Tag: The Gospel of John

From Jesus to Christ

“Now among those who went up to worship at the [Passover] festival were some [non-Jews].  They came to Philip [one of Jesus’ disciples]…and said to him, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.”  The Gospel of John 12:20-21

Christ the Redeemer Statue, Rio De Janerio, Brazil

At the top of Corcovado Mountain overlooking Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, a statue weighing 635 metric tons rests atop its peak. Resting atop this 2,300-foot mountain and rising from its base by another 650 feet, the sculpture of Christ the Redeemer is a symbol and cultural icon drawing people from all over the world.

While a local engineer designed the statue and another sculptor created the work, a different artist was explicitly commissioned to create its face. It was this face – the face of Christ – that made the final sculptor, Gheorghe Leonida, famous.

It is not uncommon to think of Christ as being Jesus’ last name.  However, Christ is not a name but a title, meaning anointed.  So there is the name, Jesus, as in Jesus of Nazareth, who was born to impoverished refugees during the reign of Emperor Augustus somewhere between 6 and 4 BC.  Living for thirty-three years, and executed as a common criminal – some scholars speculate that Jesus was not afforded the dignity of a tomb but instead buried in a shallow grave.

In sharp contrast, there is Jesus’ title, Christ, for whom the early architect of the Christian church, the Apostle Paul, describes as, “[the One] who holds it all together.” In other words, “…everything, absolutely everything, above and below, visible and invisible…everything got started in him and found its purpose in him.” Colossians 1:19 & 15

Am I the only one who has trouble reconciling the two?

According to John’s Gospel, Jesus was welcomed by a crowd of people during the Feast of the Passover in Jerusalem (what we customarily call Palm Sunday). Following this, two men of Greek origin (guys clearly outside the Jewish diaspora) approached a couple of Jesus’ disciples. “Can we see Jesus?” they asked.

Excited that outsiders expressed interest in meeting their leader and rabbi, the two disciples quickly sought Jesus out and breathlessly relayed this message. But Jesus’ reply must have both astonished and confounded them, as it does us millennia later.

Signally that his public and earthly ministry was coming abruptly to an end, Jesus said,
“My time is up. The time has come for the Human One to be glorified (exalted).” John 12:23
Then describing how a single kernel wheat must be buried in the ground if it is to flourish and multiply, Jesus tries to explain once again not only what is about to happen to him, but why.

Franciscan writer and teacher, Richar Rohr, emphasized that while Christian orthodoxy taught that Jesus was both “fully human AND fully divine” at the same time, the best any of us mortals could do was see ourselves as only human…with Jesus as only divine.  Only by doing so, “we missed the whole point, which puts the two together in him AND then dare to discover the same mystery in ourselves and all of creation.” We were never intended to be mere spectators, standing on the sidelines.

At the top of Corcovado Mountain overlooking Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, a statue weighing 635 metric tons rests atop its peak. Resting atop this 2,300-foot mountain and rising from its base by another 650 feet, the sculpture of Christ the Redeemer is a symbol and cultural icon drawing people from all over the world. Yet it is the face – the face of Christ – that pulls scores of people to it.

Writes Frederick Buechner, author of, The Hungering Dark, “[t] here is so much about the whole religious enterprise that seems superannuated and irrelevant and as out of place in our age as an antique statue is out of place in the sky. But just for a moment…there can only be silence as something comes to life…”

What comes to life is this startling recognition.

We know this face.

It is Jesus of Nazareth. It is the Christ. The One who came and comes still.

Fiery Serpents on the Way to the Promised Land

“We’ve made some progress but, we still have a distance to travel,” stated [Representative John] Lewis of Atlanta on the 53 anniversary of the crossing of the Bridge in Selma over voting rights
“From Mount Hor [the Israelite wanderers] set out by the way to the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom [given the refusal of Edom’s King to give them safe passage]” Numbers 21:4

What if the first generation who followed Moses out of Egypt
were not unlike the brave souls who crossed over Selma’s Bridge fifty-three years ago with sights set for the Promised Land?

