The Spirit's Key
All four of the gospel accounts in the Bible present the story of Jesus in different ways. Different authors write with different voices. Each gospel prioritizes different events and some preserve different details than others. Each of the accounts has a different primary audience in mind.
We often group Matthew, Mark, and Luke together, calling them the synoptic gospels. They have similar structure, content, and language to one another. This is especially apparent when we compare them to John. In addition to the story about who Jesus was and the events that happened during his earthly ministry, John wants his audience to know who Jesus is in the great, cosmic, divine sense. This is why John starts with the eternal Word, present at creation.
We've spent a lot of time with John's telling of the gospel story this Eastertide and, sometimes, John is difficult to understand. He writes in odd ways, frequently repeating himself, using words in unexpected ways, and describing things from what seem like unusual angles. These last three weeks we've been tracing, in detail, what's called the Farewell Discourse, Jesus' comments to his disciples at the closing of the Last Supper. He keeps telling them about how he's leaving, he will die, but it's all to glorify his Father. If you've found yourself tripping over the gospel readings and a little frustrated with John in this season, don't worry, you're not alone.
Biblical scholars have speculated for generations about why John's gospel is so remarkably different from the others. Based on the differences in the writing, which is a reflection of a story that was being told orally in the community that grew up around the apostle, there are a few theories about what may have been unique to John's circumstance.
The prevailing theory is that John and the community around him may have held slightly different views from the majority about Jesus or the best way to live as his followers. I know it's hard to believe, but Christians sometimes disagree about the best way to live their faith! (I think the Last Supper with Jesus himself presiding was probably the only time a group of Christians managed to all agree on how things ought to be done.) John's community may have had a more cosmic, mystical understanding of Jesus than some of their contemporaries and, as we can imagine, this would change the way Jesus' story was told in their community.
It is also possible, some would say likely, that John's community faced more persecution than those of Matthew, Mark, or Luke. There are clues in the language of the gospel that suggest this. It follows patterns common to minority groups who need to communicate information without wanting to be too obvious about exactly what they're saying. Having to conduct their affairs in semi-secrecy makes for peculiar habits and patterns, like the ones we see in John's gospel.
John's Jesus regularly uses common words in unexpected, unconventional ways. He speaks frequently of glorifying God. This isn't unusual itself, but Jesus is almost always describing his own death when he does so. Most people don't associate a gory death with glorification of anyone. All four gospels talk about Jesus being sent by God, but John almost uses it as a motto. Especially in this Farewell Discourse, Jesus talks at great length about his being sent and his impending return to the Father. There is something very important about this transitive relationship for John's community.
John's gospel is full of surprises. We might think we know what Jesus means when he compares himself to the Good Shepherd, but then he drops that famous comment about how he has sheep in other folds that he must attend to. (John 10:16) What are we to make of this? To whom is he referring and what sort of relationship do they have? What did this mean, in particular, for John's community?
The apostolic community that gathered around John is far from the only community to identify themselves in semi-secrecy using linguistic cues. There are words that we use in every day English now that began as slang that helped certain groups identify with one another. At one time, "cool" just meant something with a lower temperature than the surrounding area. Then a group began to use it to describe something that was interesting, pleasant, enjoyable, and so on. "Cool" came to have another meaning as we know it today.
The gospels are some of the most studied and best understood texts from ancient southwest Asia. For all that we know about them, we are also aware that there is so much more that we do not know. Details about communities, relationships, the conversations that did not get written down, and so much else are lost to history. Especially in the case of communities, like many in early Christianity, who had good reason not to want to share everything they said and did openly.
We believe that John's gospel is holy scripture. It is a revelation of the truth about God to us and for us. Just as when Jesus says he is praying for those who will come after and we believe he is praying for us, we believe that God still speaks to us through the stories of the Bible.
Sometimes these stories are difficult to get our heads around just because they're about God and God is God, not us. Sometimes these stories are difficult for us because, like John, they're talking about God in ways that we're not used to or using language that we just don't have the most helpful key for. We do our best to understand what God is saying to us today, how Jesus is praying for us today, and how the Spirit is moving among us today.
We do what we can and trust that the Spirit will fill in the parts that we are not able to supply. This is, of course, the same process and relationship that John and his community were trying to work out. Perhaps, in 2,000 years, our descendants in the faith will look at our writings and our discussions and find them just as perplexing as we find John, still in pursuit of knowing God more fully.
