Notable Quote: Jerusalem Laments, From the Book of Baruch

Background:

The Book of Baruch was written by the scribe of the prophet Jerimiah after the Israelites were enslaved during the Babylonian captivity.  I will only speak of the first five chapters.  The sixth chapter is apparently an addition which calls itself “A Letter from Jerimiah” and appeals to the Israelites to not succumb to the idolatry of their Babylonian masters.  As the Introduction to the NAB edition states at the USCCB website http://usccb.org/bible/scripture.cfm?bk=Baruch&ch= the Book attempts to encode the captivity in “Deuteronomic cycle: sin (of Israel), punishment, repentance, and return (cf. Jgs 2; also Dt 28–33).”  The Book uses two voices throughout, that of the scribe and that of a personified Jerusalem.  The Book speaks in prayer, in poetry, in appeal, and in lamentation.  It is quite beautiful in places.  I’m going to quote a section where the author speaks in the voice of Jerusalem addressing the subjugated and captive Israelites.

Jerusalem Addresses Diaspora

¹⁷ What can I do to help you?
¹⁸     The one who has brought this evil upon you
    must himself deliver you from your enemies’ hands.
¹⁹ Farewell, my children, farewell;
    I am left desolate.
²⁰ I have taken off the garment of peace,
    have put on sackcloth for my prayer of supplication;
    while I live I will cry out to the Eternal One.

²¹ “Take courage, my children; call upon God;
    he will deliver you from oppression, from enemy hands.
²² I have put my hope for your deliverance in the Eternal One,
    and joy has come to me from the Holy One
Because of the mercy that will swiftly reach you
    from your eternal Savior.
²³ With mourning and lament I sent you away,
    but God will give you back to me
    with gladness and joy forever.
²⁴ As Zion’s neighbors lately saw you taken captive,
    so shall they soon see God’s salvation come to you,
    with great glory and the splendor of the Eternal One.

-Jerusalem Addresses the Diaspora Baruch 4:19-22, NABRE

In the language, one gets echoes of the coming Savior.

You can read more on the Book of Baruch at these websites:

From New Advent: 

From Wikipedia: 

Gospel of John, Part 5

Part 1 on this series on John’s Gospel is here.    

Part 2 is here:   

Part 3 is here.    

Part 4 is here. 

One last post on the Gospel of John, this on the resurrection scenes.  What is marvelous is the physicality of the resurrected Christ.  When He appears to Mary Magdalene and she finally realizes it is Him, she embraces Him.  He has to say, “Stop holding on to me” (John 20:17).  In the Vulgate Latin, it’s “Noli me tangere” or literally “Do not touch me.”  I don’t know which is the more accurate translation, I assume the more modern one, but both emphasize touch.  Well, one doesn’t touch a spirit.  One touches a body. 

And when Jesus appears to Thomas and He has Thomas put his hands into Christ’s wounds, we can sense along with Thomas Christ’s physicality.  Despite Jesus being able to go through walls, He is corporeal.  He is of a special type of flesh.

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Finally I noticed something in chapter 21 that I never noticed before.  After that marvelous scene where Jesus has Peter commit three times his love, and Jesus forecasts Peter’s death, Peter asks about the beloved disciple.

Peter turned and saw the disciple following whom Jesus loved, the one who had also reclined upon his chest during the supper and had said, “Master, who is the one who will betray you?”  When Peter saw him, he said to Jesus, “Lord, what about him?”  Jesus said to him, “What if I want him to remain until I come? What concern is it of yours? You follow me.”  So the word spread among the brothers that that disciple would not die. But Jesus had not told him that he would not die, just “What if I want him to remain until I come? [What concern is it of yours?]”  (John 21:21-23)

Of course I’ve read that passage many times, but I never noticed that John, who we know as the Beloved Disciple, was following Jesus.  Where is he going?  Does he disappear from the disciples?  We know that John is the only apostle who is not martyred.  We know he forms a community in Asia Minor, and he does disappear from the apostles in Acts.  What is strange is that Jesus asks Peter to metaphorically follow Him but it is John who physically follows Him here.  I don’t have an answer for that.  But it caught my attention.

Gospel of John, Part 4

Part 1 on this series on John’s Gospel is here.  

