John: Introduced by Jean Vanier (Darton, Longman & Todd, 2010)

Reading the Fourth Gospel in one sitting, uninterrupted, is an incredible
experience. Try it in a modern translation sometime (I’d suggest Eugene
Peterson’s The Message).

Here we have a small, pocket-sized 124-page volume, with the New Jerusalem
Bible translation, and a five-page introduction by one of my heroes, Jean
Vanier [1].

Jean, good Catholic that he is, sees the role of Mary the mother of Jesus as
very significant in John’s account. But summarizing the Gospel, he writes:

The heart of this gospel is relationship: the relationship of the logos and
of God, of the Father and the Son. We, the disciples of Jesus, are called to
enter into this relationship and to become ‘one’ all together as the Father
and the Son are one. (Jn 17) The final testament of Jesus is that the
disciples love one another as he loves them. ‘They will know that you are my
disciples by the love you have for one another’.

As Karl Barth would say, ‘high Christology’ jumps out of every page here.

Samples:

* ‘If God were your father, you would love me, since I have my origin in God
and have come from him’

* ‘In truth I tell you, before Abraham ever was, I am’

* ‘Whoever refuses honour to the Son refuses honour to the Father who sent
him’.

Having read this Gospel an uncountable number of times (was it Chesterton
who said something about reading words 999 times before something new hits
you from them?) I was struck by these:

(Jesus to the man he healed who’d been ill for 38 years): ‘Now that you are
well again, do no sin any more, or something worse may happen to you’. Huh?

‘I will certainly not reject anyone who comes to me’ (universalists like
this one).

If you’re not familiar with the NJB translation, you’ll find a few little
quirky word-usages (well, I did anyway). Like: ‘It was getting dark by now
and Jesus had still not rejoined them’. ‘They again wanted to arrest him
then, but he eluded their clutches’.

Now, I’m talking about a devotional reading of John. If you want to move
from heart to head and do a serious study of this Gospel, google Raymond
Brown (generally considered by mainline biblical scholars to be the 20th
century’s leading Johannine expert). Then do the same with E. P. Sanders.
Devour these before you read Spong or the Jesus Seminar people on John 🙂

The price tag of $17.95 for this little booklet is a bit ‘over the top’, I
reckon. (No wonder people are deserting retail bookshops and buying more
books online).

[1] See, e.g.  jmm.org.au/articles/22406.htm

Rowland Croucher
April 2011