John # 5

As well as the Gospel and letters of John this Bible study uses the book “Written that you may believe: Encountering Jesus in the fourth Gospel” by Sandra M. Schneiders (2003) Crossroad Publishing Co. New York, NY.

Background reading to study #5- Written that you may believe chapter 4.

Symbolism in John 05/13/10

The Synoptic Gospels called Jesus’ miracles works of power, John calls them signs. Signs refer to something, show you something that you didn’t see before. They alert us to the deeper level of meaning in John. John was written later than others and has had a greater chance to reflect deeply on the meaning of Jesus. The author is thinking about how the message will be continued after the death of the primary witnesses. How can the message be preserved? The tools of communication he uses are the Word and Sign.

Today our world is exploding with signs. John’s sense of their importance is very contemporary.

The sign/symbol of water runs thru’ the Gospel – the water transformed into wine, the woman at the well, water and blood pouring from the pierced side of Jesus… Water on an ordinary human level has a powerful impact. It is essential for life. In the Gospel it becomes a means for communicating the teaching of Jesus. For example Jn 7:37-39 “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink…out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water”. Water becomes a symbol of Jesus himself. By taking in Jesus the believer experiences and becomes the source of living water. Water is associated with the Spirit of Jesus that will be fully experienced because of Jesus’ glorious death.

In the Bread of Life discourse (Jn 6:35-58) John uses another symbol. Jesus is the bread that comes down from heaven. John’s gospel does not have the institution of the Eucharist that is so pivitol to other three gospels and also to Paul. In the first part of the discourse (up until v.50) there is nothing about eating his flesh. “Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.” The key thing here is relationship and belief.

At v. 50 the discourse slips in to something else – it talks of eating. Bread as symbol raises the idea of eating and here eating becomes the focus. “Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life within you”. Traditionally these verses have been read literally and been understood in terms of applying to the physical sacrament of the Eucharist. From this understanding emerged the doctrine of transubstantiation in the 13th century. This inevitably returns us to the ritual and the sacrificial.

This literal reading overlooks the irony of John found elsewhere in the Gospel. For example when Nicodemus response to Jesus saying we must be born again – “Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb?” In the same way the Jews would be asking how is it possible to eat this man’s flesh? This scandalous and shocking language pushes the metaphor of bread all the way so that we begin to understand.

Understood metaphorically—symbolically, by means of a sign—we are fed and sustained by the real person of Jesus and by his world-overturning death on the cross. Food, like air is essential for life. Unlike breathing, eating is a conscious act. What we choose to eat becomes a part of us. “Eating Jesus” is receiving God.

Jesus in fact is himself the core metaphor in John– the direct communication or sign of who and what God is. Jesus is there, center stage, all the time - the central figure of the Gospel. God becomes present thru’ Jesus. The Gospel in turn is the direct communication of Jesus –the whole thing is symbolic revelation through and through.

Schneiders differentiates between sign and symbol. For her, unlike a sign (which points to something else), a symbol participates in what it represents. For example a flag symbolizes patriotism and can evoke that emotion. It gives a deeper connection. In this way Jesus both shows us the divine and becomes the means to reaching the divine. This interpretation reflects traditional Western metaphysical thought: signs refer to the visible world, but the real is invisible and needs another communication – Jesus enables us to bridge the divide.

A different understanding focuses on human transformation rather than divine revelation as information. Jesus used signs to communicate meaning. In him our whole semiotic system—signs, symbols, what have you—is revolutionized into new communicated meaning—away from violence toward self-giving love. It is very difficult to transfer from one root human meaning to another, and so John acts a kind of dictionary or lexicon of translating signs, doubling over and over on themselves until we finally get it. Jesus acted to change human existence from within. He modeled a new way of being human. Jesus, the ultimate sign, did not point to heaven, but to the human heart. Jesus said look at me and you will begin to understand yourself and how you can be transformed. And you will also understand God. The cross as the supreme sign of Jesus is the only sign that matters. It reveals our violence and changes our world of meaning.