John

Fortress Biblical Preaching Commentaries

Karoline M. Lewis

• Publisher: Fortress Press
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9780800699246
• eBook ISBN: 9781451430950
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Commentary

Karoline Lewis draws together the strengths of two exegetical approaches to the Gospel of John in this volume of the Fortress Biblical Preaching Commentaries series. Lewis takes a broad thematic approach to the Gospel while at the same time giving exegetical and homiletical insights about individual pericopes. With attention to both liturgical interpretation and exegetical analysis, Lewis provides a unique preaching resource that will build biblical literacy by assisting both preachers and listeners in understanding John's Gospel as a whole, not just a collection of vaguely related stories. Those who peruse these pages will discover anew how John's story of Jesus shapes and gives worth to being a disciple for the sake of the world God loves. In other words, the intent of this commentary is to invite the reader into an encounter with the Jesus of John's Gospel. Such an encounter witnesses to how an experience of the Jesus of John actually matters. Readers, preachers, and their parishioners will have a deeper appreciation of the book's unique interpretation of the Christ event and how that influences their approach to living the Christian faith in today's world.

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The Calling of the Disciples, the First Sign, and the Temple Incident (John 1:19—2:25)

The calling of Jesus’ first disciples, the wedding at Cana, and the temple incident are grouped together in this chapter for the purpose of facilitating connections between key themes in these inaugural events for Jesus’ public ministry. All three incidents articulate aspects of discipleship, point to Jesus’ true identity, and embody the fundamental theological tenets outlined in the Prologue.

John 1:19-36
John the Witness

John 1:19 marks the transition in the Fourth Gospel to Jesus’ public ministry with an expansion of the role of John. For the fourth evangelist, John is not John the Baptist but John the Witness, who will give testimony to the coming of the Word in the world. His identity is confirmed by the questioning of the priests and the Levites sent by the Pharisees. Interesting in this dialogue is John’s response, a negative “I AM” to the revelation of Jesus as “I AM” later in the narrative (1:21). We are meant to hear a resonance between these two, which then emphasizes Jesus’ own identity. In sorting out John’s identity, Jesus’ own identity is underscored. John’s opposite assertion, “I AM not” also highlights the striking dichotomies that permeate this Gospel. There is and only can be one Messiah, one “I AM,” and one God. There is an important theological declaration in this juxtaposition. Here is a Jewish group, most likely expelled from its community, which is now alleging that the one God in which they all believe, the one Yahweh, is now revealing God’s self in Jesus. This radical claim of monotheism stands behind John’s interrogation.

Verse 29 demonstrates the pivotal action of discipleship in the Fourth Gospel. At the heart of what it means to be a disciple is to be a witness, to give testimony. As Jesus approaches John, John announces, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” The principal act of discipleship is to point to Christ and say “look, there he is,” so that others might see him. This is the premise of 1:18, no one has ever seen God, and the request of the Greeks, “Sir, we would see Jesus” (12:21). A Gospel about an incarnated God insists that the reader experience Jesus with every sense—sight, taste, smell, hearing, and touch. Operational at this moment are both hearing and sight, which will be held together frequently throughout the Gospel, in particular in the healing of the blind man and the Shepherd Discourse.

The designation of Jesus as Lamb of God is significant. We will discover at Jesus’ crucifixion an alteration in chronology of the time and day of Jesus’ actual death from that of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. In John, Jesus dies not on the day of Passover but on the day of preparation for Passover. His time of death would be approximately the period when the Passover lambs would be slaughtered for the prescribed Passover meal. Interpreting this passage for preaching will bring forward the meaning and significance of Passover (Exodus 12–13). In its larger theological context, the Festival of Passover celebrates God’s deliverance of Israel from Egypt. The Israelites were spared from the divine plague sent to kill all the firstborn of Egypt with the blood of the lamb being smeared on the doorposts so that the homes of the Israelites would be secure. There is great theological weight, then, in that Jesus is God’s firstborn. Passover signifies protection, lineage, deliverance, and God’s promise of relationship. God’s covenant with Abraham is reworked in this Gospel’s most famous verse, “for God so loved the world” (3:16).