Part 2 is here. 

Part 3 is here.  

With the closing of chapter 12, we have come to the end of Jesus’ ministry and we come to what amounts for the last supper in John’s Gospel.  John doesn’t narrate the institution of the Eucharist as the other Gospel’s do at the last supper, but he does narrate two striking scenes.  Let’s look at the second scene first.  I find interesting that we see Jesus handing bread out in John’s last supper, only the bread is not His body and He hands it only to Judas Iscariot.  When Jesus announces that one of the disciples will betray Him, and they ask Him who it is, Jesus uses bread signify the guilty one.

“It is the one to whom I hand the morsel after I have dipped it.” So he dipped the morsel and [took it and] handed it to Judas, son of Simon the Iscariot.  After he took the morsel, Satan entered him. So Jesus said to him, “What you are going to do, do quickly.”  (John 13:26-27)

What to make of it?  Perhaps if you approach the Eucharist with an unworthy heart, it actually becomes the inverse of the body of Christ.

Any thoughts on why John doesn’t narrate the institution of the Eucharist?  Obviously he knew about it.  The fact that there’s a last supper, that he goes to great length in chapter 6 on eating the  body of Christ, and this “inverse” morsel of bread He gives to Judas shows John’s knowledge of it.  My hunch is John doesn’t narrate it because it’s been done already.  He seems to go to great length not to repeat the other Gospels, and I think he doesn’t feel the need to repeat the institution narrative.

The other striking scene is the foot washing scene. 

So, during supper, fully aware that the Father had put everything into his power and that he had come from God and was returning to God, he rose from supper and took off his outer garments. He took a towel and tied it around his waist.  Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and dry them with the towel around his waist.  He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Master, are you going to wash my feet?”  Jesus answered and said to him, “What I am doing, you do not understand now, but you will understand later.”  (John 13:3-7)

Later Jesus explains the significance.

So when he had washed their feet [and] put his garments back on and reclined at table again, he said to them, “Do you realize what I have done for you?  You call me ‘teacher’ and ‘master,’ and rightly so, for indeed I am.  If I, therefore, the master and teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash one another’s feet.  I have given you a model to follow, so that as I have done for you, you should also do.  Amen, amen, I say to you, no slave is greater than his master nor any messenger greater than the one who sent him.  If you understand this, blessed are you if you do it.  (John 13:12-18)

He calls Himself “teacher” and “lord” but that doesn’t quite do it justice.  He is King of the universe, God Himself who will come to judge the living and the dead, and He lowers Himself to do the lowest menial task, the washing of people’s feet.  And He says, this is the model we are to follow.  To follow Jesus then is to be servant to each other, to find dignity in what appears to be undignified.

This is another example of Jesus inverting the norm.  The poor become exalted, a slave becomes king, love becomes power, the dead come to life.

Every parish recreates the foot washing scene every Holy Thursday.  Have any of you had the honor of being selected to be one whose feet get washed?  I was selected a few years ago.  It was a great moment. 

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All the narrative scenes and the chapters of the signs in John’s Gospel are memorable, from chapters one through thirteen, and then the passion narrative of chapters eighteen and nineteen are extremely engaging as are the resurrection scenes of twenty and twenty-one.  But the chapters in between the signs and passion narrative, fourteen through seventeen, become a blur.  They are filled with discourse and Jesus’ prayer, and so I think become indistinguishable.  At least for me.  As a unit, it is referred to as Jesus’ Farewell Discourse.  I put together this little table to capture the gist and highlights of those four chapters in the hopes of them being more distinct in the mind.

Chapter 14:

Themes:

(1) Jesus as the way

(2) The Holy Spirit as the Advocate and Spirit of Truth

Key Sayings:

(1) No one comes to the Father except through me

(2) Whoever believes in me will do the works that I do

(3) If you love me, you will keep my commandments

(4) I am the way and the truth and the life.

Chapter 15:

Themes:

(1) Discourse on the vine and the fruit

(2) Discourse on being hated on account of Jesus

Key Sayings:

(1) I am the vine, you are the branches. 

(2) Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit, because without me you can do nothing.

