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John: The Gospel of Symbols, Poetry, and Mystery
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Gospel Readings for Daily and Sunday Masses in Lent and Easter Seasons
Jesus Washing Peter's Feet - Ford Madox Brown
The gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke are each proclaimed every three years in the Sunday lectionary cycle of Ordinary Time and semi-continuously during the two-year daily lectionary cycle. The Gospel of John is proclaimed every year in the second half of Lent and throughout the Easter season in the daily and Sunday cycle. (We also hear John’s gospel on the 2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time and on six other Sundays in cycle B, and on other special occasions.)
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Did the Apostle John Write the Gospel of John?
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Plaque with the Symbol of the Evangelist John -
Abbey of Saint Foy, Conques, France (Metropolitan Museum of Art)
John was the last of the four gospels written, completed some time after the year 90. The gospel may have been written by the Apostle John himself, but given such a late date of composition, the majority of scholars find this claim dubious. The most popular theory is that the Gospel of John was written by “the Johannine community,” a group of John’s closest followers based in the city of Ephesus in present-day Turkey, writing down the lessons John had taught them for decades. Scholars believe that the Johannine community may have also written the 1 John, 2 & 3 John, and the Book of Revelation, due to the similarities in themes and rhetorical style. For the sake of brevity, scholars often refer to the authors of all five books as “John.”
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A Very Different Gospel
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John’s gospel differs in character from the synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) in significant ways. John probably intends to supplement and reframe what others have already taught about Jesus Christ.
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We do not know if John was familiar with the synoptic gospels themselves, but he seems to presume that his audience has a basic familiarity with the life, teachings, death, and resurrection of Jesus. For example, instead of hearing about Jesus’ baptism directly, we hear the words of John the Baptist before and after the baptism. In John’s account of the Last Supper, there is no mention of Jesus instituting the Eucharist. Instead, Jesus washes the disciples’ feet and then explains the importance of service to one another in a 3-chapter discourse. However, it seems likely John intends for his audience to connect the meaning of Eucharist to the foot washing (13:1-20), the Last Supper Discourse (14:1 – 16:33), and the Bread of Life Discourse earlier in the gospel (6:22-69). -
Whereas the other three gospels share many of the same brief stories in a few verses, John’s are longer and more complex. Therefore, when short passages from the Gospel of John are proclaimed at Mass – especially when chapters 3, 10, 14-16, and 17 are each read over a series of days during the weekdays of the Easter season and when chapter 6 is read over 5 consecutive Sundays in the summer of Year B – someone desiring a deeper connection to sacred Scripture may consider reading the entire chapter/discourse in one sitting. -
John’s frequent dramatic irony illustrates Jesus’ teachings and actions by presenting characters with different levels of understanding. At the wedding in Cana, the servers and Jesus’ mother know what Jesus has done, but the headwaiter and the bridegroom do not (2:1-11). The man born blind comes to recognize Jesus as “Lord,” but some of the Pharisees refuse to see Jesus’ true identity (9:1-41). -
In John, Jesus often speaks in a repetitious, poetic form of prose which circles back to the same concept multiple times, adding shades of nuances in each repetition. This may be most apparent in the Bread of Life Discourse (6:26-59) and the Priestly Prayer (17:1-26):
"i am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger.... I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever" (6:35, 51)
"I pray... that they may all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you.... I have given them the glory you gave me, so that they may be one, I in them and you in me.... The love with which you loved me may be in them and I in them." (17:20-23, 26)
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Mural of the Paul VI Chapel -
The Primacy of Peter, Galilee
John’s gospel is filled with symbolism. It has been said that “John writes like Picasso paints.” We may wonder why John mentions that Peter denies Jesus while warming himself at a charcoal fire (18:18), until when, after the Resurrection, Peter shares a meal prepared by Jesus at another charcoal fire (21:9). Scriptures scholars often debate the significance of John’s symbolic representations. For example, many Biblical scholars believed that the location of John’s story of the healing of a paralyzed man (5:2-9) – a pool near the Sheep Gate with five porticos – was a symbolic choice, until a late 19th-century archaeological excavation uncovered a 2000-year-old pool near the Sheep Gate, with five porticos!
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A "Higher" Christology
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Perhaps the most striking difference between John and the other gospels is its Christology – its theology of the person, the nature, and the role of Jesus as the Christ. While John includes a few details that indicate Jesus’ human nature (1:45-46, 2:4-5, 2:25), John emphasizes Jesus’ divine nature as the Christ of God much more explicitly than the synoptic gospels. It seems likely that John is countering a first-century heresy that claimed Jesus was merely a human being, without a divine nature.
From the first sentence of his magnificent prologue, John presents Jesus as the bringer of the new creation: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” As God’s very Word (Greek: logos), Christ was present at the creation of the universe when the Father said, “Let there be light.” Perhaps Pilate’s declaration, “Behold, the man!” in 19:5 is an echo of the creation of the first humans in Genesis 1:26. John also emphasizes that Jesus’ resurrection happens “on the first day of the week,” the same day on which God first created the world (20:1).Throughout John’s gospel, Jesus repeatedly uses the words “I am” in an explicit reference to God’s sacred name revealed to Moses at the burning bush (Exodus 3:14).