This is the first time that the word “sin” is used in the Gospel of John and in the singular (1:36). It will not appear in the noun form again until much later in the Gospel (8:3, 21, 24, 34, 46; 9:34, 41; 15:22, 24; 16:8, 9; 19:11; 20:23). The concept of sin has a very distinct theological meaning for the fourth evangelist. Sin is not a moral category, a way to designate unlawful or iniquitous behavior; sin functions as a synonym for not being in relationship with God. The essential theological thrust of this Gospel is to make one a believer or to sustain belief (20:30-31). Belief in God is not an ascent to certain faith claims, an intellectual decision, or a creed of sound doctrine; rather, belief in God means being in a relationship with God. It is an active, living, dynamic reality, not a static, dogmatic confession. In the Gospel of John, the word “belief” is never a noun but always a verb. This grammatical use signifies that believing in Jesus, believing in Jesus as the Word made flesh, as the incarnation of the one and only God, is not about knowledge but about relationship, the intimate relationship first revealed in 1:18.

The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, therefore, takes away any separation from God and makes it possible for all to be in the same kind of relationship with God that Jesus has with the Father. This would have been an extraordinary promise for the audience of this Gospel, who were indeed separated from their God by being put out of the synagogue. While the chronological pinpoint of Jesus’ death corresponds to that of the Passover lambs, the significance of the term “Lamb of God” who takes away the sin of the world does not have to be located solely in the crucifixion. Jesus’ presence as God, as the revelation of God, is that which creates the possibility of relationship with God. The death of Jesus is not the moment of “atonement,” so to speak. It is the life of Jesus that makes that relationship possible.

For the fourth evangelist, the crucifixion has a very different role and one that will seem counterintuitive to dominant interpretations of Jesus’ death. Jesus’ death in the Gospel of John has two functions. First, that which is human must die. The crucifixion is the death of the human Jesus, the incarnated God. It is not in and of itself the “moment of salvation” for John. Rather, the salvific moment is when God became flesh. Yet to isolate atonement to a place and space and event in time is also to misinterpret this Gospel. Salvation is not a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence but the ongoing reality, here and in the future, of being in relationship with God. Salvation in the Fourth Gospel is a linear concept. Second, the function of the crucifixion is to show that not even death will separate this relationship once established. The primary proof of this assumption is the presence and positioning of the resurrection of Lazarus. This final sign in the Fourth Gospel will be fully discussed in chapter 7. The raising of Lazarus promises that the death of Jesus will not be the end.

Verses 30-31 reveal how integral John the Witness is to the Prologue of the Gospel. John testifies to who Jesus is and reasserts Jesus’ origins. While it seems that Jesus comes after John, John testifies that, in fact, Jesus is before John because in the beginning was the Word. John realizes his place fully, that his sole role in this story is to witness to Jesus, to reveal Jesus to the world. To witness is to say “behold,” so that Jesus might indeed be made manifest to others. John also testifies to having witnessed Jesus’ baptism, another reason why John is not the baptizer in the Fourth Gospel. He himself does not baptize Jesus but sees it happen and, in this way, witnesses not only the baptism but the first revelation of the Spirit in the Gospel. The baptism of Jesus in John emphasizes not John’s role but God’s in the entirety of who Jesus is and what Jesus will do. When it comes to preaching Jesus’ baptism, John’s account suggests that to be baptized is to be baptized by God. The act of baptism by God is the giving of the Spirit, according to John, who abides with the baptized. While there are a number of interpretations and practices of baptism in our churches, those that assert God’s direct activity in this ritual will find resonance in John’s version of Jesus’ baptism. For the Fourth Gospel, it is another means by which to show the presence and power of God in and with Jesus and later with believers in the giving of the Spirit (20:22).

This is the first time in the Gospel that the Spirit is mentioned and the first time that the term menō is used. That they appear for the first time together is critical for understanding and preaching the pneumatology of the Fourth Gospel. While many translations will render menō as “remain” “and it remained on him,” “he on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain” the term is “abide,” as noted before, used over forty times in the Gospel of John. It is the essential means by which to name the relationship between Jesus and God, between Jesus and his disciples, between the believer and God. The connection between the Spirit and menō points to the fact that baptism is yet another way to depict what it means to be in relationship with God.

