John

Introduction

From the beginning of biblical interpretation and homiletical thought, the Gospel of John has had its share of troubles when it comes to preaching. The perceived challenges in the interpretation of John and a misunderstanding of its homiletical inclinations are due to a number of factors that are helpful to discuss at the front end of this commentary. One of the goals of this commentary will be to offer a counterproposal to the perception of the Fourth Gospel as difficult to preach. It actually longs to be preached and has a fervent conversional urge.

Several issues have contributed to the aversions to preaching the Fourth Gospel, but perhaps the primary fault, from which all others eventually stem, lies at the feet of Clement of Alexandria, Last of all John, perceiving that the external facts had been made plain in the gospel, being urged by his friends and inspired by the Spirit, composed a spiritual gospel (Eusebius Ecclesiastical History 6.14.7). John as the spiritual Gospel firmly established its fourth-tier status, a worthy supplement to the Synoptic Gospels but not at the same level of historicity. Much of scholarship on John over the past two thousand years has been determined by this description, including authorship, dating, and theology. As a result, long before any lectionary ever existed, John was seen as ancillary, in part because spiritual meant less historical. There are two problems with this supposition. First, a number of facts related to the historical Jesus are mined from the Fourth Gospel and not the Synoptic Gospels. For example, the supposition that Jesus’ ministry was three years in length is made possible by John, whose Jesus travels to Jerusalem for Passover three times. There is a selective nature by which John is used to answer historical questions about Jesus’ ministry. Second, this conjecture then understands the Synoptics as primarily histories, which they are not. They are no more interested in a historical account of Jesus than John is committed to a spiritual description of Jesus. The Gospels are gospels, the good news of Jesus Christ. When Mark, usually understood to be the first Gospel written, begins his story of Jesus, it is not by describing his account as a history or even biography of Jesus, both of which were available genres in Greco-Roman literature in the first century, but rather, "the beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ (Mark 1:1). Mark draws on what was already good news, the presence of God. The prophet Isaiah (40:9-11; 52:7-10) provides the language of euangelion. These passages are in Second Isaiah, prophecy directed to the exiled Israelites. Despite all evidence to the contrary, God is indeed present. The sentinel returns from the front with the good news that God reigns, God is here. For a Jewish existence after the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple (70 c.e.) this theological crisis resurfaces: where is God? Mark’s answer is a most surprising location, in the suffering and death of Jesus on the cross. The Gospels are witnesses to the promise of God’s presence among God’s people, now in the person and ministry of Jesus Christ.

This less historical slant toward the Fourth Gospel has also led to the argument in scholarship for its later dating. That is, a more spiritual Gospel implies a higher christological presentation, which then necessitates time to develop. Therefore, John must have been written considerably later than the Synoptic Gospels; perhaps it is even a second-century document. There are two problems with this assertion. First, the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls suggests that the writers of the Gospels had multiple sources at their disposal for constructing their narratives. In other words, John’s sources could easily have been contemporaneous with the sources the Synoptic Gospels had in front of them. Moreover, the Dead Sea Scrolls determined that there was not just one Judaism but multiple Judaisms in the first century. This claim suggests not only that the Jesus movement had more success as a result, but that there was no uniform understanding of Judaism, no absolute representative Judaism. The second problem with the later dating of John and a supposed high Christology is that it has perpetuated a distant Jesus. A high Christology is equated with a diffident, mystical Jesus, one far less humanlike than what we find in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. There are two related issues that accompany this perception. First, the attraction of John to heterodox movements such as Gnosticism and Docetism due to John’s christological portrait has made John suspect. If it appeals to heretics, this cannot be good. The view of Jesus as barely human has made the Jesus of John virtually incomprehensible, unapproachable, unavoidably distant. The second issue is related to the first. As a result of this opinion of John’s Jesus, interpretation has ignored where and how the Fourth Gospel actually offers an opposite view of Jesus, a very human Jesus. John’s Jesus is not a faraway, barely graspable Messiah, but a relational, deeply intimate Christ. After all, this is the story of the incarnation. It is surprising how the principal promise of the Fourth Gospel as the Word made flesh has been overshadowed by one trajectory in its interpretation thereby marginalizing its primary theological claim.