Chapter 16:

Themes:

(1) Discourse on the Advocate, the Spirit of Truth

(2) Discourse on Jesus Going and Returning

Key Sayings:

(1) I came from the Father and have come into the world. Now I am leaving the world and going back to the Father.

(2) I have told you this so that you might have peace in me. In the world you will have trouble, but take courage, I have conquered the world.

Chapter 17:

Themes:

(1) Prayer that His disciples may know the Father

(2) Prayer that His followers may be one

Key Sayings:

(1) Holy Father, keep them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one just as we are.

(2) I pray not only for them, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, so that they may all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you

I have found that chapter 17 to come up in debates.  Jesus prays that His Church be one.  All those who have splintered off from the original Church are really in violation of Jesus’ wish. 

I hope this summary helps as the readings from these chapters come up at Mass.

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Two scenes have always caught my interest in John’s passion account.  First is the scene when the soldiers come for Jesus.

So Judas got a band of soldiers and guards from the chief priests and the Pharisees and went there with lanterns, torches, and weapons.  Jesus, knowing everything that was going to happen to him, went out and said to them, “Whom are you looking for?”  They answered him, “Jesus the Nazorean.”  He said to them, “I AM.” Judas his betrayer was also with them.  When he said to them, “I AM,” they turned away and fell to the ground.  So he again asked them, “Whom are you looking for?” They said, “Jesus the Nazorean.”  Jesus answered, “I told you that I AM. So if you are looking for me, let these men go.”  (John 18:3-8)

I always get a kick out of the way the soldiers fall to the ground when Jesus says the divine name, “I AM.”  It’s a little slapstick moment.  It shows that Jesus has the power to walk away from this if He so wished.  He is in control.  He commands the situation: “Who are you looking for?”  “That’s me.”  “Let these men go.” 

This recalls a moment earlier in John’s Gospel in chapter ten.  After the Good Shepherd discourse, Jesus says, “No one takes [my life] from me, but I lay it down on my own. I have power to lay it down, and power to take it up again” (John 10:18).  He has the power.  His life is not taken from Him.  He freely allows them to take it.  So when they come to arrest Him, the soldiers falling down to the force of His words, it is a manifestation of His power.

The other scene that captures my imagination is the interrogation scene before Pilate. 

So Pilate went back into the praetorium and summoned Jesus and said to him, “Are you the King of the Jews?”  Jesus answered, “Do you say this on your own or have others told you about me?”  Pilate answered, “I am not a Jew, am I? Your own nation and the chief priests handed you over to me. What have you done?”  Jesus answered, “My kingdom does not belong to this world. If my kingdom did belong to this world, my attendants [would] be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not here.”  So Pilate said to him, “Then you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say I am a king. For this I was born and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.”  Pilate said to him, “What is truth?”  (John 18:33-38)

Here’s a bit of a confession.  Pontius Pilate is the person in the New Testament with who I most identified.  Pilate here is the model of efficiency.  Get to the facts.  Understand the situation, and come to a decision.  “What have you done?”  “Then you are a King?”  What is truth?”  He is a Roman officer ready to administrate.  Pilate is me in charge of an engineering project.  Figure it out, get the facts, find the truth, and make it work. 

But Pilate is baffled.  This criminal before him doesn’t behave like a criminal.  There is something mystical here.  He is trying to understand Jesus.  He can’t penetrate the situation.  He’s trying to calculate.  I’ve had that so many times in trying to figure what physics are doing in a design.  Why isn’t it working?  The design is talking back to me.  “There is a truth.”  And I say, “What is truth?  Truth is what works.”  That is the life of an efficient engineer.  But at least there isn’t a moral problem with what I’m doing.  It’s only an inanimate design, mere metal, electrical, or chemical parts.  Pilate has before him a human being.  He wants to do what’s moral.  But when the situation gets close to a riot, then the calculation becomes what’s moral is to keep stability.  And so Jesus has to die.  Efficiency finds an answer.

They changed the words a bit, but Rod Steiger plays a great Pontius Pilate in Jesus of Nazareth.  Here’s that scene.

Always good to see that movie. 

Kerstin Replied:

I find it interesting that you identify with Pilate, Manny. I suppose as a German I fall into this category too ;-) I like efficiency. Right now I am thinking of re-arranging some stuff in my kitchen because the way I organized it doesn't quite fit the work flow...

