. It literally means, "to repent." 18 I will get up and go to my father, and I will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; 19 I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me like one of your hired hands.” ’ While the son's "confession" sounds contrite and genuine enough, a careful examination of the thought process that led him to this confession reveals only one clear motivating force: hunger. The son decides to return home and throw himself on his father's mercy only because he feels he is starving to death. 20 Therefore, he set off and went to his father. However, while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him. The father's impetuous forgiveness of the approaching son may appear to offer the boy forgiveness without repentance. Nevertheless, the son had already privately voiced his change of heart and mind. The father's welcome and forgiveness (the embrace and the kiss) occur before the son's confession. Much kissing means much love, much forgiveness, full restoration, exceeding joy, overflowing comfort, strong assurance, and intimate communion.[58] 21 Then the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ Even more telling is the fact that the earlier Masoretic text has the father cut the son's "confession" off midway, as he excitedly calls his servants to tend to the young man. 22 But the father said to his slaves, ‘Quickly, bring out a robe—the best one—and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Such gifts bear all marks of the son's fully restored place of honor and authority in the household.
Let us pause to consider what we have read. The failure of the younger son is total. He begins his failure by having his hand out toward his father, demanding his share of his inheritance now. Is he saying he wishes his father were dead? We do not know, but he might be. He is clearly violating the command to honor parents. He has placed himself among the “sinners” whom scribes and Pharisees accuse Jesus of befriending. He fails again when he goes to Gentile country and squanders or scatters his property by living a wild and undisciplined lifestyle. He departs far from a Jewish life, becoming a worker on a pig farm. Pigs were unclean for Jews (Leviticus 11:7; Deuteronomy 14:8). Sitting among the pigs, hungry and destitute, would qualify as a major failure. Yet, the pigsty becomes a place of personal insight or revelation. It becomes the setting for the event that would change his life. Notice, though, that at least initially it is more of a pragmatic decision than a penitential one. He is a hired hand to the pig farmer and gets nothing, so he figures that if he goes home, he can at least get hired on to the family business and get what the other servants are getting, which is better than pig fodder. Yes, he will have to do a mea culpa, but at least he will have a full belly. When the boy is still far from home, his dad spies him off in the distance. Setting aside his status as a patriarch and landowner, the father hikes up his robes, and sprints out to greet his son. I can imagine Jesus using some humor and acting this out. Yet, in the context of first century Judaism, the audience for this parable may have viewed the father as the largest failure. The father surrendered his property to a rebellious child. Running in public as he did was the height of undignified behavior for the patriarch of a family. To do so to embrace a son who has dishonored dad was even less dignified. The son had disowned himself from the family. We see no rebuke. We see no attempt to make sure the son has learned his lesson. We see no justice. Dad is a failure in the eyes of scribes and Pharisees. When the young man begins the speech, he had planned for this moment, his dad is not listening. Dad does not want to hear about his son's mistakes. He does not need the young man to debase himself. Instead, the father is overjoyed. The true treasure he had lost when his son left home has returned to him. Calling for robes, rings and fatted calves, the father demonstrates that he sees in his son treasure, not trash. The love of the father transforms the son. Many of us can put ourselves in the young man's place. We, too, have a voice inside of us that only wants to dwell on the garbage in our lives. We have made mistakes, and we hear repeatedly that, like a discarded bottle or can, whatever was of value inside of us we have already poured out. Nothing valuable remains. God is interested in redeeming creation, including human beings who have wasted their lives. God sees value in each of us, even when we are far away from God intended for our lives. God has not abandoned us. God has not tossed us aside. God loves us and knows our worth. When we turn toward God, God sprints toward us, embraces us, and welcome us home.
The father tells his servants to 23 get the fatted calf, symbolizing a truly special and festive occasion, and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate; 24 for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!’ Moreover, they began to celebrate. The father's reaction is so overwhelmingly joyous, so unexpectedly elated, that the reader is rightly stunned. In verses 20-24, the emphasis of Paul on the goodness, grace, and favor of God shown in the Son continues the theme of the preaching of Jesus that by his message and in his work, the Father shows us the mercy that pardons our sins.[59] The meals Jesus held or shared characterized his coming and the conduct of his disciples. When he accepted invitations from others, he made known his readiness to grant fellowship with him to those who issued the invitation. The granting of acceptance of table fellowship by Jesus removed everything that separated people from God and his salvation. It meant the forgiveness of sins, so that table fellowship was a real symbol of fellowship with God and of participation in the future of the divine kingdom. The re-acceptance of the prodigal came to expression in the feast that the father prepared for him.[60] Preaching of the imminence of the rule of God opens participation in eschatological salvation. In this fact, Jesus sees a demonstration of the love of God that seeks the lost, in keeping with the goodness of the Creator. The goodness of the Creator becomes saving love in the sending of Jesus to announce imminent divine rule, which we see in this parable at the saving of the lost. Forgiving love that has reached its goal finds expression in this joy.[61]
Jesus had a reputation of making friends with “sinners.” The reception that the son receives seems typical of Jesus, in that he commends throwing a party. The story represents the reconciliation of Judean with Judean. The central figure is the Father. Originally, Jesus may have intended a story of God's welcoming back a repentant person, not allowing the "faithful" elder brother to hinder that love.
However, no one had even gone to fetch this older son from the fields where he was working so that he might join in the festivities. The elder son is not yet a part of this celebration. In fact, he does not even learn of it or of his brother's return until after he has finished his day's work in the fields. 25 “Now his elder son was in the field; and when he came and approached the house, he heard music and dancing. 26 He called one of the slaves and asked what was going on. 27 He replied, ‘Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fatted calf, because he has got him back safe and sound.’ 28 Then he became angry and refused to go in. His father came out and began to plead with him. The invitation extended to the elder brother is important, for it offers the message of Jesus to the Jewish people. The anger of the elder son is instant. This son is so enraged that he will not even step foot in the house. Yet, we learn much about the father. The father’s love had driven him out of his house and down the road to welcome home his younger son. Now, the love the father feels for his older son again pulls him out the door and into the fields to be with him in his anger. 29 But he answered his father, ‘Listen! For all these years I have been working like a slave for you, and I have never disobeyed your command; yet you have never given me even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends. 30 But when this son of yours came back, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him!’ The confrontational tone he takes with his father is neither respectful nor obedient. He clearly thinks his father has failed miserably as head of the household. Big brother wants justice and retribution on his brother. He even refuses to acknowledge his blood relationship to his brother, identifying him only as "this son of yours." The older son pours forth what we might call his "righteous indignation." The older brother is going to remind dad and his brother of past sins. He will remind them the boy is trash. Sadly, we may have people like that in our lives, who remind us of our failures. Too many churches have done this to people. One dimension of this story that receives little to no attention is that the younger brother also left the older brother, not just his father. The older brother has formed a resentful spirit toward his younger brother. I wonder if he ever pondered how lost he had become while he harbored such resentment in his mind and heart. Resentment is a deep form of becoming spiritually lost. Granted, the younger son is lost in a spectacular way. He gives in to us lust and greed. He uses women, gambles, and loses his money. His wrong-doing, his failure, is present for all to see. Eventually, even the younger son sees his failure. The problem with resentment is that its effect in moving us toward becoming spiritually lost is not so spectacular. Rather than being open for all to see, this form of a lost and wasted life can have the outward appearance of a holy life. Resentment sits deep within us. We are not conscious it is there. We think we are so good. In fact, however, resentment has brought us to a lost spiritual place in a very profound way. [62] Yet, the father does not listen to the elder son. 31 Then the father said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. 32 But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.’ ” The father refuses to be shocked. His eyes and heart remain rigidly fixed on what he sees as the only important fact about this missing younger son - he is found, and he is alive. Dad treasures both sons. He invites the elder son to join the party. The father is inviting his older son to forgive his brother for abandoning them. The older brother lives in the prison of his resentment and needs liberation.[63] The older brother long ago could have practiced the art of forgiveness. While still acknowledging the hurt the younger brother caused, he could have wished his younger brother well.[64] In fact, he could have learned an important truth concerning love among human beings. Love is an act of endless forgiveness, a tender look that becomes a habit.[65]
The story ends here, leaving a host of unanswered questions for the reader. What is most shocking about this parable is how it celebrates grace, even at the expense of justice. Like all good parables, we cannot contain the prodigal son story by just one explanation. The narrative takes its meaning and strength from the fact that it is a parable, a story, and as such invites others to participate in it. Fittingly, Luke's story closes with a typical parabolic ending -- which is to say "no ending." We leave the confrontation scene between father and son before hearing the son's response. It is the reader, therefore, who must provide the final reply to the father's invitation to rejoice and join the party.