Connections to the Lectionary

In the lectionary, 1:19-28 is yoked with 1:6-8 in Year B, Advent 3, so as to focus on the character of John the Baptist and his identity. The unique presentation of John as witness in the Fourth Gospel stands in contrast to the other Gospels, and a sermon might ask what is at stake for the fourth evangelist to argue for John’s identity not as Elijah or as a prophet but as witness. John 1:29-42 is the lection offered for Epiphany 2 in Year A. The first half of this passage narrates Jesus’ baptism according to John, which is quite a different experience from that of Matthew’s version of the week before (Matt. 3:13-17). Preaching on the initial portion of this lection might call attention to the diverse theologies of baptism at work in these two stories. Critical for the Fourth Gospel is that John witnesses Jesus’ baptism but does not himself baptize Jesus. A preacher could ask what it means to be the witnesses to the baptisms in our church services. The second half of this passage turns attention to John’s primary role as witness in the Gospel of John. A sermon on this passage could explore how witness is a characteristic of discipleship, particularly the Fourth Gospel’s understanding of what witness looks like, which John embodies in these verses. The concept of witness is an important category by which to understand our Christian identity, and John’s Gospel offers a unique model in John of what witness might mean in our everyday lives.

John 1:35-51
The Calling of the Disciples

In 1:35 John points again to Jesus and says, “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world,” this time with two of his disciples present. The response of the disciples to John’s statement is to follow Jesus. Why do they follow Jesus? What is it that they see and hear that their response is to follow Jesus without question? This discipleship moment foreshadows the reaction of the Samaritans to the invitation from the woman at the well. Her testimony, like John’s, is enough to elicit a response to go to Jesus and experience Jesus for one’s self.

Jesus’ very first words in the Gospel of John are to these potential disciples, “What are you looking for?” Jesus will ask the soldiers who come to arrest him in chapter 18 (18:4, 7) and Mary in the garden (20:15) the very same question, though altered in an important way, “who are you looking for?” Holding all three of these occurrences of this phrase together points to a main issue for this Gospel, that Jesus is not a what but a who and who indicates relationship. The question also calls attention to the importance of hearing and seeing that will be demonstrated most clearly in the healing of the man blind from birth.

The disciples’ answer to Jesus’ question is odd at best, not an answer but another question. The response to Jesus further emphasizes that what will be recognized in Jesus, or what it means to be a disciple of Jesus, has little to do with correct understanding or identification of his titles, but rather to be in relationship with Jesus. The disciples ask Jesus, “Where are you staying?” better translated, “Where are you abiding?” because the verb again is menō. For the disciples to find what they are looking for, their parameters need to be recalculated. They will find the what and the who in the experience of abiding with Jesus.

Jesus’ invitation to “come and see” foreshadows the invitation of the Samaritan woman at the well to her townspeople. Jesus models what it means to witness, to be a disciple. It starts with an invitation to come and see for yourself who Jesus is. The disciples come and see and abide. The Samaritan woman at the well will act out this very scenario for the sake of her townspeople to have their own encounter with Jesus.

The final section of chapter 1 relates the calling of the disciples. The two central themes in the call narrative are following and finding, and they look toward several key events in the story to come. In the previous verses, after hearing John’s witness to Jesus, two of John’s disciples literally follow Jesus. Now, in this next portion of the calling of the disciples, to follow Jesus becomes the pivotal means by which to understand discipleship. After the renaming of Peter, Jesus’ first words to Peter are “follow me.” These will also be Jesus’ final words to Peter in chapter 21. It is essential to bring forward the last conversation between Jesus and Peter for interpreting this first conversation. To follow Jesus will certainly require a literal following. It will be following Jesus for three years during his ministry, witnessing his signs, and listening to his words. In the end, however, Jesus will call on his disciples to follow him by taking on his ministry when he returns to the Father. This will include death, as Jesus prophesies Peter’s inevitable death for the sake of following Jesus (21:18-19). It will also include, however, the seemingly impossible invitation to be the Good Shepherd when Jesus cannot be. In other words, discipleship, for this Gospel, means being the “I AM” in the world when Jesus returns to the Father. This may seem overstated but it is a summation of what will transpire between Jesus and his disciples, particularly in the Farewell Discourse. There, Jesus will reiterate the close relationship that the disciples and Jesus have in the most intimate terms that communicate this closeness, abiding. “I abide in you and you abide in me” (15:4). Moreover, Jesus will breathe into the disciples the Spirit, the Paraclete, so that they are literally possessed with God’s breath (20:22). To be the “I AM” for the sake the world God loves, to carry on Jesus ministry, to do “greater works than these” (14:12) will be possible only because of this intimacy.