Looking at your argument of efficiency, we do get carried away and push God out of the way. Pilate rightly calculates that a riot is never good, but he misses that by doing so he pushes God out of the way. How many times - despite the niggling feeling to the contrary - do we push God out of the way? Probably more often than we care to admit.

My Reply:

Haha, Germans have made some very good engineers over the last few centuries.

If I were in Pilate's shoes with Pilate's knowledge, I doubt I would have followed a different course of action. Pilate tries to get Jesus off, but it just got out of control. If I were to do something different, I guess I could have let Jesus go and lock down Jerusalem. But in all likelihood, the Romans would not have had enough soldiers to restrain the mob.

Gospel of John, Part 3

Part 1 on this series on John’s Gospel is here.  

Part 2 is here.

The introduction to the Gospel of John in the USCCB website states that the structure of the work is divided between the Book of Signs (through chapter 12) and the Book of Glory (through chapter 20) with a short prologue at the beginning and epilogue at the end. 

I might divide it a little differently.  I can’t do better than the Book of signs for the first twelve chapters, but I think the Book of Glory could be subdivided into chapters thirteen through seventeen as the Last Supper narrative (though no supper is actually discussed) and the Passion narrative. 

Another of the repeated phrases is that of being “lifted up.”  The first one comes in chapter three.  “And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of Man be lifted up so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.” (3:14-15). But it continues with the famous statement of faith: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.  For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him” (3:16).  I do not think it a coincidence that it come right before why God sent Jesus into the world.  You can almost compress those lines into “God sent Jesus into the world to be lifted up.” 

The second instance of the lifted up saying comes in chapter 8.  It comes during an argument with the Jewish leaders: “So Jesus said (to them), “When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will realize that I AM, and that I do nothing on my own, but I say only what the Father taught me.”  Here Jesus connects the lifting up with the “I AM” statement, what God said His name was to Moses.  You can compress this into “When I am lifted up, you will realize I am God.” 

Side note.  When Jesus refers to “The Jews” throughout this Gospel, I believe He is referring to the Jewish leaders.  Much has been made in this Gospel to justify anti-Semitism.  Referring to them as the Jews as if they are somebody different doesn’t make sense.  Jesus and the disciples are all Jews.  This Gospel doesn’t seem to distinguish between the different types of Jews, such as the Pharisees or the Scribes.  He does once or twice but mostly not.  That’s why I really believe the anti-Semitism is improperly interpreted.  Since there is no distinction, and since Jesus is Jewish as well as His followers, “the Jews” are His specific opposition, the leaders in the Sanhedrin. 

The third instance of the lifted up phrase comes in chapter twelve.  Jesus announces His coming glory after riding into Jerusalem on a colt of a donkey:

Jesus answered and said, “This voice did not come for my sake but for yours.  Now is the time of judgment on this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out.  And when I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw everyone to myself.”

Commentary notes say the “ruler of this world that will be driven out” is Satan.  This can then be compressed to “When I am lifted up, I will drive out Satan and draw all to myself.” 

So take all three of these compressed “lifting up” statements and put them side by side:

(1) “God sent Jesus into the world to be lifted up.” 

(2) “When I am lifted up, you will realize I am God.” 

(3) When I am lifted up, I will drive out Satan and draw all to myself.” 

If you weren’t aware, this lifting up echoes Moses lifting up a serpent of a brass serpent in Numbers 21:4-9 as a form of redemption: “When I am lifted up, I will drive out Satan and draw all to myself.”  So this being lifted up connects with driving Satan out with a symbol of the serpent that was Satan in the Garden of Eden.  Christ being lifted up reverses the sequence in the Garden.  Adam and Eve were tempted by Satan and ate of the forbidden fruit and were cast out.  Christ on the cross lifted up becomes a redeeming fruit on a new tree (the cross) that drives Satan away and restores wholeness by drawing man back in.  Does that make sense?