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“I am the bread of life.” (6:35)
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“I am the light of the world.” (8:12)
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“I am the gate.” (10:9)
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“I am the good shepherd.” (10:11)
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“I am the resurrection and the life.” (11:25)
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“I am the way and the truth and the life.” (14:6)
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“I am the vine.” (15:5)
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When the soldiers and guards come to arrest Jesus, he says “I AM,” and they turn around and fall to the ground. (18:5-6)
More than the other gospels, John presents Jesus as in control of the destiny the Father desires for him. Whereas Matthew, Mark, and Luke present Jesus praying in agony in the Garden of Gethsemane before his arrest, John provides Jesus’ long, intimate prayer to the Father on that same evening (17:1-26). In his trial, Jesus remains in the praetorium, while Pilate scuttles inside and outside, bowing to the pressure of the religious authorities to put Jesus to death. When Jesus is sentenced to crucifixion, it is Jesus, not Pilate, who is seated on the judge’s bench, dressed in a purple cloak (19:1-16). -
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Narrative Structure
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I. The Book of Signs (1:19 - 12:50)
After a highly structured Prologue (1:1 - 18), John shares episodes over a three-year period in which Jesus teaches his disciples through a series of speeches, illustrating his points through seven miracles, or signs: turning water to wine at the wedding in Cana (2:1 - 11), healing the royal official’s son (4:46 - 54), curing a paralytic (5:1 - 15), feeding the five thousand (6:5 - 14), walking on water (6:16 - 24), giving sight to the man born blind (9:1 - 7), and raising Lazarus from the dead (11:1 - 45).
The Raising of Lazarus - Rembrandt van Rijn
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II. The Book of Glory (13:1 - 20:31)
In great detail, John relays the events of Jesus coming into his “hour” to make God’s glory manifest: the Last Supper, Good Friday, Easter Sunday, and Jesus’ appearance to Thomas on the following Sunday. Scripture scholars are divided on whether Jesus’ later appearance to seven disciples on the Sea of Galilee (21:1 - 25) should be considered a separate Epilogue.
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Other Observations About the Gospel of John
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The Samaritan Woman at the Well - artist unknown
Throughout the Gospel of John, there is great tension between Jesus and a group of people John calls “the Jews.” In most cases, John is not referring to all Jewish people, but to a group of Pharisees and Sadducees who feel threatened by Jesus’ teachings. Because John repeatedly speaks of “the Jews” pejoratively, readers can easily perceive John’s gospel as anti-Semitic. Sadly, over the centuries, the Gospel of John, complemented by a few passages in the Gospel of Matthew, has been used by many in the Church – including important saints – to promote discrimination against the Jewish people.
At the Second Vatican Council in 1962-1965, the Catholic Church strongly repudiated the use of Scripture to justify the genocide of the Jewish people in the Holocaust of World War II. Paragraph #4 of the Vatican II document Nostra Aetate – authored in part by Paulist Fr. Thomas Stransky – declares: “The Church… decries hatred, persecutions, displays of anti-Semitism, directed against Jews at any time and by anyone.” -
"They have taken my Lord, and I don't know where they placed him."
(John 20:13 - 14) - St. Matthew Lutheran Church, Charleston, SC
While there are few women mentioned in the Gospel of John, three are given key roles in revealing the gospel. Jesus’ mother – who is not given a name by John – prods Jesus to begin his public ministry (2:11). The Samaritan woman at the well has the longest recorded conversation with Jesus, and she becomes the first evangelist (4:4-42). Mary of Magdala is the first to see the risen Jesus and proclaim the good news (20:11-18). -
Throughout the Book of Glory, there are multiple references to “the disciple whom Jesus loved.“ Some emphasize the importance of this person’s testimony (19:35, 20:8), a common feature in the ancient genre of bios (biography). Who is “the disciple whom Jesus loved”? There are several hypotheses, including:
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The Apostle John himself. Perhaps John’s followers referred to their beloved teacher this way, out of respect and reverence for him.
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A rhetorical device used to draw the reader into the narrative. Perhaps John is inviting us to place ourselves in the story/testimony as the beloved disciple.
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Lazarus. People remark on how much Jesus loved Lazarus, including Martha and Mary (11:3) and the “Jews” visiting Martha and Mary (11:36). Also, note the contrast between Lazarus’ inability to unfasten his burial cloths (11:44) and Jesus’ apparent ability to remove his own (20:3-9). In seeing the arrangement of the cloths at the empty tomb (20:3-9), the beloved disciple comes to believe.
Mary of Bethany washes Jesus' feet while Lazarus and Martha look on (John 12:1 - 3) - Ward and Hughes
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