John
John 2:13-22 (Year B, Third Sunday in Lent) is a story that concerns Jesus cleansing the temple. Although all four canonical gospels tell this story, John places it at the beginning of the ministry of Jesus rather than the last week of his life. In the synoptics (Mark 11:15-17), the bold action of Jesus of taking on the religious establishment in Jerusalem serves as a fitting impetus for his impending arrest, trial, and crucifixion. The placement of this story at the beginning of the public ministry of Jesus thus seems odd, given that John has scarcely introduced the protagonist of his story before he takes this daring step to incite leading religious authorities.[66] Pannenberg thinks that John may have preserved the original context better than the synoptic gospels, which separated the cleansing of the temple in Mark 11:15-18 from the prediction of its destruction in Mark 13:2. If one accepts the placement by John, the Fourth Gospel is the only one of the gospels to include three separate Passover celebrations (2:13, 6:4, 11:55), and from these distinct Passovers one typically calculates the dating of the public ministry Jesus to three years. The story shows the abrogation of the Jewish temple system. Jesus and his community will replace it. Through Jesus, the perfect, eschatological worship becomes possible, a worship that surpasses and abrogates even that of the Jews, which had been the legitimate one hitherto.
Jesus travels to Jerusalem during the Passover festival to pay the annual "temple tax" and offer sacrifices. While in the temple (ἱερῷ) he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, with moneychangers seated at their tables. The scene that greets Jesus at the temple mount during this high holyday is what one would expect. Merchants offered sacrificial animals for sale to diaspora Jews who had traveled long distances to make their annual pilgrimage. Being able to purchase animals at the temple site instead of bringing them on a long trek was a convenience for the observant. Likewise, the moneychangers accepted coinage from any number of distant places and exchanged them for the Tyrian coin required to pay the temple tax. The problem was that they had made the temple service a transaction rather than a meeting place for the holy and righteous God. Jesus fashions a whip, increasing our sense of the physicality of the moment, he drove out from the temple (ἱεροῦ) the moneychangers by overturning their tables as well as opening the stables for the animals to depart. He tells those selling the doves that they need to stop making the house of his Father a marketplace. These words clearly identify the action of Jesus with the prophetic protest of the exploitation \ of the Temple and of the people of Israel. His first direct words in this drama may reveal the reason for placing this event so close to the beginning of Jesus' ministry. The command of Jesus to the dove sellers does not have its basis in any perceived dishonesty in their dealings, as the “den of robbers” references suggests in the Synoptic Gospels. In John, the basis of the command is their presence alone. What is it that has caused Jesus to become so angry that he becomes a holy terror? It may be injustice. The sacrificial system in the temple had evolved, over the centuries, into an efficient machine for fleecing rich and poor alike, earning a great deal of money for the insiders who ran it. If you went on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, your goal was to sacrifice an animal, according to the Law of Moses. You could bring your own sacrificial animal, of course, but many who had journeyed from afar found it easier to purchase a beast locally, at a steep markup. The law said you had to present a perfect animal, without mark or blemish. Unless you purchased a pre-approved animal within the temple precincts, you had to bring your offering before an inspector, who would tell you whether it met the grade. The inspectors were conspiring with the animal-sellers, who knew how to grease their palms with silver. Rarely did they grant approval for a sacrificial animal brought in from the outside. There was something else. If you had journeyed from one of the lands of the Jewish diaspora -- Greece, Egypt, Asia Minor, even distant Rome -- the coins jingling in your purse would have been imperial coins, engraved with the Emperor's likeness. Such graven images violated the Second Commandment, and so the religious established forbade them within the temple precincts. To buy yourself a sacrificial animal, you had to first exchange your Roman money for image-free Judean coins. The moneychangers, who had a monopoly, charged exorbitant commissions, but the poor pilgrims had no recourse. They got them coming and going, those temple merchants. The reason Jesus raged through the temple had nothing to do with the proximity of money to a place of worship, as some modern commentators have assumed. Thus, injustice sparked his anger. The injustice was that the religious establishment transformed the temple into a corrupt machine for cheating pilgrims out of their life savings. His disciples would remember Psalm 68:10, where zeal for the house of the Lord would consume him. The disciples grasp the dangerous consequences of the action of Jesus. His zeal for the house of God will cost him his life. This is the meaning of the quotation because the psalm too speaks of something more than an inwardly consuming zeal. The psalmist suffers insolently and provokes many to hate him. The early church understood the psalm as Messianic. John describes the disciples as remembering this psalm in the actual situation, but John intends the reader to think also of the mortal hatred of the religious establishment that Jesus will soon arouse. Even more importantly, John uses Jesus' first words in this highly charged scenario to give us a glimpse into his unique divine relationship. The synoptic authors have Jesus declare the temple to be "my house." John reveals the temple to be "my Father's house." From its opening prologue, John's gospel focuses on the unique relationship that exists between the Logos and God, Jesus and his Father. The power and intimacy of this relationship prompts John to change subtly the focus of the outrage of Jesus from the abuse of the temple building in verses 14-15 to the desecration of "his Father's house" in verses 16-17. As the house, the temple is not just a gathering place for people, or even the formal dwelling place of God. The relationship of Jesus to the house is unique because it is "his Father's house." He has special authority within it. The actions of Jesus are both motivationally mystifying and culturally threatening. All rituals involve a kind of substitution. It was clearly a way of establishing or re-establishing a right relationship with the divine within the community. The Jews who witnessed them must have been shocked--finding his behavior incomprehensible. He was questioning the validity of the entire sacrificial system itself. He questioned the ability of Israel to atone for its sins, receive forgiveness and stand in right relationship with God.
The overseers of the temple, who had charge of good order in the temple and controlled the Levitical police, asked him what sign (σημεῖον, as Paul reminds us in I Corinthians 1:18-25, Jews demand signs) gave him the authority to do this. They call Jesus to account. While they want a sign, Jesus will give them a word. What comes to the foreground is as much the question of the identity of Jesus, and especially his authority, as the prophetic motif itself. Questions about the identity and authority of Jesus invariably call for response. In this scene, the assault of Jesus on the abuse of the Temple elicits from his disciples further insight about him. The words of Jesus come from his consciousness of being the Son, which the later course of the Gospel will express still more clearly. The writer is less interested in the objective implications of the action than in its significance and its consequences for the person of Jesus. His response is that the prophetic word destroys this temple (ναὸν) and in three days I will raise it up. The historical reality behind the statement is the intimation of the destruction of the temple being the immediate reason for his arrest by Jewish authorities. [67]Even when a writer depicts the resurrection as the act of the Son, as here, the writer does so recognizing the Father is the one who commands it, and is thus an act of power dependent upon another.[68] Jesus apparently agrees to the demand of his interlocutors, but holds out a quite different type of sign. He answers with an enigmatic saying, which cannot but remain obscure to them. Formally, it resembles the procedure of the Old Testament prophets, who often used a cryptic mashal to give a sign. However, it is also in keeping with the procedure of the Johannine Christ, who often utters words of revelation that lead his hearers to misunderstand him. As often happens in John, they misunderstand what Jesus said. Thus, the authorities respond that the temple has been under construction for 46 years, and he will raise it up in three days? John gives an aside to the reader that Jesus was speaking of the temple (ναοῦ) of his body. Jesus freely surrenders his body to destruction. However, within three days he will deliver it again from death. This saying of the body of Jesus as the temple in which the Father abides raises questions regarding the Trinity, which seeks to resolve the tension between the transcendence and immanence of God.[69] Thus, after the Father raised him from the dead, the disciples remembered what he had said, believed the scripture, and believed the word he had spoken. The cleansing of the temple becomes a revelation of his glory that God discloses to those who believe. For the readers of this gospel, written long after the destruction of the temple in 70 AD, this story would take on new significance. The focus of so much attention during the life of Jesus, the entire system of sacrifices, temple worship, and political power would be gone. So many people had placed so much stress on it as a means of growing close to God. The temple was gone. Yet, God had provided a new holy place in Jesus. In Jesus, God provides a new way to grow close to God.