John’s dissimilarity with the Synoptic Gospels, rather than perceived as a gift to discussions on and about Christology, has made it too different to know what or how to preach. The early church’s process of canonization gives evidence of and witness to our current challenges when it comes to preaching the four Gospels. Before any official canonical list of the New Testament, there were multiple canonical lists proposed, some with only one Gospel, even a harmonization of all four. In the end, the criterion of universality won out. That is, the church saw that four were better than one and that difference was better than uniformity. Yet the advent of biblical scholarship, the historical-critical method, and the arguments for the inerrancy of Scripture resulted in erasing the particularities of the Gospels for the sake of historicity, orthodoxy, and denominationalism even among the Synoptic Gospels. The development of biblical scholarship in the twentieth century gave rise to concerns about particular hermeneutical goals and methods. While biblical interpretation has progressed from an emphasis on the discovery of meaning behind the text to attention to how the text works and how the text means, the dominant principle of hermeneutics operative in current liturgical and homiletical practices is still a latent pledge to doctrine, and doctrine is hard to argue in the midst of difference.

The principal witness to an upholding of accepted dogma, for good or for ill, is the Revised Common Lectionary itself. John does not have its own year, for all of the reasons stated above. Inspiration for the principal tenets of the church comes primarily from the Synoptic Gospels. At the same time, even a brief glance at the use of the Fourth Gospel in the Revised Common Lectionary reveals a reliance on John for some of the more significant beliefs of the Christian faith, particularly the passion and resurrection of Christ. An additional difficulty when it comes to preaching John is its unique and massive stories. A pressing challenge in preaching John is that so much of its material is distinctive to its Gospel. As a result, the preacher has less exposure to these texts than those encountered in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Less exposure means less comfort, familiarity, and assurance. The neglect of John in the pulpit is as much an issue from preachers whose own insecurities lead to a dissociation and dislike of certain texts. In other words, to what extent should preachers admit their own complicity in John’s current homiletical state? What we do not know, we are reluctant to preach. The same can be said for the dearth of preaching on the Old Testament lessons.

Admittedly, John’s inimitable stories are also lengthy sections of text. John does not lend itself well to pericope preaching. That alone should tell us something about our homiletical inclinations. If we perceive small texts to be self-contained sermons in and of themselves that reveals our own propensity to disavow a lesson’s literary context. The Fourth Gospel’s sizeable stories are not a lectionary nuisance but a theological commitment. There is something being said theologically if who Jesus is cannot be grasped in brief and manageable passages. The preacher is compelled to engage not only what is being said but to imagine that what a text means has something to do with its literary and narrative features.

Date, Audience, and Authorship

One of the most prevalent assumptions about the Fourth Gospel is that because of its so-called high Christology, it should be dated later than its counterparts, sometimes even into the beginning of the second century. John’s alternative portrait of Jesus is a perspective that needed time to develop. Yet there is no reason to date John any later than, say, Matthew or Luke (if we assume they both had Mark as a source), anywhere between 75 and 90. It is also worthwhile to note the correlate assumption about the Synoptic Gospels in this argument. To argue that John’s Gospel represents a particularly high Christology is equally reductionistic of the Synoptic Gospels. It also raises the question, what do we mean by high Christology, and how and why does time determine it? Moreover, the Synoptic Gospels also have their own operative Christologies and should not be relegated to a lower status, whatever that might mean. John’s christological portrait is not high; it is just different. This commentary will assume this as difference only, not higher development, and will pay attention to the differences. Thus, there will be nominal comparison of John to the Synoptics, not for the sake of John’s betterment but to underscore the uniqueness of each of the Gospel stories. This is again for the sake of preaching. We are better biblical preachers when we listen carefully and attentively to the particularities of the entirety of the biblical witness. When we neglect these nuances, we risk overlooking where preaching really happens, in the various shades and tones of the portrait being presented.

