Reading: John 1-2, Psalm 103
Among many other things, I spent much of my adolescence watching science fiction TV shows. One of the difficulties such shows encountered was showing how the “regular people” lived their lives. It is all well and good to see what the captain and his cohort is up to, but what about the rest of the people? What is the future like for them? Two of my favorite shows, Star Trek: The Next Generation and Babylon 5 took shots at this in episodes late in their run. In the Star Trek episode Lower Decks, the adventures of junior officers are followed, with the main cast serving as background characters who drive the plot line. While this was an interesting episode, it always seemed to me that these characters were just aspiring to be the main characters. In the Babylon 5 episode A View From the Gallery, the story centers on what amount to janitorial and maintenance staff. There is no possibility of these characters becoming the main cast. They are much more truly the “other guys,” who are always behind the scenes but utterly essential to the story- because without them, everything breaks.
The book of John takes a very different look at the life of Jesus and the message of the Gospel. While the book is certainly not simple (it is actually astonishingly deep and complex), it is written in simpler language than Matthew and Mark and certainly than Luke. It is accessible in both style and content, and addresses core issues to the early church like the divinity of Jesus and the order of the Christian life. John tells the story of Jesus just as much as Matthew and Mark, and with just as much purpose, but John spells out the purpose of his writing: These things are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, and that believing you might have life in his name. John makes sophisticated arguments, as we will see as we progress through the book, but he is not interested in anything other than convincing his readers that Jesus is the means by which a new kind of life might begin for them. He is the writer to everyone. The evangelist to the “other guys.”
John begins his book with a callback to the beginning. Literally. Like Matthew, he uses words that evoke the book of Genesis, but goes one step further and tells the creation story in shorthand. Along the way he makes his first overriding point: Jesus is not just another human. He is the Word by which everything was made, and he was with God in the beginning. John is laying it out right up front that he believes Jesus to be inherent in and the incarnation of the Creator God of the Hebrew Scriptures. The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. John tells us that Jesus came from and fulfills the Hebrew Scriptures, but that he is also above and superior to them. For the law was received through Moses, but grace and truth come through Jesus Christ. John doesn’t wait to surprise you with some bombshell announcement that Jesus is the Christ. It is the thesis of everything he is about to say.
He picks up the story with John (not the writer), who clearly represents the prophets of the Hebrew Scriptures. What is interesting is that John himself does not appear to fully realize this. He is asked if he is the Messiah, Elijah, or the Prophet, and he says no. He is right that he is not the Messiah, but we will see Jesus declare that John was in fact Elijah who was to come. How did John not know? I think John (the writer of the book) is picking up a key theme of the Hebrew Scriptures and pulling it into the story of Jesus. Humans are not who they think they are. John the Baptist doesn’t really know who he is, but when he sees Jesus he recognizes who he is. The calling of Peter and Andrew, Philip and Nathaniel follow this same pattern. Jesus knows them more than they do. They confess his deity and authority as Messiah because of his knowledge of them: Teacher! You are the Messiah, the Son of God. Jesus tells them they haven’t seen anything yet.
John takes us right to Jesus authority over creation. There is an enormous amount to be said about this story, as all the stories in these books, but here I think much of the point is that Jesus engages in an act of creation. He takes the water and makes it more than it was. It is a forecasting of how God makes all things new. He goes from the wedding to the temple, where he drives out the merchants who are trading on the righteous actions of the people. Those who are attempting to keep the laws of Moses are taken advantage of, and Jesus is having none of it. When he is challenged for his actions, he uses the opportunity to make an even bigger point: destroy this temple, and I will rebuild it in three days. John brings right to the front one of the great questions of the first Christians: What or where is our temple? Jesus is the temple. The temple of flesh and bone, the place where man and God meet. He was with God in the beginning. Now he is right here.