John 3:1-17 (Year A, Second Sunday in Lent) continues a reflection upon the relation of Jesus to the Law. It is the first of the lengthy discourses in John that set his gospel apart from the other three. We see Jesus as a patient and learned teacher. The discourse discloses and brings home the significance of the Christian revelation, but it is also a summons, a strengthening of faith and a moral exhortation. We best understand it as a proclamation composed by the evangelist that makes use of a lofty style such as is usual in a revelation discourse. It contains the whole Johannine preaching in succinct form. It begins with the typical misunderstanding of the one engaging Jesus. In doing so, it shows human weakness in approaching matters of the Spirit. It shows the unique relationship between the Father and Jesus as Son. It shows the important work of the Spirit in bringing people to see what God has done in Jesus. It stresses the importance of a transition or transformation in the lives of human beings. We need to move from darkness to light and from death to life. It stresses the importance of an event of revelation in Jesus. It also stresses the importance of an event in your life and mine as we hear of the event of revelation in Jesus and respond to it. Yet even our response is because of the work of the Spirit.
This passage provides one of the New Testament sources for reflection upon the Trinity. It hints at the relationship between Father, Son, and Spirit. It does so in a way that reminds us of the importance of relationships. In fact, our human experience of relationships may well be the best way for us to think about the Trinity. As soon as we even try to define it in a logical or mathematical way, we run the risk of heresy. It may well be that the doctrine of the Trinity reveals that relationships stand at the heart of the universe. Atoms do not exist unless they are in relationship with other atoms. You and I do not exist unless in relationships with others. Even God exists in relationship. The human soul is not within. The human soul is not without. The human soul is between. This means that we exist personally, communally, and socially in relationship with others. Our identity is as the body of Christ in relationships with this world. If the essence of God is oneness in community, it may well mean that the destiny toward which Christians pray and work is oneness in community with each other and with creation.
Nicodemus in Tal Bab Taanith 20a is a wealthy Jewish resident of Jerusalem before 70 AD, but we have no proof he is the same person of this discourse. He will appear again in 7:45-52 and 19:38-42, a journey that suggests a charitable view of Nicodemus has some justification, in contrast to the negative views we find in Augustine and Calvin. He represents a Jewish leader and teacher who slowly came to discipleship. As such, he is living two lives and needs a new life. His coming to Jesus at night may suggest the need for secrecy. It may acknowledge the rabbinic practice of studying at night and engaging in prolonged discussions at night. It may have the deeper meaning that he is emerging from the spiritual darkness in which the Law has encased him and into the spiritual light Jesus brings. His initial statement, Jesus is a teacher who has come from God, is already a strong confessional one. Jesus is already a distinguished rabbi in his view. His reasoning is that no one can the signs (σημεῖα) he has done without the presence of God, referring to the turning of water into wine at a wedding and his casting out of the money changers in the Temple. Yet, Jesus has already said those who rely upon signs do not merit trust from Jesus (2:23-25). The response of Jesus is that no one can see the rule of God, which is the essence of salvation, Jesus offering a symbol of a new time, the age of the rule of God, and new place as the domain of God. [70] One will not see this rule without being born from above or anew (ἄνωθεν), opening a discussion of the possibility of a new life. With a hint of sarcasm, but also typical of the misunderstanding exhibited at the beginning of most the discourses in John, Nicodemus asks how one can have such birth at his age. Is Jesus suggesting he can enter the womb of his mother again? However, Judaism was acquainted with the notion of the coming of the Spirit bring new hearts and spirits (Ezekiel 26:25-26) and making sons and daughters (Joel 2:28-29). The Lord will give them a holy spirit through which the Lord will be their father and they will become children of the living God (Jubilee 1:23-25). A time is coming when the children of heaven will receive knowledge of the Most High and wisdom to do what is right (Community Rule of Qumran 1S iv 19-21). Thus, although a teacher himself, Nicodemus seems dense in this matter. His emergence from darkness will mean he needs to see the truth already in the scripture and which Jesus discloses by his teaching. Thus, Jesus says that no one can enter the rule of God without being born of water and Spirit. In the background is the biblical witness that the Lord will sprinkle the people with clean water, cleanse them, and give them a new spirit (Ezekiel 36:25-26) and the Lord will pour water on the dry land pour the Spirit of the Lord upon the people (Isaiah 44:3). John is referring to baptism and to the gift of the Spirit. In Chapter 1, John has already suggested that the Incarnation overcomes the alienation from the logos that permeates creation, but here, we do not receive the Logos unless we are born anew/from above the Spirit. [71]It suggests the unity of baptism with regeneration by the Spirit. [72] The reason for the new birth is that humanity is naturally weak and mortal and needs birth through the Spirit to perceive things related to the human spirit. Humanity cannot see or enter the rule of God on its own, but only through the agency of the presence of the Spirit. Given the scriptural witness, it should not amaze Nicodemus that Jesus said he must birth from above/anew. The wind (πνεῦμα) is invisible force we hear and see, which is an analogy for the one born of the Spirit (Πνεύματος). If God is Spirit, the sound fills creation, and the power gives life to all creatures.[73] Jesus is amazed that a teacher of Israel does not understand such things. The association of the Spirit with rebirth is a power to set aside the old and bring to life what is new. The past, as important as it is in shaping us into who we are today, does not determine our future. The agency of the Spirit is the possibility of something new to emerge that will be life-giving and life-sustaining.
The community of John testifies that it speaks of what it knows and testifies, as in a courtroom, to what it has seen, yet you, Nicodemus receding into the background and the Judaism of the latter part of the first century emerging, to do not receive its testimony. John is telling us as readers of the experience the community of John had with the Jewish community of the latter part of the first century. Jesus contrasts the things Nicodemus could have known by proper study of scripture with the heavenly things are to come, especially in the crucifixion. Thus, the Son of Man has descended from heaven. Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, referring to Numbers 21:4-9, and the Son of Man must also be lifted up in the cross, resurrection, and ascension to bring liberation and healing to suffering humanity. The image is not beautiful. Like a snake on a pole, like a criminal on a cross, Jesus offered his life as a sacrifice in a way that makes life for others possible. The point is that whoever believes (πιστεύων) in Jesus as the Son of Man, the Christ, will have eternal life (ζωὴν αἰώνιον). If human beings are to have eternal life, the basis can only be that God wills to live in fellowship with humanity.[74] This work of salvation is the plan of God, the goal of which is the giving of new and eschatological life, which now defines like in the full sense of the term, making earthly life such only with reservations. [75]
In the next verses, John turns from the discourse that ends in verse 15 and addresses his readers directly. He is getting personal with us, becoming the preacher, and offering his witness as one who believes. God in a moment and in an act loved (ἠγάπησεν) the world (κόσμον) in a way that elects, helps, guides, and saves. [76] God moves toward the world God has made through the Word in this event. The will of God is toward fellowship with the world God has made. Such love defines the doctrine of election. This verse demonstrates divine election. Election is the giving of the divine self to the work of God in creation. God has singled out Jesus as the object of divine election that demonstrates divine love for the world. Since the Father is so much with the Son, the Father is also with humanity. God wills to be with the world. Yet, the world responds with opposition, even while God responds with affirmation and salvation. Divine election affirms the divine will in creation. We clearly see the divine Yes toward humanity.[77] It speaks to a unique event that occurs within human history. The object of this love is the world. The world has rejected the light offered in the Son, but this did not alter the love of God for the world. We see the extraordinary nature of this love in the giving of the Son.[78] If we think in terms of the divine essence and existence, the Son reveals the existence of the Father, and by the sending of the Son, the Father reveals the divine essence, that is, divine love.[79] The creation of the world is an expression of the love of God. The love with which God loved the world in the sending of the Son does not differ in kind from the fatherly love the Creator for the creatures God made.[80]This act of love occurs in the giving of the only and uniquely loved Son. Such giving or gifting to the world the Son, the Father gave the divine self as a gift. Such a gift is a surrendering, a giving up, and an offering up. This type of gift exposes divinity to great danger. God pledges divinity on behalf of those whom God has made. The giving of the Son arises out of the love of God for the world, suggesting that Jesus is truly the human being who is for others.[81] The purpose of this giving is so that one who believes may not perish but receive eternal life. Those who believe become witnesses in this world of this event of divine love. [82] The Christian message consists in the telling of this act of God. In distilling the gospel into a simple statement of the power of divine love, John has served well all of us as readers. The plan of the cross has its root in the immeasurable love of God for the world. The Son is the most cherished gift God had to give. John makes known the greatness of the act of God in the Incarnation and in the mission of bridging the chasm between God and world. God has revealed this love in the historical mission of the Son, to the extent of the cross. The purpose of this giving of the Son is life for others. God bridges the gap caused by human alienation and sin, bringing reconciliation. The sending of the Son into the world, that we might live through him, declares the love of God for us.[83] The sending of the Son has the has the aim of bringing the world into the sphere of divine holiness. [84] We are reading of the love of God in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ for us, the self-sacrificing of Jesus Christ is the embodiment and revelation of divine love for humanity, and that this occurs through the Holy Spirit.[85] Such love bridges a vast chasm. What God sees God loves, even though what God sees is on the way to death. God makes a bridge to that which, on its own, is moving toward abandonment and death. God becomes the light that shines darkness. Such is the miracle of divine love.[86]
John makes things clearer by saying that God sent the Son, a notion that presupposes his pre-existence, [87] in such a way that his earthly path as the Son was from the beginning a journey to his passion and death. The saving work of the Son is the purpose of the Father in the sending of the Son. [88] The goal of the sending of the Son is others. [89] The world (κόσμος) is on its way to perishing, but the Father does not condemn the world for that but reaches out to save and redeem it through the giving of the Son. John gives an example of realized eschatology when he says that those who do not believe are under condemnation already, since they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God. Judgment reserved for the future is already present. Since the desire of God is toward salvation, unbelief brings self-condemnation. Future judgment is acknowledgment of the self-condemnation made during one’s life. John shifts to using the metaphor of light and darkness to express the realities concerning the revelation of God. He defines the judgment as recognizing that the light of the Word has come into the world, but people loved darkness more than light, since their deeds were evil. Since humanity is not darkness itself, we have the responsibility to the opportunities given us to respond to the light. God attacks the darkness but does not attack humanity. God does so for the flourishing of human beings.[90] The Word that has come in the flesh is the light, while the deeds or unbelief of humanity unmasks humanity for what it is. Hatred of the light suggests a preference to remain blind to the truth and light that Jesus brings. However, those who do what is true come to the light and reveal their deeds as of divine origin.