Whether John had the Synoptic Gospels as sources for his writing has also been a matter of significant debate, with little consensus among scholars. That John relied on the Synoptics is not necessarily an advantageous determination when it comes to preaching, but a comparison of the four remains helpful. That is, like each of the other Gospels, John has his own interpretation of the Jesus-event to which he is committed and that he wishes to convey. Much of the material in John has no parallels in the other three, so clearly John was working with either written or oral sources to which he was privy, but the material was selected because the stories spoke to a particular situation. For the preacher, the more important question is not where these stories came from but how they distinctively represent, in a different voice, a portrait of Jesus and how they illustrate larger theological themes of this Gospel.

A good deal of Gospel scholarship over the years has directed attention to the alleged audiences of each book. The best we can do in these circumstances is conjecture based on what we have in front of us. In other words, we are getting only one side of the story. How each author organizes the stories, themes, theology, and interpretation of Jesus is for the sake of individual struggle but also for those who would hear it. As a result, questions of authorship are directly connected to the perceived audience. Our conclusions about audience are typically broad generalizations. Matthew seems to be writing to a Jewish audience; Luke, to a gentile audience; Mark—who really knows? Then we get John. But the question of audience for the Gospel of John cannot be relegated to some sweeping or unsupported statements. The reason for this concern is because John’s Gospel has repeatedly justified anti-Semitic beliefs and behavior due to Jesus’ strong words to the Jews throughout the narrative.

While we will take up these issues more explicitly in the discussion of chapters 7–8 below, it is important to note here several basic problems with this assumption. First, Jesus was a Jew, the audience of the Gospel are Jews. Jesus is not implicating himself or his own people. Second, there has been much debate over how to translate hoi ioudaioi in John, as Jews or Jewish leaders. The general consensus at the writing of this book is that, for the most part, when Jesus references or speaks to the Jews, the intended referent is the Jewish leaders. Jesus, a perceived authority in Jewish law and Scripture, is essentially in dialogue with his colleagues. Third, when the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered, it became apparent that there was no standard Judaism at the time of Jesus, nor in the first century in general. There were many expressions of the Jewish faith, much like our many denominations of the Christian faith today.

What this means for the audience for this Gospel is that the author of John seems to be speaking into, or for the sake of, an intra-Jewish debate. There were Jews who came to believe in Jesus who were then in conflict with those who did not. The most salient evidence of such a reading is the references in the narrative to aposynagōgos, being put out of the synagogue (9:22; 12:42; 16:2). In John 9, when the Pharisees determine that the blind man has loyalties to Jesus, he is thrown out, presumably from the synagogue and from his community. His parents fear the same for themselves and backpedal their response about knowledge of their son (9:20-21). In the Farewell Discourse, Jesus will specifically tell his disciples that they will be put out of the synagogue. In other words, John is writing for a community that had been ostracized for belief in Jesus and now needed to hear what Jesus means in no uncertain terms. The absolutism of this Gospel, I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the father except through me is an example of this kind of sectarian language, representative of a community that sees itself as most certainly outsiders, but then in a position of having to justify to themselves and to others their choice to follow and believe in Jesus. So as not to perpetuate John’s misuse and misinterpretation, preachers should alter the translations read aloud in worship from Jews to Jewish leaders.

We know more about the author of John by the discussion of audience than through any other means of conjecture. Like Matthew, Mark, and Luke, we have no substantiation to support a determined author for John. While many commentators have argued for the author of the Fourth Gospel as the Beloved Disciple, and therefore, John, the son of Zebedee, there is simply no extant proof of this claim. The primary evidence for this argument is 21:24, This is the disciple who is testifying to these things and has written them, and we know that his testimony is true. The commentary in chapter 10 on this verse will suggest that its function has more to do with reiterating key themes in the Gospel than to amass proof of authorship. Furthermore, as the commentary in chapter 8 on the foot washing and the Farewell Discourse will show, the Beloved Disciple as a character in the story, even as representative of the reader or hearer of the Gospel, is a far more compelling read of the disciple whom Jesus loved than whether or not he wrote the Fourth Gospel.