Another theme important for understanding the Fourth Gospel’s presentation of discipleship is the idea of finding or being found. Andrew, a disciple of John and brother of Simon Peter, finds his brother after his encounter with Jesus and shares with him that they have “found” the Messiah. Importantly, the first “finding” in this discipleship narrative is not by Jesus but by his first disciples, “Philip found Nathanael” (1:45). This becomes another way that the close relationship between Jesus and his disciples is underscored. Jesus’ disciples act out “finding” and “being found” before Jesus does, thereby emphasizing the mutuality of Jesus and his disciples. Philip will find Nathaniel and use the same words as Andrew of having found the Messiah, “we have found him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote” (1:45) The verb tense used by Philip in verse 45 is critical because it is in the perfect tense. Finding Jesus is not a singular occurrence, but having found him will mean an ongoing relationship. While the actual verb is not used in chapter 4, Jesus will “find” the Samaritan woman at the well and Jesus finds (same verb) the formerly blind man after he has been cast out of the synagogue (9:35), making him a disciple.

Verse 45 is one of two references to Joseph as the father of Jesus, here and again in 6:42, and both occur against a backdrop of allusions to Moses—in 1:45, “Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth;” in 6:42, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?” In both instances, the question of where Jesus comes from is key. While Jesus is on earth as the Word made flesh, his humanity will be reiterated in a number of ways. The combination of “son of Joseph, from Nazareth” recalls the truth about Jesus stated in 1:1 and reframed at the end of the Prologue in 1:18. The identity of Jesus is a critical theme for this Gospel. The reader knows that, yes, Jesus is God’s son, but Jesus is also this unique revelation of God, God in the flesh, the incarnated Logos. The origin of Jesus is also at stake for this Gospel as introduced in the Prologue. Where Jesus comes from will be questioned over and over again, with the correct answer being not “from Nazareth” but from the beginning with God. The assertion that Jesus is from Nazareth will return again during the arrest scene, when Jesus asks the soldiers who have come to capture him, “Whom are you looking for”? The answer, “Jesus of Nazareth,” is only part of the truth, just as it is here. As the story unfolds, the question will be whether or not potential believers are able to see that Jesus is both from Nazareth and from God. The fourth evangelist cannot let either truth go because at stake is the fundamental theological declaration of this Gospel: Jesus is the “I AM” in the flesh. To choose one, or to see only one, in favor of the other threatens this essential argument.

Philip’s invitation to Nathaniel, “come and see,” are the very same words that Jesus said to the first disciples, and that the Samaritan woman will say to her townspeople. Invitation is vital for discipleship. When Nathaniel encounters Jesus, another category of relationship is then introduced for this Gospel, the idea of “knowing.” Knowing is synonymous with being in relationship with Jesus. Nathaniel’s confession in verse 49 looks forward to Thomas’s confession of 20:29. There, Thomas states the whole truth about Jesus, that Jesus is both Lord and God, that Jesus is both human and divine. Nathaniel states only the partial truth. Nathaniel will return to the narrative in the last resurrection appearance, “Gathered there together were Simon Peter, Thomas called the Twin, Nathanael of Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two others of his disciples” (21:2). Jesus’ response to Nathaniel intimates Nathaniel’s recognition of only part of the truth about Jesus. The reference to “greater things than these” is indeed the promise that what will be revealed is not only Jesus as God’s son but Jesus as the very presence of God.

A first glance at 1:51 will conclude that it is a rather strange verse to interpret let alone to preach. The title “Son of Man” is known from the Synoptic Gospels as a title for Jesus connected in particular to his suffering. The first use of the title in John is in the context of the traversing of heaven and earth. As a result, the Fourth Gospel reimagines this title for Jesus as one that signals the act of the incarnation, or that represents what the incarnation means, that God became flesh. The title, here at the end of chapter 2, before the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, recalls and is a restatement of 1:14, and the “Word became flesh.” The disciples will not witness the heavens openi...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Additional Praise for John
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Table Of Contents
• Series Foreword
• Acknowledgements
• Preface
• Index of Passages from the Book of John in the Revised Common Lectionary
• Introduction
• The Prologue
• The Calling of the Disciples, the First Sign, and the Temple Incident (John 1:19—2:25)
• A Tale of Two Disciples and the Second Sign (John 3–4)
• The Healing of the Man Ill for Thirty-Eight Years and Jesus as the Bread of Life (John 5–6)
• Conflict with the World (John 7–8)
• The Healing of the Man Born Blind and Jesus as Door and Shepherd (John 9–10)
• The Raising of Lazarus, the Anointing, and the Last Public Discourse (John 11–12)
• The Foot Washing, the Last Meal, and the Farewell Discourse (John 13–17)
• The Passion Narrative (John 18–19)
• The Resurrection Appearances (John 20–21)
• Suggestions for Further Reading