John 4:5-42 (Year A, Third Sunday in Lent) involves a discourse by Jesus around the occasion of his meeting with the Samaritan woman at the well of Jacob. This story is powerful. We learn of living water and therefore of life in the Spirit that quenches the thirsty soul. The Samaritan woman comes to represent us all when we come to Jesus. She came to the well in great need. She will meet the one who can satisfy the deepest needs of humanity. The context makes the story even more powerful. The faith of the half-pagan Samaritans who accept Jesus so whole-heartedly stands out in sharp contrast to the superficial crowds in Jerusalem who accepted Jesus only because of signs in Chapter 2. They also stand in contrast to the bewildered Jewish leader Nicodemus in Chapter 3. Samaritans did not worship in Jerusalem, put obstacles in the way of building the temple, and helped Syrians against Jews in 200-100 BC. In 128 BC, Jewish High Priest John Hyrean burned the Samaritan temple on Gerizim. The times of Jesus contained frequent clashes as Galileans passed through Samaria on their way to Jerusalem. The response among non-Jews also requires patience on the part of Jesus, but eventually leads to a positive outcome. We learn much about witnessing here and our relationship with those who do not follow Jesus. Jesus will disclose his mission as savior of the world. We might also note that the early church had a special interest in the Samaritans. The story is a drama of a person rising from the things of this world to belief in Jesus. As is typical of John, Jesus speaks on a spiritual level, while the woman struggles to think beyond this earthly world. Jesus is patient with her as he was with Nicodemus. He becomes an example to all teachers in this. He is also an example to the church in how it witnesses to its neighbors. The imagery of living water is significant here. Rabbis referred to the Torah as living water. Becoming a disciple of Jesus means moving beyond Torah. It refers to the revelation or wisdom Jesus provides and to the Spirit who brings the revelation to the believer. It suggests the close relation between the giver of that water and the gift of that water. Jesus offers “eternal life” in such a way that human life without it is life only with reservations. [91] We learn of the patience of Jesus in dealing with one who was weak regarding how she handled her sexuality. Jewish teaching limited the number of marriages of a woman to two, or three at the most, but this woman had five and was living with a sixth without the benefit of marriage. Such behavior was also brought dishonor among her Samaritan community. We learn of the key role of the Jewish people. Salvation (σωτηρία) comes from the Jews. This role has been difficult for the world to accept and a difficult role for the church to understand accept within the context of the revelation of the God of Israel as the Father who sent the Son, Jesus of Nazareth. To reject the Jewish people is to reject God. If the church cooperates with the hostility we find in the world against the Jewish people, it only proves it has become blind and deaf to the Word. Thus, God still has special places of revelation, [92] but we understand them in a distinct perspective. God is spirit, one of the few times the Bible attempts to define God. Thus, God is the origin and sustainer of life. The statement suggests intimacy with the Father. If humanity is to adore God in Spirit and truth, the Spirit of God must fill and penetrate it. This immediate, eschatological gift of the Spirit has come about through Jesus Christ. God is spirit, which is a reminder that God is different from all that is earthly and human. The field theories of modern physics, related to the Stoic view of pneuma no longer view field phenomena as bodily entities, but see them as independent of matter and defined only by their relations to space-time. The possibility that field theory can help the theologian to interpret the notion of God as Spirit depends on relating space-time to the eternity of God. The definition of God as Spirit is the essence of God as well as the third person of the Trinity.[93] As Spirit constitutes the divine essence, the Spirit opposes the world, but is also at work in creation as the origin of life, and the one who sanctifies creatures by giving them a fellowship with the eternal God that transcends their transitory life.[94] In recognizing that one sows and another reaps as a positive image of witnessing, one sees the patience of God through the Spirit in bringing people to faith in Jesus. This passage reminds us that handing over to others what we believe (ἐπίστευσαν) the testimony (λόγον … μαρτυρούσης) reaches its goal when the other person has their personal relation to Christ that we see as the work of the Spirit and the personal act of faith in Jesus. The witness points persons to the “something more” they need in their lives and with which they need to have personal encounter to experience this salvation.
John 11:1-45 (Year A, Fifth Sunday in Lent) is the seventh sign, the story of Jesus giving life to his friend Lazarus, the fourth in a line of crucial characters, each of which brings a distinct element of the personality of Jesus into public light: Nicodemus, the Samaritan woman, the man born blind (Luke 16:19-31 refers to Lazarus, where the question also deals with one coming back from the dead, as well as the raising of the young man of Nain in Luke 7:11-16 and the daughter of Jairus in Mark 5:22-24, 35-43). The other signs are the miracle of the water turned to wine (John 2:1-11), the healing of the official’s son (4:46-54), the healing of the paralytic by the pool (5:2-9), the feeding of the 5,000 (6:1-14), the walking on the water (6:16-21) and the healing of the man born blind (9:1-12). The purpose of such signs is to bring the reader to belief in Jesus. This sign confirms Jesus as resurrection and life. It provides a bridge to the next section of the book, the book of glory, which will conclude with the final glorification of Jesus. The death and rising of Lazarus anticipate the death and rising of Jesus, the latter showing the power of God to glorify Jesus in his death, which will then lead to faith and life for his followers. With the story of Lazarus, Jesus brings his message and his miracles to the boundary of human existence, the very border between death and life. The reader has known from the beginning that “life” came into being through him (1:4), but now John makes the point clear in both word (“I am the resurrection and the life”) and deed (“The dead man came out”).
The text refers to the love Jesus had for this family, suggesting that the love Jesus showed in his acts of exorcism, healing, and his friendship with sinners were obvious expressions of love, but his relationship with this family calls for special attention to that love. John refers to “the Jews,” by which we need to understand religious leaders, always remembering that Jesus and the disciples were Jews. For surviving friends, the one recently dead can appear as sleep, so sleep became a metaphor for death. The movement of Jesus toward Jerusalem involves the risk of dying, but at that point Thomas encourages the others to die with Jesus there. Most readers will know that the disciples, far from dying with Jesus, will abandon him. Learning that Lazarus has been in the tomb four days stresses that he is beyond all doubt dead. The dialogue between Jesus and Martha concerning resurrection involves the typical misunderstanding of the meaning of Jesus by those who hear him. It leads to the word of revelation that Jesus is the resurrection and the life, and those who believe in him will live. Christ is the beyond in whom humanity in its transience, to which departure belongs, sees its temporal being clothed with eternal life.[95] Those who live and die in fellowship with the Redeemer experience no interruption of the relationship, even though they may experience some essential purifying and perfecting.[96] This approach fixes Christian hope on the right basis, even if we need to view this hope within the larger context of the future resurrection of the dead.[97] Martha responds in a way that suggests she is a disciple, for she believes he is the Messiah, the Son of God. On his way to the tomb, Mary interrupts with her grief and weeping, and Jesus weeps with her. He weeps over the power of death cutting short a human life and devastates those left behind to mourn and lament. [98] The crowd sees the depth of the love Jesus had for Lazarus. At the tomb, he prays to the Father that the crowd may believe the Father has sent him. Jesus echoes Isaiah 49:8-9, where the Lord says to prisoners, “Come out.” He also echoes his earlier statement that all who are in their graves will hear the voice of the Lord and come out (5:28-29). The prayer of Jesus shows that the power comes from the Father to the Son. We now see the divine purpose. He did not just heal the body. He brought a new awareness of eternal life, especially for the family.