Like the recent re-enactment of the crossing of the Bridge in Selma, by the time we get to the twenty-first chapter of the Book of Numbers in the Hebrew Bible – we witness the next generation. These are the grown children of those who fled Eygpt; these are the ones who never knew anything else other than living as tent-dwelling Bedouins in a raw, forsaken, wind-swept desert. Though born in liberty, they were the offspring of those condemned to captivity.

In fact, the only one amongst them who had never known the lash of the overseer’s whip was Moses. Moses – born into privilege. Moses – educated by the best that Pharoah’s household had to offer. Moses – who was adopted by a princess and raised as a ruler’s son.

So when the Book of Numbers talks about the second generation of escaped slaves being bitten by fiery serpents because of they rejected the provisions of our Sovereign Lord (Numbers 21:4-9), I find myself wondering what is not said. Is there more to this account than stated? Could there be more to this story particularly when we consider that fifteen hundred years later Jesus uses this incident to prefigure his death?

When extensively hiking the deserts of California, recognizing poisonous snakes AND treating snakebite – is a necessary skill when traversing its wind-swept and rocky terrain.  Take heed, unlike the ancient account from the Book of Numbers, gazing upon a bronze snake set upon an upright pole won’t be found in backpacking first aid manuals or elsewhere. But nevertheless, both ancient scripture and current medical treatment underscore the venom’s systemic threat, potentially causing paralysis, severe swelling, difficulty breathing, cardiac arrest and death.

Fifteen hundred years later, Jesus used this account and image when speaking to a prominent religious leader who came to him under cover of night.  “If I have told you about earthly things and you don’t believe, how can I tell you about heavenly things?” Jesus said, “…[for] just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.” (John 3:12, 14)

Millennia later, you and I read this account and ponder what Jesus meant by these words. Save this. What if the only thing that can heal the likes of us is nothing short of a systemic remedy, one that treats toxin ravaged souls as well as bodies? What if the crosses we wear and those posted on church steeples and elsewhere are as holy witnesses – testifying that God-in-Christ sustains not by taking us out of the wilderness but by remaining – even in the most godforsaken places and times.*

*Inspiration is credited to Professor Terence E. Fretheim’s  outstanding commentary on this passage

 

Dismantled Temples

“Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” John 2:19

The church on the Town Common. The Cathedral in the City Square. The chapel in the country village
The shrine sitting on a distant mountaintop. The house of prayer nestled between the pawn shop and laundromat.

Built by human hands, each structure emerges with a unique story to tell. Some are fairly recent. Others span centuries. These are our houses of worship, sanctuaries, and parish houses; monasteries, retreat centers, and mission outposts; chantries, tabernacles, and basilicas.

Fresh from changing water into wine on the third day in Cana of Galilee, Jesus strides into one of the holiest places in the ancient near-east world and begins turning over tables. Making a whip of cords, he drives out the sheep and the cattle and the people who had been selling them. Doves escape from overturned cages, hard currency flung onto the temple floor, and the exchange of money/goods utterly disrupted.

Angered, temple officials and marketers demand evidence. “What sign can you show us for doing this?”

Nonplused, Jesus replies, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”

The Nicene Creed declares, “We believe in one God, the Father Almighty…and in one Lord Jesus Christ, [whom] for us and our salvation…was crucified under Pontious Pilate; … suffered and was buried.

The third day he rose again, according to the Scriptures…”

Years ago when memorizing the Nicene Creed – I questioned the effort expended over the recitation of this ancient confession. Laboring line after line to commit the language to memory, it wasn’t until years later that I appreciated its fuller historical context – and why its development in the first place. Faced with the heresies of its day – and those that invariably followed – the early church responded, providing a framework and orthodoxy of the Christian faith. Knowing the tendency of mortals to limit the efficacy of God-in-Christ’s Sovereignty, a confessional context was wholly necessary, then as now.

Once, an enigmatic prophet strode into one of the holiest places in the ancient near-east world, turning over tables and practices that undermined the Sovereignty and Holiness of God. And we, we who fear that our institutions, our houses of worship and our hope in the future – are being reduced to the moral equivalent of rubble, would do well to return to the promises of scripture and this ancient confession, that soars in God’s victorious affirmation:

[and on] “The third day our Lord rose again, according to the promises of Scripture.”

Thanks be to God. Amen.

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