Outline, Structure, and Literary Patterns

Much of Johannine scholarship has argued that the final version we have in our canon is the result of a redactionary process over time. While this line of reasoning is certainly viable, it is, in the end, not very valuable when it comes to interpreting the Gospel of John for preaching. This commentary takes the existing version on its own terms and works with what we have, regardless of its compilation history. There is little benefit in investigating layers of redactional activity when it comes to preaching. Moreover, these kinds of approaches tend to be an easy way out so as to explain and then dismiss difficulties in transitions or texts that seem out of place.

One of the most compelling reasons to accept an intact and cohesive literary text is its overall structure and repeated literary patterns. Typically, John’s Gospel is divided into two larger parts, chapters 1–12, referred to as the Book of Signs, and chapters 13–21, the Book of Glory. This makes a lot of sense and is helpful for the preacher on several levels. First, the Book of Signs indicates the section of the Gospel that concentrates on Jesus’ public ministry. His last public act is the raising of Lazarus in chapter 11. Chapter 12 functions as a sort of bridge chapter into the last half of the Gospel, which essentially narrates Jesus’ last day with his disciples, the crucifixion, and the resurrection appearances. There is a natural break between chapters 12 and 13 where the narrative pace slows down considerably. This is especially true when we remember that the first half of the Gospel takes place over three years. This realization heightens the significance of the break between chapters 12 and 13. If the first half of the Gospel has been a span of three years, imagine the difference in tone and feeling if now chapters 13–20 take place in a span of only three days.

Given the larger two-part framework above, a more detailed outline of the story could be something like below, but it is important to notice the relatively large sections. These are massive texts, taking up entire chapters (the numbering of which was, of course, added later). John is difficult to break down into small sections of texts. Moreover, as we will discuss below, each passage builds on and foreshadows other portions of the Gospel. This has plagued the preaching of John because it appears that, for every small section, you have to preach the entire Gospel. This is, in part, true but should be so for all biblical preaching. Having a general sense of the location of stories in the larger framework of John is essential. One of the goals of this commentary, however, is to highlight the Gospel’s major themes in each smaller section that then can be connected to other locations in the narrative where these themes receive further development.

A major literary feature of John’s Gospel is a repeated pattern that has to do with the seven signs narrated in the story. In the Gospel of John, the miraculous deeds of Jesus are designated not as miracles but as signs. There is a decisive difference in these two terms, not only in how they are then understood but in what they assume theologically for the fourth evangelist. The recurring structure of these signs is that Jesus performs a sign, followed by a dialogue of sorts, and then a discourse in which Jesus explains or interprets his act for the audience. The interpretation or explanation of the sign, the discourse from Jesus, is essential for making sense of what Jesus has just done. Signs in and of themselves are not the central idea. They exist not for their own merit or worth but because they point to something, something beyond themselves. We might imagine our need to interpret road signs or directional signs. It is not the sign alone but the direction it takes you that provides meaning.

While the first example of this pattern does not occur until chapter 5, we address this pattern in the Introduction because it illustrates an overarching theme that is critical for interpreting John. For persons interpreting texts for preaching, the fact that Jesus over and over interprets his own actions should invite intentional reflection. How does Jesus do this? What are his own methods of interpretation? Can they be helpful for our interpretation of texts for a particular moment in time? There is something inherently homiletical in this pattern that undergirds this Gospel. Something is being shown to us, as preachers, or revealed to us (a sign), that is followed by dialogue, with ourselves, with the text, with commentators, with our parishioners, with contexts outside of our own. To engage then how Jesus makes sense of what he does, the discourse, draws us back into the text. This assumes a pattern of biblical preaching that much of biblical preaching does not demonstrate these days. Biblical preaching should be a sermon based on the Bible. But too many preachers, once finding their point, their theme, their nugget of truth, abandon the biblical text in favor of story after story after story, supposedly illustrating the text but instead revealing a distrust that the biblical text has worthwhile stories on its own. The homiletical commitment of John’s Gospel reminds us to return to the story that the text itself wishes to tell.