As the Son gives the supreme demonstration of his power over life, the unbelievers resolve to destroy him and take the steps necessary to that end. The path to the cross is marked out in advance, but it is marked in the plan of God. The raising up on the cross will become the glorification of God in the Son. The sign of the raising of the dead is already pointing towards this final glorification.
When we realize that death is the final act that will form the brackets of our lives that begins with birth, we also realize it will take courage to lead a human life. The failure to embrace our end can lead to a neurotic life that refuses the loan of life to avoid the payment of the debt, which is death.[99] Such neurosis can lead a form of psychic numbness, a form of anestheticizing our lives against the anxiety of death.[100] Here is the basic paradox of a human life. Our deepest need is to be free of the anxiety of death. Yet, life itself awakens the anxiety with which death confronts us in a way that makes us shrink from being fully alive.[101]
We often hear people say that suffering brings out the best in people. Further, when the going gets tough, the tough get going. Even more, that which does not destroy us strengthens us. All of this contains an element truth. Yet, we also need to confront another harsh fact. Hard times, suffering, and dark days break as many people as they make. We have all seen it.
It takes a degree of courage to lead a life in which we grasp the significance that we will die. If we reflect upon the brevity of our lives, we can consider the pattern our lives are weaving. Are we satisfied with the pattern? Looking upon the end can lead to insight into how we live today. We will not get a second chance to pay more attention. If we were to imagine our funeral, what do we hope family and friends will say? What will they say we have achieved and who will they say we are? Our answer can disclose to us our values and goals.
John 12:1-8 (Year C, Fifth Sunday in Lent) relates the anointing at Bethany. John referred to this event in 11:2, which in the context of this gospel the reader would not yet know about it. The story begins matter-of-factly. The occasion is not casual, for the people and the religious leaders are looking for him, the latter to arrest him (11:56-57). Since many of his fellow Jewish people believed in him (11:45), the religious leaders want him put to death (11:47-53). Since Bethany is near Jerusalem, he is near his death. Gathering in the home of Lazarus so that the family can thank Jesus for what happened in Chapter 11 makes sense. Martha serves those at the table, but Mary took a pound of uncommon and expensive perfume imported from the Himalayas and anointed the feet of Jesus with it, wiping them with her hair. Underlying the extravagance of the act is the note that the fragrance filled the house. Mary is an example of spiritual devotion. Her extravagant act deserves our pause to ponder that which claims our devotion. We then learn that one of the 12, Judas, who was about to betray him, said the perfume could have been sold and given to the poor, although John is quick to inform us that he was a thief who took from the common purse. Her deed was wasteful. Even for us, her act seems obscenely decadent. What is even more scandalous is trying to understand why Jesus permits her to anoint his feet in the first place. Yet, Jesus goes further, not commenting upon the greed of Judas, urging others to leave her alone, for she bought it for his burial. The poor are always with you, accepting the stated reason for the objection of Judas, but reminding the disciples that Jesus will not be physically present always. What she has done has value now. her symbolic act is honorable and points to his impending death and burial; one cannot demean it even though Judas tried to do so. Jesus makes it clear that his life and especially his death on the cross are unique events that the world never experience again. Although the poor and their needs neither can nor should be overlooked, they are of secondary importance when compared to Jesus’ glorification on the cross. This transitional passage is not about the relationship between Jesus, his disciples, and the poor, but about the meaning of Jesus’ approaching death and burial. It is an unparalleled event that was unwittingly prophesied by the high priest and explicitly stated in John 11:49-52 and foreseen when Mary anointed Jesus.
The woman performs a prodigal act, generous and selfless, and at the same a humble action. Jesus says that her act honors his dead body in anticipation and will therefore glorify his death. The subject is the feet of Jesus. This deed of Mary describes the life of the apostles as far as they are clean (13:1-20), as far as the presence, protection, and vigilance of Jesus have not been vain for them. This is what is to take place in the world through their life. This prodigality is that against which Judas protests. Judas wants something for it. He is not willing that the complete devotion, which by her deed had given the apostles as a pattern for their own life, should be an absolute offering to Jesus. For him, it is too little a thing that Mary should glorify the death of Jesus by this act. If there is to be an offering, he wants to exploit it. Mary carries out a good and profitable work in the strength and exercise of this devotion. For Judas, it is to be for the benefit of the poor to help improve their lot and that of others, and in that way, it will be a meaningful devotion. This view of Judas is what makes him unclean. It finds innocuous expression. It is not evil. To correct it would be easy. Yet, it was because of it that Judas handed Jesus over. If one does not devote oneself prodigally to Jesus, if he considers something too good for one to offer to Christ, if he thinks another purpose more important than the glorifying of Christ, such a person is unclean and opposes the divine election. He makes himself impossible as an apostle. He wills Jesus over for crucifixion. John accuses Judas of avarice and dishonesty. This outward mark of the attitude of Judas points beyond itself. It indicates that his nature and function are those of the apostle who regrets his own devotion to Jesus, who would prefer to use the power of this devotion for something better. Jesus becomes less important and dispensable. He is not opposed to Jesus. He wishes to be for Him. He reserves to himself the right to decide for himself, in face of Jesus what the way of apostolic discipleship really involves. For him, this is not an end but a means to some other end, which is not yet clear to him, but about which he believes that he can in any event decide and dispose, and in view of which he permits himself continual interruptions in his relationship to Jesus. He robs Jesus and the other apostles.[102]
We need to look behind what is central at the current moment. Yes, God is the ground of our being. God is more than what concerns us for the moment. God is the infinite and inexhaustible depth and ground of our being. That depth is what we call God. If such a view of God does not speak to you, then translate it in terms of the depth of your own life. Reflect upon what has ultimate concern for you. We need a term for that which we take seriously without any reservation.[103] Such devotion is conscious, awake, and aware to what is happening, distinguishing it from cult-like fascination. It is a responsible act, willing to take responsibility it the act proves to be a mistake of an unworthy object of devotion. It accepts responsibility for the consequences, rather than assign blame if things do not go according to plan. An element of mystery and risk attaches itself to this act, since one cannot fully know the object of devotion. Such an act of devotion engages the fullness of life with the fullness of oneself, and thus is not the path of escape or avoidance of the challenges and tasks of life.[104]
John 12:20-33 (Year B, Fourth Sunday in Lent) tells the story of the preparation for the Passover, with the specific theme of the coming hour. Although the tone of John's narrative is vastly different from the tone of the synoptics, in this passage John relies heavily on the synoptic tradition. The passage hints at matters that have stimulated me to share a bit about finitude and death.
This passage is the climax of Chapters 11-12, as John reflects upon the nearness of the hour of glorification. It also forms a suitable conclusion to the public ministry of Jesus as John views it. From the opening, the reader is aware that something different and significant is happening. Rather than Jesus offering a sign to the world (2:11, 4:54), the appearance of the non-Jews who seek him is a sign to Jesus that "his hour" of glorification is drawing near (12:23). First, it signals the close of the account of the ministry of Jesus. From this point on, Jesus will offer no more signs to the public. Second, this passage serves as a bridge to the final discourse of Jesus to his disciples and to the passion narrative. While the opening of this scene suggests that several characters will play important roles (Jesus, the Greeks, Philip, and Andrew), the dialogue that John wants to highlight is between Jesus and the Jewish crowd.
