Sunday 22nd March
John 12: 20-33
“ Some Greeks … came to Philip … and said, Sir we wish to see Jesus.”
I am sure you know that Jesus never took a selfie. No one ever had a family portrait of him. or a candid snapshot whilst he was teaching or healing. As we know he never wrote anything down, either except in one famous story when he doodled in the sand as some bayed to have a woman stoned for adultery.
Ever since people have imagined what Jesus was like – using the mediums of music, art and words. Every composition, every painting, every gospel and attempt to pin down the historical Jesus is exactly that – an interpretation to which we may feel drawn, puzzled or sometimes repelled!
Some years ago I went to see the paintings of Pablo Picasso. I found many of them quite disturbing, but I couldn’t say why. Others raved about his artistic skill and I wondered why there were such different responses?
Another artist who has now been taken out circulation is Rolf Harris. Before his downfall he hosted a great TV show about a decade ago. Each week he invited three artists to paint a well-known celebrity. It was fascinating to see the different pictures emerging as each interpreted her subject. Some were abstracts. Others in photographic detail. More were rich with symbolism. At the end of each show the sitter was invited to choose one of the paintings.
I wonder – we have four canonical portraits of Jesus. If Jesus were able to do so – which would he choose, do you think? Do you have a favourite gospel and why?
The Icon of the Cross
Some of you had opportunity last Sunday over lunch to hear Rosalind speaking about icons, and how Orthodox Christians use them as windows for prayer. They are tools for meditation and contemplation.
As she noted the word icon – which means image – has become normal as everyone who uses a computer, an iPad or a smart phone is dealing with icons all the time. They are the little pictures or symbols which are touched and then they open up to a larger reality.
Icon is a Greek word, and one place it is used in the New Testament is in the opening chapter of Hebrews – “Jesus is the icon of God’s very being”. This doesn’t mean that Jesus = God, but that Jesus opens up our understanding, comprehension, insight of the meaning and purpose of God.
The gospel reading set for today begins with Gentiles wanting to meet with Jesus, presumably to ask questions. The way John tells of what happened next Jesus launches into a lengthy speech about being glorified, what being sown in earth, hating and loving life, praying, and speaking of being “lifted up from the earth”. It is all very dark and puzzling, and the gentiles probably are scratching their heads and the crowds also.
The cross is a very important icon in Christianity. Indeed, most churches are adorned with this symbol of suffering, shame and sacrifice.
There are several important ( and conflicting understandings) of the cross.
• Some of the Church Fathers said it was a trap set for the devil for which Jesus was the bait!
• Anselm, monk and theologian in the 11th century, argued that Jesus’ death was the only way God’s honour could be satisfied.
• A century later, Peter Abelard, opined it was the ultimate act of love which calls from us a response of love.
• A Presbyterian theologian in the nineteenth century argued that the cross was satisfaction for an angry God.
• today there are several theologians working on new ways of understanding this Event we call Good Friday.
The cross is central in all gospels, an event in history which is a lens into glimpsing the depths of God’s passion, but people interpret it in very different ways.
John’s Picture of Jesus
John’s portrait of Jesus is very different from the three synoptics – he tells the story in a very different way. Remember the analogy of artists painting the same subject.
If I were to ask you to write down what you remember of the journey to Calvary, and then reconstruct the story it is likely you would have a muddle of ideas. Bits of Mark, snippets from John, vague ideas from Matthew or was it Luke? Its rather like how we recall the Christmas story blending things which are in the texts and others which aren’t.
John’s portrait is different, the same overarching story-line but his Jesus is mystical, given to lengthy speeches and never tells a parable. He seems much more in control of his destiny. He, like the others, are all writing after the experience of the Resurrection. John didn’t write on the spot. His work was the product of years of reflecting, teaching, pastoring the young Christian churches. It was not completed until some 65 years after Jesus’ death!
In fact, it was written in the shadow of a huge controversy between Jews and the emerging Christians. The latter were being banished from the synagogues as heretics! Echoes of this are found in his gospel every time he speaks of “the Jews”. Families were divided, split and possibly never spoke to one another again. Fifteen hundred years later the Christian world split when the emerging Protestants dissented from the Roman Catholic church, during those times there was deep fear and hatred.
John’s gospel is the most insistent that the Jews caused the death of Jesus – the efec of his few verses shouting Crucify, crucify coupled with Matthew’s text “Let his blood be on us and our children” (Matt 27:25) were universalised on all Jews. By the middle ages Jews were denounced as Christ-killers and hounded from country to country.
The impact of John’s portrait was considerable – for good and ill. It is John who also underscores that Jesus’ death was the primary purpose of his life.
This coming Tuesday children will participate in the Easter workshop. They will enjoy al whole host of activities, but the core of this transforming story will probably be avoided – Jesus’ death on the cross. Teaching CRE in the past children would ask a crucial question – why is it called Good Friday? How would you answer?
You don’t find that phrase in John’s Gospel ( or any other) but in this encounter when Gentiles ask to see Jesus he wraps a number of difficult sayings.
There’s the idea of glorification – the hour has come – its ominous and is paired with the common image of wheat seed being sown into the ground in order to produce.
If we love life we will lose it, if we hate life we will keep for “eternal life”. What’s that all about? It sounds as if John’s Jesus is anti-life – and certainly that became a dominant strain for Christianity for centuries.
Then comes a kind of prayer, or is it a conversation? The text says a voice “came from heaven”, but no one understands it – is it thunder? John paints Jesus as understanding that the message is clear and he points back to chapter 3: 16 about God so loved the world, and drawing people to himself.
John’s painting of Jesus is vast. If it were to be on a single canvas no wall could hold it. We have just stood and peered at a tiny detail – when some Gentiles say “ we want to see Jesus” and John’s Jesus responds with dark and perplexing sayings revolving around death.
If we were to read further there is enormous emphasis on the fact that many can’t believe. So, there should be no surprises …
John’s picture of Jesus is luminous, mystical, troubling, perplexing as he paints this Man who through his life, death and resurrection changed the world. Without this story we would be very different people.
As you spend a time in quietness – how do you see Jesus? What of his life and death, his teachings and meaning speaks most clearly to you?