Theological Themes

The main theological themes reiterated throughout John are all found in the Prologue to the Gospel. As a result, an entire chapter of this book is dedicated to the commentary on 1:1-18 which will provide an extensive analysis of these verses as they encapsulate what is at stake theologically for the Fourth Gospel. At this juncture, however, these themes are summarized, because this list of theological themes provides a taxonomy by which to interpret any passage in the Gospel. The preacher can ask to what extent a particular passage is representative or demonstrative of one or more of these themes, thereby connecting an individual passage to other portions of the Gospel.

When buried in the luxury of reading Bibles and commentaries we tend to forget that the books of the Bible were written to be heard and not read. They are residually oral or textualized orality.[1] They are deeply acoustical, even musical, using every possible rhetorical device at their disposal to create resonance and reverberation for the sake of memory. Repetition, echoes, foreshadowing, images, and melodies are meant to create mutual interpretative relationships for association and meaning. Assonance, puns, alliteration, and other rhetorical techniques are intended to generate an effect. In our haste and love for the thesaurus, our writing and preaching tend to eliminate these kinds of repetitions and correlations. Paying attention to the oral and aural nature of biblical texts will make us better preachers, not only in making connections between passages, but also in writing for the ear. As a homiletical exercise, preachers might consider having their first readings of the lectionary texts for that Sunday be hearings. Have someone read John’s stories to you. What do you hear that you never read?

The Prologue sets out eight major theological themes that are then revisited and unpacked throughout the course of the narrative. The first theme is the connection of Jesus to the creative activity of God, indicated by the Gospel’s opening phrase, in the beginning. Jesus’ activity as the Word made flesh will be representative of God not simply doing something new in Jesus but that God is about recreating God’s very self. One lens through which to view Jesus’ ministry is through the concept of new creation, rebirth, and how Jesus’ signs and words give witness to this primary characteristic of God.

A second theme is the origin of Jesus, which is connected to his relationship with God, and his identity. Questions of Jesus’ origin, relationship with God, and identity are intertwined throughout the story. Jesus comes from God but is, of course, God made flesh among us and reveals what a relationship with God might be like. To recognize one is to affirm belief in another. The question of Jesus’ origin is of particular interest when it comes to interpreting the distinct portraits of Jesus presented by the four Gospels. That is, what difference does it make that Matthew traces Jesus’ origins back to Abraham? Or Luke back to Adam? What is each communicating about who Jesus is with a specific genealogical span?

A third theme is that the primary role of the Word made flesh is to reveal God. The revelation of God in Jesus is not just of aspects of God’s character but of the very heart of who God is. No one has ever seen God (1:18), but in Jesus, not only will God be seen, but the entire sensorium of sight, sound, feeling, taste, and hearing will now be possible in experiencing and knowing God. A fourth theme is then introduced by this truth, that the Fourth Gospel will give simultaneous evidence of and witness to the fact that God revealed in Jesus is at the same time holding the human and divine together. There can never be a choice of one over the other because this is the primary claim of the incarnation. The incarnation is not just that God became human, but also that God became human. There can be no partial, half humanity, no sort of incarnation. God has fully committed God’s self to everything that it means to be human, and the human Jesus reveals the full divinity of God.

A fifth major theme at work in the Fourth Gospel is that of contrast between light and darkness. Light and darkness are synonymous with belief and unbelief, respectively. References to light and darkness are not simply details of setting but expose the true nature of those who encounter Jesus in the Gospel. Jesus is the light of the world, who magnifies the darkness that symbolizes unbelief. Any reference to light and darkness in the Gospel speaks to this issue in some way, even indirectly. In addition, the presence and purpose of light and darkness are rooted in God as creator. That the light shines in the darkness (1:5) is another way to state that the Word became flesh. At the same time, when Jesus as the light exposes those who do not believe, judgment happens in that moment of disclosure. The fourth evangelist states clearly that God does not come in Jesus to judge the world, but one’s response to God in Jesus, belief or unbelief, is a judgment that is self-determined.