In John 12: 20-22 John relates the coming of the Greeks. To confirm the Pharisees' fears, voiced in v. 19, that the world has gone after him, John immediately introduces as representatives of that entire world some Greeks seeking Jesus. Their arrival indicates that the death of Jesus is imminent. Their desire to see Jesus suggests they are observers of Torah, except for circumcision, or they are full proselytes to Judaism. They represent the possibility that human beings are on serious search in their lives. In the Methodist tradition, we might think of this as the stirring of prevenient grace in the lives of people. They approach Philip, one with a non-Jewish name. Philip tells Andrew and both tell Jesus. The Greeks receive no further mention. It may hint that Jesus has no place in Judaism and the gospel will take root in the Hellenistic world. The gospel now takes root in the Hellenistic world. His coming, crucifixion and resurrection will open the door fully to non-Jews to believe in the Lord God of Israel, and John is dramatically foreshadowing this shift here. Jesus has already said that he will welcome other sheep into the fold as part of his universalism. The appearance of Gentiles suggests now is the time to lay down his life. Thus, the appearance of some Greeks seeking him doubtless prefigures the spread of the good news about him beyond Judaism. References to the hour of Jesus in the first eleven chapters of John point forward. Abruptly, in 12:23, the situation changes, and Jesus announces that the hour has now come. What prompts Jesus to make this pronouncement about his crucifixion? Although the Greeks themselves disappear, they usher in a new age. The hour arrives because opposition to Jesus reaches its inevitable outcome: the officials will seek his death. Nevertheless, the hour also arrives because of Jesus' very success with the world. Those who want to "see" Jesus most often "see" him only through his reputation as a great teacher, healer, and miracle worker. Glorification has nothing to do with becoming an admired teacher and healer among the Gentiles as well as the Jews. At this "hour" of his "glorification," however, John reveals Jesus (again) as enduring suffering and death if one is to understand his mission. This hour refers to a return to the Father through crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension. This glorification because of death is the fullness of saving power that is universal in scope. Jesus draws attention to the meaning of the hour, given to all people, death bearing fruit to all.
We now have a series of sayings that form commentary on the theme of death and life. They have hints of the Synoptic gospels. We may think it better if we did not have to deal with our temporality and the pain of death. Our finitude and temporality can lead us to appreciate the precious time and space we have the privilege of participating in today.
First, Jesus offers a parable of the seed that dies. 24 Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. The point is that Jesus is speaking of death as the means of gaining life. The point stresses the productivity of the seed. In context, it refers to the death of Jesus in analogy to death as bearing fruit. Although this parable has some similarities with the seed parables in the synoptic gospels and with I Corinthians 15:35ff, it is not the same. Jesus illustrates the fruitfulness of his death. The death of Jesus is necessary to bring abundant missionary fruit. Death, as the carefully chosen image of the grain of wheat illustrates, brings forth life, not only for Jesus, but also for all those who follow and serve him. The attitude of Jesus toward his impending death becomes a model for all believers. Jesus does not propound some Gnostic-like absolute denial of the goodness of physical life, but he does connect his own death with a certain understanding that one cannot hoard life away; only those prepared to give up everything can receive the gift of eternal life, both now and hereafter. Although Jesus never addresses the Greeks directly in response, he does offer yet another lesson on discipleship. Like himself, his disciples must be willing to follow the plan of God to the end, even death itself, if they are to "bear fruit."
Second, Jesus offers a saying on loving and hating one’s life. John offers his version of the idea that whoever would save their lives will lose them/whoever would lose their lives will find them teaching, a truth found in all four gospels (Mark 8:35; Matthew 16:25; Luke 9:24). 25 Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Eternal life does not come sequentially after death. Eternal life is the life promised now to all who become disciples of this glorified one. Jesus confronts the disciples with the necessity of discipleship even unto death. Death is not the end, but the perfection of life. Jesus refers to his death, and now he refers to the death disciples of Jesus must experience. The call to discipleship is a call to suffer, sacrifice, even die for others to live as God lives, to live as Jesus did. This unexpected nature of messiahship is a messiahship that embraces servanthood and dying is not an easy pill to swallow, not even for Jesus himself. He is ready, resisting the temptation to have his Father save him from this hour. The implied answer to the Greeks from Jesus is no, but only because Jesus must first undergo death before his followers can bring salvation to the Greeks.
A third saving concerns the following of Jesus, parallel to Mk 8:35. 26 Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there my servant will be also. Whoever serves me, the Father will honor. The reward for following Jesus is to be with him and to receive honor from the Father. It emphasizes the unity of serving and following Jesus, with the promise of the presence of Jesus and receiving honor from the Father. It suggests readiness to face death, since it takes seriously following Jesus as referring to the cross.
In 12: 27-31 we find a concern for the hour of glorification and the heavenly voice. One finds victory in submission to the plan of God. Jesus rejects the option of deliverance. 27 “Now my soul is troubled. John stresses that the sacrifice and death that loom in his future troubles his soul. Now is not the time to draw back or try to sidestep the messianic future. Moreover, what should I say—‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour. We have a version of the Gethsemane scene in Mark 14:32-42. Hebrews 5:7 refers to the agony of Jesus before his death. This account of the agony of Jesus and his submission to the will of his Father comes from the traditional account of the Mount of Olives. Though the cross is the culmination of glory, it has not lost its human darkness. The verse shows Jesus fully accepting the terms of his messianic identity and readily accepting the "coming" of his hour. His obedience mirrors the call to discipleship Jesus extended to others. He refuses to try to save himself. Instead, 28 Father, glorify your name.” A Christ crucified, that stumbling block to all rational thinking people. John transforms that very humiliation into nothing less that complete glorification. Then a voice came from heaven, “I have glorified (aorist tense) it in the course of the life of Jesus, and I will glorify (future tense) it again in the resurrection and ascension.” The heavenly voice answers the prayer of Jesus. Jesus comes to terms with the hour by turning to his Father, who gives assurance of glorification. Doxa is part of the kabod of the OT, a revelation of God's presence. It is clear John has picked up a theme in early Christian preaching and expanded upon it. The cross becomes a rich and vivid symbol. God is acting behind the external events. John begins a symbolic approach. Also, the whole earthly ministry of Jesus becomes a revelation of divine glory. God has come to dwell among people. Finally, there is a unity of the historical Jesus with the glorified Christ. One could object that the Christ presented in John is simply God striding across the earth. However, the purpose of John's language of glory is to bring the distant God closer to us. This God would otherwise be inaccessible and unintelligible. The voice from heaven responds directly to the obedience of Jesus, affirming his understanding both of his identity and of his future. Here is the Johannine form of the Lord's Prayer, requesting God to do the sanctifying of the name. Reassurance from the Father meets with the submission of Jesus to the plan of the Father. This is the first time in John that there is a voice from heaven. There is similarity with the Synoptic baptism and transfiguration stories. Strongly associated with the death of Jesus, it acknowledges Jesus as the Son. John has altered the impact of the Synoptic account. The synoptic accounts offer the reader a window into Jesus' agony and struggle. In contrast, John gives the reader a description of Jesus' confidence and readiness. In John's gospel there will be no sign of weakness, no sign of wondering, no agony, no pain, no request to "let this cup pass"; Jesus is in control throughout. The death of Jesus is the climax of his obedient life. The heavenly voice confirms Jesus' obedience and echoes the description of Jesus' transfiguration and baptism described in the Synoptic Gospels. 29 The crowd standing there heard it and said that it was thunder. Others said, “An angel has spoken to him.” John notes the presence of the crowd and they become the collective foil for the remainder of the drama. While this voice is not a private communication with Jesus, what the voice said is not clear to the crowd. Though John suggests that all those gathered near heard something, there is considerable disagreement over what that something was. Just as for some, the message of a Suffering Servant, a crucified Christ, a mortal Messiah, was beyond the pale of their comprehension, so for some who witnessed the heavenly voice's response to the obedience of Jesus, the message is impenetrable. To others, those who had listened to Jesus' teachings and heard his calls to discipleship and service, the heavenly voice sounded like that of an angel. Though they could not yet discern the whole implication of what was to come, they sensed the presence of the divine in their midst. For a great many, however, the teachings of Jesus remained scrambled, turning whole notions of messianic leadership, divine power and glorification over hard and on their heads. To those who simply cannot "get it," the voice is only so much noise, like the din of thunder. 30 Jesus answered, “This voice has come for your sake, not for mine. 31 Now is the judgment of this world. Now God will drive out the ruler of this world (Satan). That the Greeks recognize what the Jews do not is the cause for the judgment of the world and the casting out of the "ruler of this world." John identifies the Jews as being part of Satan's world - reminiscent of the connection John has made between the Jews and Satan, or the devil, before (8:44). Judgment takes place through unbelief itself. The world has come under the tyranny of an ungodly force, the prince of this world.[105] The eschatological truth is already a present reality even if in hidden form. Thus, judgment as well as life is already present with Jesus Christ in the world.[106]From where is God casting out this ruler? The verse may refer to a loss of influence over believers, thereby becoming powerless.
