Dear Saints,
This week I really just want to drive home the implications of Epiphany in the four gospels. So I want to select themes from our past studies and draw out more of what we must believe and do as a result.
We have seen Epiphany through the lens of St Luke, St Matthew, St Mark and now St John. There is the Star in Matthew, the Benedictus and Nunc Dimittis canticles (of Zacharias and Simeon) in Luke which both refer to the “light” to the people/nations. With no “birth narrative” or canticles, St John actual has the words, “I am the light of the world” (John 9:1-7) since He is the true light that enlightens every man (1:9).
John’s Gospel shows us that Jesus is the full manifestation of God Himself. “The only begotten God, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him” (1:18). We looked at three perspectives on John.
1) DAYS OF CREATION – He is “a new creator (eight days) and light has come to “enlighten every man” (1:9).
2) SEVEN I AMS – Jesus identifies Himself in striking claims (remember C.S. Lewis’s “Lord, liar, lunatic”). He states seven “I am’s.”
3) SEVEN SIGNS – He does seven signs to “signal” His Messianic identity.
These seven signs are related in parallels:
1/7 Water to wine/Water and blood,
2/6 Salvation from death/Salvation from the grave,
3/5 Sabbath restoration of the lame/blind after the use of water.
4th and central to the Gospel is Jesus feeding the five thousand and walking on water.
A Typological Outline of the Gospel of John
[NEW CREATION DAYS]
FIRST DAY: LIGHT “The Light shines” (first, 1:5)
SECOND DAY: SEA/SKY “Baptizing in Water/Spirit” (next day, 1:29, 33) . . .
THIRD DAY: LAND PLANTS “They have no wine” (2:3ff) . . .
[I AM STATEMENTS] [SEVEN SIGNS]
TRUE VINE 1. Water to Wine at the Wedding (2:1-11)
GOOD SHEPHERD 2. Saving from death the royal son (4:46ff)
WAY TRUTH LIFE 3. Sabbath – healing the paralyzed man/pool (5:2-9)
BREAD OF LIFE 4. Making bread/fish & water walking (6:11, 19)
I AM 5. Sabbath – healing the man born blind (9:1-7)
LIGHT OF THE WORLD 6. Saving after death poor Lazarus (11:1-44)
RESURRECTION & LIFE 7. Water and Blood at the Cross (19:34)
FOURTH DAY: SUN MOON STARS “The Light of the World” (8:12) . . .
FIFTH DAY: SEA/SKY DWELLERS: “He has been buried for four days” (11:17, 39)
SIXTH DAY: BEASTS/MAN “Behold the Man” (19:5)
SEVENTH DAY: SABBATH “It was the Passover” (19:14)
EIGHTH DAY: Jesus is a New Adam – “On the first day of the week Mary Magdalene” (20:1ff)
At the center, remember the Exodus (Manna and water from the rock). Hence, Jesus is the Maker/Provider of water, bread and wine; He is life and Sabbath. He claims to be true manna. Jesus fed the people and called for faith.
It should not surprise us that the sequence of the signs places this as the center of chiasm, while the first is the new creation wine and the last is the old creation wine of his blood. We have the wine, bread/water, and water/blood sequence in these signs. The clear meaning upon reflection is that we who are the baptized are to feed upon Jesus by faith in the Eucharist. This shows that we are abiding in Him.
At the center of these signs in the “Bread of Life” discourse, comes the strident words of Jesus (these are in “red”):
John 6:53-56 - So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in yourselves. 6:54 “He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. 6:55 “For My flesh is true food, and My blood is true drink. 6:56 “He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him.”
Take this you gnostics! This is like Luther throwing a beer stein at the devil.
Is there any exegete so crafty as to remove sacramental overtones from this? I mean you have to have several Ph.D.s to remove the necessity of Communion from this, maybe even hold an endowed chair of hermenuetics (interpretation) at a reputable, accredited seminary.
Now if all of this strikes against our Evangelical sensibilities – How, after all, can the sacramental things be so important? – Since we know that no physical objects or rites can be important . . .
Well perhaps it is our Evangelical assumptions rather the the Gospel of John that is the problem. Perhaps we have unjustly pitted the invisible things like faith over against the visible things like water, bread, wine, washing, eating and drinking. If the covenant purpose of God (Gen. 12) is restoration of creation, then a great plan to derail it is philosophy of the separation of creational physicality from creational spirituality. The latter of course is usually not conceived of as created. Spiritual and mental are “eternal” not temporal to many. Of course some people conceive of eternal life as eternal disembodiment. So this all makes sense that such actions that involve us in the world of material things are peripheral.
Floyd Reeser reminded me recently of a great line from C.S. Lewis’s, That Hideous Strength (The greatest book of the twentieth century, IMHO) – where the skeptic Mr. MacPhee says, “Guts and palate for eternity, in a world with no food or drink? Man, ye’ll have a grand time of it!”
Yes, Mr. MacPhee, exactly – assuming eternal life is eternal disembodiment.
However, the resurrection of Jesus in the same body in which he died, refutes Mr. MacPhee’s first, but unstated, premise. Eternal life and powerful theme in St John is deeply creational. We eat and drink. Because we celebrate the Great Table, we are set at liberty to give thanks at all lesser tables of our daily bread. This guides our ordinary lives with flesh and blood people with whom we eat.
This is savor in a world of rottenness. This is refreshment in an arid world. This joy in a world of mourning. This solidity in a world of vapor. This is Light in a dark world. . . . Well, I could go on.
Bible application 101: Invite a family in the church you don’t know very well, over for a meal. Eat together. Seek to appreciate the gifts and graces that God is working into their lives.
Gregg Strawbridge, Pastor
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