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I think all the events with the various signs are fascinating in their own way.  In this read, the events with the raising of Lazarus particularly caught my eye.  We know the story.  The raising of Lazarus from the dead is a prefiguring of Christ’s being raised from the dead.  But I think the language John uses expands the meaning.  For instance, when Jesus first hears of Lazarus’ illness, He says: “This illness is not to end in death, but is for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified through it.”  Glory is the key word, and it doesn’t mean the reception of honor.  Glory in John’s Gospel is the manifestation of God’s presence, the revelation of His divinity.  It has deep roots in the Old Testament, going back to Exodus: "The glory of the LORD settled on Mount Sinai” (Exodus 24:16). 

We see Jesus intentionally takes His time in getting to Bethany, and when He gets there Lazarus has been dead.  But notice how long he has been dead.

“When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days.” (John 11:17)

Most numbers in the Bible tend to come repetitions.  Forty denotes a long period of time, Twelve (as in twelve tribes of Israel and twelve apostles) denotes a certain completeness, three (Trinity) is perfection.  Four is not common number.  If Lazarus’ death and being brought back to life is a foreshadow of Christ’s death and resurrection, then why wouldn’t Jesus have waited for three days rather than four?  Jesus seems to be in command of the time in the story. 

Here’s another interesting detail.  When Jesus gets there, He is met by Martha, Lazarus’s sister, the same Martha from the Martha and Mary event from Luke’s Gospel.  I am particularly struck by what Martha says.

When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went to meet him; but Mary sat at home.  Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.  [But] even now I know that whatever you ask of God, God will give you.” Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise.”  Martha said to him, “I know he will rise, in the resurrection on the last day.”  Jesus told her, “I am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?”  She said to him, “Yes, Lord. I have come to believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one who is coming into the world.”  (John 11:20-27)

What Martha says there at the end is very similar to what Peter says “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”  (Matt 16:16)  It is interesting that Martha is raised to such a high level.  The women in John’s Gospel are so diverse, from the Blessed Mother to the Samaritan woman to the woman caught in adultery and Martha and Mary Magdalene.  I thought Luke’s Gospel particularly spoke to women, but I think John’s is even more so.

And then we get Mary who comes out to cry to Jesus.

When Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”  When Jesus saw her weeping and the Jews who had come with her weeping, he became perturbed and deeply troubled, and said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Sir, come and see.”  And Jesus wept.  So the Jews said, “See how he loved him.”  But some of them said, “Could not the one who opened the eyes of the blind man have done something so that this man would not have died?” (John 11:32-37)

People are always quick to point out that Jesus wept here.  I think the presumption is that He wept for Lazarus’s death, but I don’t think so.  First He intentionally delayed so to ensure Lazarus died but He also knows He will raise Lazarus shortly.  I think Jesus wept because of the sadness and weeping around Him.  Mary runs out and falls on her knees weeping.  The Jews around her are also weeping.  He is witnessing the love for Lazarus and the pain of loss of that love to those who hold him dear.  I think Jesus is weeping for the hurt those living are feeling.  And Jesus then takes the action He intended all along.

So Jesus, perturbed again, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone lay across it.  Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the dead man’s sister, said to him, “Lord, by now there will be a stench; he has been dead for four days.”  Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believe you will see the glory of God?”  So they took away the stone. And Jesus raised his eyes and said, “Father, I thank you for hearing me.  I know that you always hear me; but because of the crowd here I have said this, that they may believe that you sent me.”  And when he had said this, he cried out in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!”  The dead man came out, tied hand and foot with burial bands, and his face was wrapped in a cloth. So Jesus said to them, “Untie him and let him go.” (John 11:38-44)

Again the four days is emphasized.  Doesn’t the four days show a distinction between Christ’s resurrection and Lazarus’s return to life?  Is this a foreshadow of Christ’s resurrection or something more to teach us about man’s relationship to Christ?  When Jesus calls out Lazarus—some translations have it as “Lazarus, come forth”—isn’t that exactly what every person will hear on their death?  Notice that bands used for burial (I assume to prevent arms and legs from twisting under rigor mortis) are highlighted and still on, and Jesus says to untie him, an act of being freed.  I expect to hear one day, “Manny, come forth.”  May I be worthy to be untied.

It's always good to watch clips from Jesus of Nazareth.  I noticed though they changed the dialogue a bit.