A sixth theological theme for the Fourth Gospel is that of witness. Perhaps the primary category of discipleship is that of witness. Discipleship will demand being a witness of and for Jesus. This requires certain attributes that are demonstrated first by John the Baptist, then by characters in the Gospel who have an encounter with Jesus, and then by Jesus himself, with even God and the Holy Spirit engaged in the activity of witnessing. As a result, what it means to be a disciple in John has a unique frame of reference and vocation that should be attended to when preaching on discipleship.

What it means to be in relationship with God by describing it and creating experiences of it is the seventh theological theme. To be called children of God (1:12) in this Gospel is not a metaphorical or sentimental claim. To be children of God is actually a literal promise for the fourth evangelist. God, as the parent, provides everything necessary for a child to be nurtured and supported, from food and water, to shelter and safety, to intimacy and belonging. The primary term by which the fourth evangelist will describe this relationship is menō, to abide. The term menō is used over forty times in the narrative. While it is translated a number of different ways, abide, remain, stay, continue, dwell it is the same word over and over again. This repetition not only reiterates this theme of abiding, that to abide in Jesus is what it means to believe in Jesus, but it also keeps the reader, the listener, in the text. The repetition creates the experience of abiding. Sermons on John will do the same.

The last theme indicated in the Prologue and essential for interpreting and preaching the Fourth Gospel is that of abundance. In Jesus, we receive grace upon grace, an abundance of grace. The word grace is used only four times in the Gospel of John and only in the Prologue (1:14, 16, 17). While scholarship suggests that this is due to John’s use of an extant hymn for the Prologue, this is not a reason to conclude that the author could not have used the term throughout the Gospel. The absence of the term grace after the conclusion of the Prologue indicates a theological and homiletical appeal. That is, the rest of the Gospel story, rather than tell the reader about grace, shows the reader what grace looks like, tastes like, smells like, sounds like, and feels like. When the Word becomes flesh, grace is then incarnated. It is no coincidence that the first act of Jesus in his public ministry is that of changing water into wine. While the miracle itself is certainly noteworthy, the transformation of water into wine is, in the end, not the point. The primary revelation in this first sign of Jesus in the Fourth Gospel is that this is what abundant grace looks like and tastes like—an excess of the best wine when you least expect it.

The changing of water into wine is not simply demonstrative of the theological claim of abundance but communicates a homiletical invitation. That is, preaching John insists that sermons will not describe, explain, or argue for the grace of God but will create experiences of God’s grace. When Mary encounters the resurrected Jesus in the garden, she does not return to the disciples and offer a doctrinal summary, such as our utterances on Easter Sunday Christ the Lord is risen! Alleluia! Rather, she personalizes it. She embodies and gives voice to her belief in such a way that communicates what a response to a sermon on John would be, I have seen the Lord! When the Greeks ask, Sir, we would see Jesus (12:21), they too articulate this essential theological theme for the Fourth Gospel. If an encounter with Jesus, or an encounter with any portion of this Gospel, does not elicit a reaction like that of Mary or the Greeks, then the sermon has not preached the fullness of the Gospel of John. This Gospel is deeply experiential, hands on, incarnated, and embodied. Not to take seriously this radical claim will reduce sermons on John to simple platitudes about Jesus.