In 12: 32-34, the theme is the lifting up of Jesus and the problem of the Son of Man. Darkness is closing in, but the hour brings judgment upon the Prince of this world and life to those who follow Jesus. The glorification of Jesus brings expulsion of the enemy. The victorious hour of Jesus is a victory over Satan in principle; yet the working out of this victory in time and place is the gradual work of believing Christians. Jesus' death is not a sign, but the realization of God's plan. John stresses the announcement of the crucifixion. 32 And I, when I am lifted up from the earth on the cross and later ascend to the Father, will draw all people to myself.” The more important and positive aspect of Jesus' hour is the salvation of believers, extended to all persons. John draws together triumph over the enemy and drawing people to Jesus. Jesus' crucifixion will be the moment of judgment, exaltation, fruition, and challenge. The Prince of the World, who is Satan, God will judge and defeat. In the crucifixion, all humankind is lifted up. Then, in an editorial comment, 33 He said this to indicate the kind of death he was to die. Crucifixion indicates a monstrous Roman capital punishment, but to John the gruesomeness of crucifixion becomes a gracious posture of an open-armed welcome. John de-emphasizes the bloody spectacle of the suffering of Jesus. Thus, this gospel can call the crucifixion exaltation, a statement possible only in the light of the resurrection and the return to the Father.[107] Thus, the text concludes with Jesus revealing more of the events that make this the hour for his glorification. It is a time for judgment, a time for the Devil ("the ruler of this world") to get his due and be run out of this world. The power that can accomplish these feats, which also draws all people to the risen Christ, offers readers the smallest hint of what the glorified Jesus will be like. His primary message here is that he will achieve this glorification through a shocking means: suffering and death. Nevertheless, his Father will raise him in glory and power.
On the one hand, this passage presents the inclusive, powerful, saving gospel of Jesus Christ. Yet, on the other hand, this passage presents a darker side. As throughout John's gospel, so also in this passage there is an extremely negative sentiment against the Judaism of the first century. The astute preacher must recognize this. Casual or unreflective use of John's reference to the Jews or Judaism can cause great damage in today's pluralistic world.
John 13:1-15 (Maundy Thursday) is part of the story of Jesus washing the feet of his disciples. It marks a shift in the gospel from the public ministry of Jesus to the farewell discourses to the disciples and the passion narrative.
The washing of the feet of guests by the servants in a home has little significance for us modern readers. If anything, it seems like a strange and even disgusting custom. However, in the ancient world, it served its purpose. People walked on dusty, dirty, and smelly roads. If nothing else, washing the feet of guests helped the odor of the home. It was also an act of hospitality. The guest is welcome in this home.
Yet, even for us modern Christian readers, the visualization of Jesus stooping down at the feet of these disciples, one of whom would betray him, all of whom would desert him, with a towel and basin to wash their feet, is a powerful image. With the spirit of Peter, we might have the temptation to ask Jesus, “What are you doing, stooping before me? I need to stoop before you.” What makes the image so powerful?
I suspect the point of the story is not that every culture and every age should repeat this act, although communities can do this and receive great meaning. The point is the humility and service Jesus exhibited to those who ought to have served him.
The symbolism of the sacrificial death of Jesus coinciding with the Passover is one the reader ought not to miss. Jesus knew humanity well enough that (in contrast to 7:30 and 8:20 where his hour had not come) Jesus was fully aware that the way events around him were unfolding would lead to his sacrificial death. Yet, this knowledge did not dissuade him from his mission that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father, even as he had come from the Father. Having loved his own, a group larger than the disciples, who were in the world, he loved them to the end. The Greek word here is normally a temporal reference, referring to the end of an action. However, it could also refer to the goal or purpose of an action. In that case, the translation in the New English Bible as “the full extent of his love” becomes possible. For the first time, the life and death of Jesus are the expression of love. That love is total.
2 The devil had already put it into the heart of Judas son of Simon Iscariot to betray him. One challenge many readers, scholarly as well as laity, is a theological one. Simply stated, if Jesus foresees his betrayal by Judas (John 6:70-71; 13:26-27), then did Judas have free will in his betrayal? If the crucifixion was necessary for the salvation of humanity, was the betrayal by Judas betrayal a part of the plan of God? Is not Judas a participant in God’s plan of salvation? When one ponders Judas, one wrestles with weighty theological topics. Furthermore, Judas manifests a practical challenge before all readers of John’s gospel. David Bartlett has preached on this practical challenge of Judas’ character. According to Bartlett, Judas is a far more threatening figure than is Pilate or the Jewish leaders. As believers, we watch Judas go into the night. What should terrify us is that one of his chosen followers preferred darkness to light. He was physically close to Jesus. He basked in the light, and yet, he preferred darkness.[108] Judas shares the same unclean feet as do the disciples. Judas simply embodies the uncleanness of all the disciples. The disciples embody obstinate Israel and therefore the obstinate world. When Jesus announced that one of them would betray him, all said, “Is it I?” The special cleansing mentioned in verse 18 is a condition of fellowship with Jesus. To understand this, we need to go back to verse 1, which stresses the love that embraced them as disciples. Jesus also knew the authority he had from the Father. At that moment, his loving disposition toward them led him to an action that was in response to the satanic indwelling of Judas. In this critical moment, Jesus washes the feet of the disciples.[109]
And during supper 3 Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God, 4 got up from the table, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself. 5 Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that he tied around him. This was a sign of hospitality in the ancient world and was usually the role of the servant of the house. The humility of Christ is what stuns us. The King of Kings chose the servant’s role as an object lesson. Remember that in those days, foot washing was no more a symbolic ceremony than was breaking the bread and pouring the wine. It was practical. Dusty, muddy, and manure-strewn roads made sandaled feet a mealtime killer. The first-century household slave would always get the foot-washing task as it was one of the most demeaning and filthy tasks in their culture.
Since Jesus and the disciples held the meeting in secret, there was no slave to do the work. To further the irony of the Messiah washing feet, our minds lay onto this story Luke tells us that the Upper Room discourse included the favorite spat of the apostles — “Which of us is the greatest?” (Luke 22:24). The feet are the part of us that stay in contact with the earth. Jesus cleanses us by purifying us from that part of our humanity that the world taints. Granted, sin does not destroy the imago dei in each person; sin has marred that image in its expression within and to the world. Jesus cleanses the part of us that will continue to remain in contact with a soiled world, and that cleansing is enough for us to remain standing in the world, without corrupting the whole of us.
6 He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?” 7 Jesus answered, “You do not know now what I am doing, but later, referring to the post-resurrection insight from the Holy Spirit,you will understand.” 8 Peter said to him, “You will never wash my feet.” Jesus answered, “Unless I wash you, you have no share with me.” 9 Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!” This request likely reflects the practice of ritual washing in Judaism. 10 Jesus said to him, “One who has bathed does not need to wash, except for the feet, but is entirely clean. And you are clean, though not all of you.” 11 For he knew who was to betray him; for this reason he said, “Not all of you are clean.”
12 After he had washed their feet, had put on his robe, and had returned to the table, he said to them, “Do you know what I have done to you? 13 You call me Teacher and Lord—and you are right, for that is what I am. 14 Therefore, if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. 15 For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you. Jesus is calling us to leave higher safety for a lower, broken, dark, death-like world, asking us to enter the sorrow that is the incarnation of Maundy Thursday.
The whole passage is about incarnating into a world of pain and brokenness on behalf of those in need. Into a world of darkness and death, followers of Jesus are to offer light and life. Jesus was commissioning the disciples to do this based on the command to imitate him (v. 15). He invited them to serve, but in ways that were unexpected by the person served.