Gospel of John, Part 2

Part 1 on this series on John’s Gospel is here.  

Let’s explore some of the first chapter in some detail.  The first eighteen verses might be considered the core of this Gospel.  Let me comment on it in pieces.

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

Matthew and Luke start with the infancy narratives.  Mark starts with Christ’s precursor, John the Baptist.  But John takes it all the way back, back to beginning of creation.  I’m sure most of you realize it echoes the opening of Genesis, “In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth…”  But actually, as I see it, John is even predating creation in the first two sentences.  “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”  So if God is eternal, the Word being Jesus, was “with God” but more so, “was God,” and so was always.  John makes it clear: “He was with God in the beginning.” 

And then in the third sentence John takes us to the creation, but with a new addition to the revelation: “Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.”  When I try to visualize this conception of creation, the key word for me is “through.”  I picture God and whatever power he flares out to create is channeled through Jesus, through perhaps Jesus’ sacred heart, almost like the beams of light that emanate from Christ’s heart in the St. Faustina image as pated by Kazimirowski.  “In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind.”  So that creative force was life, the life that will be mentioned in Genesis.  God says in Genesis, “Let there be light,” and that light John envisions it shines through Jesus.  And of course that light is all powerful and cannot be overcome.

There is so much to take away from here.  Jesus is the “Word,” sometimes translated as “the logos.”  God creates through His spoken word.  Words are what formulate the scriptures, which is the moral law.  Christ then is the embodiment of the law and, indeed, the entire scriptures.  Logos is rational being, organization through logic.  Words through logic are an organizing principle; we orient, organize through, and conceptualize through words.  Jesus Himself then is the organizing principle of the universe.  Nowhere in the other three Gospels do we see this cosmic understanding of Christ. If we only had the three other Gospels, if the Gospel of John had not been written, we would lack this conception of Jesus.  This is an example of where John’s Gospel expands beyond just stories but formulates Christian theology. 

6 There was a man sent from God whose name was John. 7 He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all might believe. 8 He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light.

Once you get passed the infancy narratives, all four Gospels start the ministry of Christ with John the Baptist.  That Christ had a precursor prophet must have been strongly engrained in those first Christians.  ‘

9 The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. 10 He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. 11 He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. 12 Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— 13 children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.

Those first three sentences have such accelerated narrative movement: He was coming into the world; He was in the world; and the world did not receive Him.  The last two sentences define Christian theology.  Those that do receive Christ become more than just human beings, we become infused with God.  Ultimately, we become part of God.

14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

Here then is the incarnation: “The Word became flesh.”  Of course in the infancy narratives we get the conception which leads to Christ being born, but in John it’s so much more mystical.  He became flesh.  If anyone were to think that John thought that Christ just materialized out of thin air, in the very next chapter we see His mother, so obviously there was a birth.  That second sentence in the 14^th verse sums it all up with so many theological concepts packed together.  “We” as a statement of being witnesses to Christ; glory as the manifestation of God before us; Father and Son to describe the relationship between God and Jesus; “full of grace” being abundant with God’s gifts; truth which I think is more theological than the conventional use of the word.  That which is held to be true may not be true.  Truth here I think derives back to what is held in the mind of God, which can only be truth.

15 (John testified concerning him. He cried out, saying, “This is the one I spoke about when I said, ‘He who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.’”) 16 Out of his fullness we have all received grace in place of grace already given. 17 For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 18 No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known.

And then John returns to John the Baptist as eye witness.  What is interesting is that lines 16 through 18 are not quotes from the Baptist.  We see this a lot in John’s Gospel.  We get an eye witness statement (here John the Baptist), but then the author (John the Evangelist) explains the theological implications that the rather more simple person implied but may not have fully conceptualized.  Jesus Christ, as incarnate image of God, came to give us, God’s creation, grace (God’s benevolent gifts) and truth (the foundational reality in God’s mind) so that we could be unified with God.

That’s my attempt to explain what I consider the most powerful and beautiful part of the Bible.  Feel free to correct me if I stretched or strayed in accuracy in my interpretation.