John 20:30-31 articulates the primary function of the Fourth Gospel and therefore what a sermon on John should do. These words are written so that you may come to believe or continue to believe. John does not claim that these words are written to give you information about Jesus. Something is supposed to happen to you. There is an important textual variant in this verse that is represented in different English translations. There is equal manuscript evidence to suggest that pisteuō can be an aorist subjunctive or a present subjunctive in a hina clause. If it is the former, the meaning is something along the lines of, you were not a believer in Jesus before hearing this story. But now that you have, you will start believing, the aorist tense indicating a single occurrence; that is, this Gospel has in mind potential converts. There is also reliable manuscript evidence to suggest the use of the present subjunctive, the present tense signifying ongoing, linear action. In other words, these words are written so that you may be sustained or nurtured in your believing, with the audience being that of current believers. Either version can be sustained by the Gospel itself. While the Gospel is clearly written for a Jewish community that has chosen to identify itself as believing in Jesus it invites those who have yet to believe into an encounter with God that might result in belief. Either way, John imagines, anticipates, and expects that by hearing this story of Jesus, the reader will be affected in some way. The preacher should imagine, anticipate, and expect that every sermon on John would do the same.

Waler Ong, Text and Interpretation: Mark and After, Semeia 39 (1987): 7-26.↵

1

The Prologue

A Summary of the Fourth Gospel (John 1:1-18)

The first eighteen verses of the Gospel of John are typically referred to as the Prologue. The Prologue sets out the major themes of the Gospel and is the lens through which to read the entire book. This chapter will also suggest that the Prologue provides a homiletical strategy for the preacher or a theology of preaching that reveals how this Gospel wants to and should be preached.

John 1:1-5

The Light Shines in the Darkness

The first verse is deceptively complex. In the beginning should stir up biblical resonances. In the Septuagint, these are the very same words that open the book of Genesis. These are not simply apt words by which to start a book, but set out one of the eight theological themes central to the Gospel. What follows is going to have something to do with creation. God is about creating, about life, about abundant life. God is a life-giver at every turn in this story. And, as it turns out, so is Jesus, thereby reiterating his identity as the incarnated God. The threefold claim in the rest of the verse, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God (all verse translations are NRSV unless otherwise noted) reveals where Jesus came from, his inherent relationship with God, and his identity as God. As noted in the Introduction, these interwoven issues when it comes to Jesus are central to this Gospel. The preacher will look for how a passage is addressing where Jesus came from with the correct answer being from God, how the passage describes Jesus’ relationship with God which is profoundly intimate and true also between the believer and God, and what the passage has to say regarding the true identity of who Jesus is—he is God in the world. There is an inseparability between each of these aspects about Jesus that is yet another way to describe what incarnation means. Distinctive to the conceptualization of what denotes being human is origin, relationship, and identity. Imagine the many ways in which we understand who we are on a daily basis through these categories. Moreover, for the audience of this Gospel, concerns about these categories would have been acutely felt given its situation. These were believers who had lost their ancestry, possibly every relationship they had, and their Jewish identity. John 1:1 offers three words of comfort: first, that their concerns are normal, justified, and central to being human. Second, permission to rethink and reorient these essential aspects that demark being human through the revelation of God in Jesus. Third, that Jesus himself will face these same concerns.

While there are a number theories as to the source of the term the Word, the Gospel itself proposes that this is God’s word revealed and spoken in the world in a new way. The connections to Genesis suggest that this is God’s creative, redeeming, and sanctifying word that has now become flesh. It is likely no narrative accident that Jesus talks more in the Gospel of John than the other Gospels. Furthermore, the sign, dialogue, discourse pattern suggests that words are critical for revelation. Jesus’ words that interprets a sign he performs actually reveal what he has done more than the sign itself. Conversations and dialogue are the moments of developing recognition of who Jesus is and they are also intrinsic to relationship. After the Prologue, Jesus as the Word will not be used again because God’s word has become flesh.

The next verses (1:2-4) secure Jesus’ role as in the beginning with God. At the same time, disclosed are not only Jesus’ origins but also his primary role as creator with God. At the heart of Jesus’ presence in the world is the manifestation of God’s creative activity. Jesus in the Fourth Gospel is about creation, new birth, and new life. In him was life (1:4). For those who encounter Jesus, salvation and eternal life have everything to do with new and abundant life.

In