Our GROW Time theme this year is “Who are You, Jesus?”
“Who are you?” the disciples asked of Jesus (John 8:25). In the New Testament this question of Jesus’ identity is asked frequently. In Mark 4:41 it says, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?” The people who heard Jesus’ claim to be “the bread that came down from heaven” (John 6:41) asked a similar question, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know?” (John 6:42).
If the question could be answered simply, we would have no need of a New Testament with four gospels. A sentence or a paragraph would do. But Jesus does not fit easily into a sentence or a paragraph. He is God’s surprise. His contemporaries believed they knew what to expect from God; they did not expect someone like Jesus. They were so convinced of this that they put Jesus to death rather than accept him and what he had to say. But God raised Jesus from the dead, placing a stamp of approval on Jesus and his ministry. The great shock, to which the New Testament bears witness, is that when God chose to speak, Jesus was the Word that came from God’s mouth.
John’s gospel deals with the question of Jesus’ identity through rich imagery. While titles like “Christ” and “Son of God” are used, they don’t have the same impact as “I am the bread of life” (John 6:35) or “I am the good shepherd” (John 10:11). Such imagery has a different impact; it can get inside our imaginations in a way titles cannot.
John’s vocabulary is quite simple. Once you know “light” and “life” in Greek, you can go a long way in translating the gospel. The simplicity of the imagery is deceptive, however. It is capable of remarkable depth and complexity. Jesus develops metaphors like “bread” and “light” and “life” in long speeches, and the images do things to his audience-both within the story world and beyond it. The chapters offer some experience of what it is to digest an image or to experience darkness and death. Many people, or at least the most prominent members of the society of Jesus’ day, were not convinced by Jesus’ words, but they were moved by them. By the end of John’s account of Jesus’ life, religious and political leaders determined that Jesus was too dangerous to live, and they put him to death on a cross.
Understanding who Jesus is means understanding the cross. It means understanding why people, when they are offered bread free of charge, refuse to eat. It means understanding why people prefer darkness to light.
“Who are you, Jesus?” involves a sense of who we are and what our possibilities are. And it involves some sense of who God is, since as the gospel claims from beginning to end, knowing Jesus means knowing God: “The Father and I are one” (John 10:30); “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9); “No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known” (John 1:18). What is it, then, to know God? The gospel claims that it is to know Jesus.
That only raises the question again: How will we know Jesus? The question, “Who are you, Jesus?” suggests that Jesus can be addressed. But how will Jesus respond? Jesus anticipates the situation of later generations of believers when he asks Thomas, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe” (John 20:29). Then the narrator adds, “These are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name” (John 20:31). John presumes to speak for Jesus and to offer testimony on his behalf.
But can a book be trusted to speak for Jesus? Even if there is reason for confidence in Matthew or John, written gospels don’t speak; someone must give them voice, and from the number of commentaries that appear regularly, it is apparent that they can be voiced and heard very differently. There is some reason to wonder if the voice we hear when we listen to the gospels is more than an echo of our own.
The New Testament anticipates the problem. Jesus promises his followers, and those of us who read the gospel, that the Spirit, his Spirit, will lead us into all the truth: “But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you” (John 14:26). While the Scriptures were written in the past “so that you may believe,” we are promised that revelation occurs here, not in the past.
The Spirit works now among those who gather to read and speak together about what they see and hear concerning Jesus. The Spirit works among those who have been invited to ask so that it can be given. It is thus quite appropriate that the question “Who are you, Jesus?” be asked of the one who is alive among us as we study the Bible.
Anyone can read John’s gospel. There are no prerequisites. The gospel is worth studying so that, like any great piece of art, we can hear and appreciate it more. Studying John’s gospel involves work at
several levels. The imagery Jesus uses to speak about himself—bread, light, shepherd, resurrection, truth—is simple enough for anyone to understand. The imagery also has depth. It is complex enough to sustain repeated reading and reflection. Some of the images have a long and noble history as part of Israel’s tradition (for example, bread and shepherd). Knowledge of their place in this tradition can deepen our appreciation as we study the material.
The narrative setting is likewise crucial. As Jesus’ discourses unfold or as stories flesh out the imagery, a definite plot begins to emerge. “He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him” (John 1:11). Understanding the imagery involves understanding its bite, its offense. Jesus’ repeated use of the definite article “the” (“the bread from heaven,” “the good shepherd,” “the light of the world,” “the resurrection,” “the way, the truth, and the life”) presumes that there are competing claims being denied.
We cannot be fair to the gospel without at some point asking about those competing claims and how we will make the gospel’s argument that life is available only in Jesus’ name and not another.
The particularity of the claim is both the strength and the offense of the Christian tradition. On the one hand is the good news that there is a word from God that comes to give life. This life is a gift to those who may not even know they need sustenance or enlightenment. On the other hand, there is the urging that this particular claim rules out other claims. In a culture that has little interest in the truth, making the argument for Jesus will involve sensitivity to alternative ways of making sense of life; it will likewise call forth the greatest artistry in gaining a hearing for God’s promises.
In this culture, we are engaged in a battle for the imagination. John’s gospel provides resources for answering the question “Who are you, Jesus?” in ways that will intrude into the minds and hearts of those who hear in such a way as to set them free and to give the gift of life.