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There are certain repetitions of wording and phrases that come up in the Gospel of John. We’ll hopefully get to the others but there’s one that first appears in chapter 2. We know this is the chapter of the wedding feast at Cana. We know this is the first miracle where He transforms water into wine at the request of His mother. But He doesn’t initially want to acknowledge the request. He says, “Woman, how does your concern affect me? My hour has not yet come” (John 2:4). There are two phrasings that are repeated several times later on: “Woman” and “my hour.” Let me just focus on “woman” for now.

Next is the encounter at the well with the Samaritan woman in chapter four, one of my favorite passages in the entire New Testament. First Jesus tells the woman of her history of being married five times and now even has resorted to living unmarried with a man. When you think about the number of marriages, she is obviously a woman who has been repeatedly rejected. What could a woman do in those days to live but to find another man to support her? Perhaps the divorces were partly her fault and perhaps it was the husbands’s fault, which is more likely, but going from husband to husband is a disgrace to her, and finally she’s even given up on keeping appearances by living outright with a man. She is alienated and broken. But Jesus offers her life saving water and tells her He is the messiah: “Believe me, woman, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem” (John 4:21). Again there is “hour” and there is “woman.”

In chapter eight, a woman caught in adultery is brought to Him and the men who bring her intend to stone her to death according to Mosaic Law. And Jesus through His words stifles them and when the men have all left he says: “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” (John 8:10). Again there is the phrasing, “woman.”

In chapter 19, while Jesus is suffering on the cross (His hour finally come) with His mother, other women, and the apostle John before Him, He says to His mother, “Woman, behold, your son.” He then turns to John and says, “Behold, your mother” (John 19:26-27). Again the word “woman” is used.

Now how are we supposed to understand the word “woman”? A lot might depend on the translation, but all translations that I know use “woman.” It seems to me he is speaking in a general manner referring to all womanhood. These are specific women He is speaking to, but He is using a word that is generally applied. It’s a word that goes back to Eve as woman. In all four cases it seems to me that Jesus is either giving dignity to the women or restoring their wholeness. In the second example He gives dignity to the woman at the well through His respect and kindness for her. In the third example He forgives the woman from her sin of adultery. In the first example, despite reluctance to start the events that will lead to His crucifixion, He gives dignity to His mother by obeying her. He also perhaps saves the bride the embarrassment of a undignified wedding. And in the fourth example He upgrades the status of woman to a universal mother of all.

There is nothing like this that I can recall in the Old Testament. Certain women are revered but nowhere to this level and nothing to a general womanhood level. And there is nothing like this in the culture that Jesus lived. Women were not fully respected, seen even as unclean because of their monthly periods, and were seen as the source of sexual sin (through their womanly attractiveness) as if men had only a passive role in sexual sin. By the use of the word “woman” Jesus is restoring the dignity of Eve, perhaps even forgiving Eve, and bringing her to wholeness from the brokenness of disobedience. I find this remarkable.

Madeleine Replied:

Manny asked, "Now, how are we supposed to understand the word "woman"? One thing I do remember from one of my New Testament exegesis class in college, taught by a Dominican priest, was a discussion on that word in the wedding at Cana passage. I do remember we were told that Jesus using that term did not have the disrespectful connotation it has now, but quite the opposite. That made sense to me at the time.

My Reply:

Yes it makes sense to me too but I've come across a little dispute over that. Do you have Relevant Radio in your area Madeleine? If you do you may have heard Fr. Simon in the afternoons. I love his show but I'm usually working. I did catch a show where he agreed with that. He knows the original languages, so from a linguistic point of view he said he would have translated "woman" as "my lady" in the Cana episode. That made sense to me, but I was interacting with the apologist Steven Ray (he's published a number of books) on his blog one day on this and brought up Fr. Simon's point. And he disagreed. He was looking at it from a theological point of view and he made the point I made above in that it was important to connect "woman" with Eve, and so it had to be translated as a general sense of womanhood.

Now I don't see how they both can't be correct. They are not mutually exclusive. It all depends on the tone Jesus used. Obviously if Jesus used it in a supercilious tone, then that would be disrespectful to His mother. And that can't be. If He used it in a sort of appealing and passive tone, then he would not be disrespectful. But I do think Steven Ray's point is correct, especially when you see that Jesus used the same word several times. There is more going on than Jesus simply addressing His mother.