This passage is the biblical basis for the sacramental practice of foot washing. Jesus washed the feet of the disciples as a sign of cleansing and of servanthood. Apparently, in the churches of Asia Minor, present—day Turkey, the practice continued as a sacrament. Some churches through the centuries washed the feet of persons who had just received baptism. However, it was most common in the monasteries, where the head of the monastery would wash the feet of the newly admitted monks. Normally, they did this on Maundy Thursday as part of the Lenten observance. No less of a theologian than Bernard of Clairvaux (1091—1153) urged the acceptance of this practice as a sacrament. It became part of the practice of royalty, who would invite the poor to a banquet, and then the king would bow before them and wash their feet. Through some of this kind of practice, there would often be great public display of the action. This misuse caused Martin Luther to reject the practice, and most Protestant churches have followed him. However, the Church of Brethren has continued the practice as a sign of cleansing and servanthood. The practice is seeing a comeback in Protestant churches as part of the Maundy Thursday service.
Prayer of Commitment
Servant Lord, in Scripture, you teach us how to love and serve, not just through words, but also through your life of servanthood. In the lives of other servants, you show us how to stand in a servant’s posture and live with love as our call. Thank you for all who live out your instruction, and in their actions show your teaching.
Lord and Teacher, may we also follow your example, serving you and others by sharing your love. Show us how to wear a servant’s towel. Use us to meet the deep needs of those near and far. Help us not to be afraid of getting messy, but to risk our own time and energy for the sake of following your call. When others serve us, may we accept their gifts with grace.
We commit ourselves to your service and ask all these things in your name. Amen.
[1] One might refer to m. Seqal. 5:6, Epictetus, Diss. 4. 8. 17 also but I could not find them! Cicero (106-43 BC), Tusculan Disputations, 2.26 XXVI.
[2] Church Dogmatics IV.2 [66.3] 552.
[3] Barth Church Dogmatics III.4 [53.3] 88.
[4] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 1, 266.
[5] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 1, 306.
[6] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 3, 457.
[7] c. 15th century, Benjamin Webb (1819-1985), tr. Hymns and Psalms, London: Methodist Publishing House, 1983
[8] (J. C. O'Neill, Westminster Dictionary of Christian Theology [Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1983].)
[9] Austin Farrer, A Celebration of Faith, London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1970
[10] - T. S. Eliot
[11] Mann, Mark in Anchor Bible series.
[12] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 2, 455.
[13] Barth (Church Dogmatics III.2 [47], p. 459-461)
[14] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 2, 456.
[15] Barth (Church Dogmatics III.2 [47], p. 459-461)
[16] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 2, 311.
[17] Barth (Church Dogmatics, III.2, [47], 461)
[18] John Wesley gives a long description of this self-knowledge in sermons 14 and 15.
[19] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 3, 245.
[20] Barth (Church Dogmatics, III.2 [47], 461)
[21] (For more on the Old Testament view of Satan, see Peggy Day, An Adversary in Heaven: Satan in the Hebrew Bible [Harvard Semitic Monographs 43; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1988] and Elaine Pagels, The Origin of Satan [New York: Random House, 1995]).
[22] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 2, 416.
[23] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 2, 438.
[24] Dietrich Bonhoeffer
[25] Gerhard Ebeling (Word and Faith, p. 424.)
[26] Paul Minear
[27] Barth, Church Dogmatics IV.2 [66.3] 539-40.
[28] (Barth, 2004, 1932-67), IV.2 [64.3] 264.
[29] (Pannenberg, 1998, 1991) Volume 3, 282.
[30] (Pannenberg, 1998, 1991) Volume 3, 282.
[31] Inspired by Elie Wiesel.
[32] (Barth, 2004, 1932-67), IV.2 [60.2] 421.
[33] (Barth, 2004, 1932-67) IV.1 [63.1] 744.
[34] (Barth, 2004, 1932-67) IV.3 [71.6] 652.
[35] Pannenberg Systematic Theology Volume 2, 374-5.
[36] Oscar Wilde
[37] (Barth, 2004, 1932-67) IV.1 [63.1] 744.
[38] (Barth, 2004, 1932-67) IV.2 [64.3] 264.
[39] (Barth, 2004, 1932-67), IV.2 [60.2] 421.
[40] (Barth, 2004, 1932-67) III.4 [55.1] 387.
[41] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 2, 249.
[42] Sidney Howard
[43] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 3, 114.
[44] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 3, 614.
[45](Laurence E. Porter, New International Bible Commentary, ed. F.F. Bruce [Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1979], 1210); Joel B. Green, "The gospel according Luke," NRSV, ed. Harold Attridge [San Francisco: HarperCollins]1880).
[46] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, Volume II, 165.
[47] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, Volume I, 440.
[48] (John Nolland, Luke, Word Biblical Commentary, Vol. 35b [Dallas: Word Books, 1993], 719).
[49] --Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Making of a Mind: Letters From a Soldier-Priest, 1914-1919 (London: Collins, 1965), 57.
[50] Barth, Church Dogmatics IV.2 [64.3] 261.
[51] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 2, 416.
[52] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 2, 342.
[53] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 2, 368.
[54] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, Volume II, 331-32.
[55] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 3, 285.
[56] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, Volume I, 259.
[57] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, Volume I, 422-23.
[58] Charles Spurgeon, “Many Kisses for Returning Sinners, or Prodigal Love for the Prodigal Son.” Sermon 2236.
[59] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, Volume I, 433.
[60] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, Volume III, 285.
[61] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, Volume II, 331.
[62]― Henri Nouwen, From Fear to Love: Lenten Reflections on the Parable of the Prodigal Son, (Fenton, Missouri: Creative Communications for the Parish, 1998), 13-14.
[63] To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you. ―Lewis B. Smedes.
[64] You will know that forgiveness has begun when you recall those who hurt you and feel the power to wish them well. ―Lewis B. Smedes.
[65] Peter Ustinov.
[66] Solutions to the problem of John's placement of this incident have centered around three possibilities. 1) that the cleansing occurred at the end of Jesus' ministry (as in the synoptics), 2) that the cleansing occurred at the beginning of Jesus' ministry (as here in John), and 3) that there were two such temple-cleansing events, one at the beginning and one at the end of Jesus' public ministry. While scholars question the third option as a valid one, commentators remain divided between the first two possibilities.
[67] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 2, 339, referring to Sanders, Jesus and Judaism, 61-9i0, 301-5, 334-5.
[68] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 2, 346.
[69] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 1, 415.
[70] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 2, 398.
[71] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 2, 295.
[72] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 3, 225-6.
[73] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 1, 427.
[74] Barth, CD, IV.1, 58.2, 111.
[75] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 2, 347.
[76] Barth, CD I.2, 18.2, 378.
[77] Barth, CD, II.2, 32.1, 26-7.
[78] Barth, CD, IV.1, 57.3, 70-1.
[79] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 1, 358.
[80] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 2, 144.
[81] Barth, CD, III.2, 45.1, 213.
[82] Barth, CD, IV.1, 57.3, 72-3.
[83] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 3, 183.
[84] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 1, 399.
[85] Barth, CD, IV.2, 68.2, 765.
[86] Barth, CD, II.1, 28.2, 278.
[87] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 2, 369.
[88] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology volume 2, 441.
[89] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 2, 320.
[90] Barth, CD, IV.3, 69.3, 251.
[91] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 2, 347.
[92] Barth (Church Dogmatics, II.1 (31), 481)
[93] Pannenberg Systematic Theology Volume 1, 382-3.
[94] Pannenberg Systematic Theology Volume 1, 400.
[95] Barth (Church Dogmatics, III.4 [56.1], 594)
[96] Schleiermacher, Christian Faith, 158.2/3.
[97] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 3, 534-5.
[98] Barth (Church Dogmatics, IV.2, [64.3], 227)
[99] Otto Rank and Paul Tillich
[100] Robert Jay Lifton
[101] Ernest Becker
[102] Barth, Church Dogmatics II.2 [35.4] 462-3.
[103] --See Paul Tillich, The Shaking of the Foundations (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1955).
[104] May, Gerald G. "Criteria for judging the legitimacy of spiritual surrender." International Christian Digest, April 1988, 31.
[105] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 2, 108.
[106] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 3, 605.
[107] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 2, 365.
[108] “Judas is a far more threatening figure than Pilate or the Jewish leaders to those of us Christians who read John’s gospel. ... What frightens us as we watch Judas go out into the night, what should terrify us had the story not grown so familiar, is that one of Jesus’ own circle, one whom he had chosen, preferred the darkness. What frightens us is this portrayal of one who was so close to Jesus as flesh to bone. He not only saw the light; he basked in the light, and still he chose the darkness.”
[109] Barth, Church Dogmatics II.2 [35.4] 472-3
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