Local Preachers’ Group on John's Gospel
Notes of meeting held 15th February 2010
John 1: 35 – 51
This time the lectionary passage is not part of a story but is two stories which happen over two days. Although each story is autonomous, together they do reiterate the same points and build on them. Here we see Jesus gathering disciples. Some follow him, some he finds, while others are brought to him. Some immediately recognise Jesus as Messiah, while others take longer, and others go further and recognise Jesus not only as the promised Messiah but also recognise the sort of Messiah Jesus is i.e. the Son of God.
We read through the passage verse by verse as usual and once again punctuation and translation made a difference to the meaning of some verses. Some translations ran two or more verses together which enhanced the meaning and made reading easier. Later in our discussion we found that not only were the verses different but also the section headings. Although the headings are not original they were included quite early and very often they are the first thing people read and they can influence the way we understand a passage. For example verses 19 – 34 in the Jerusalem Bible are headed “The witness of John” while in most other editions they are headed “John the Baptist denies being the Christ”. One heading is a very positive statement while the other takes a negative stance. This positivity or negativity can alter the way one reads the passage and one’s acceptance of its message.
It was interesting to come back to chapter 1 after dipping into other chapters during the last few weeks. Unusually for John’s gospel this passage is mostly narrative and two days pass with some speed. One of the first things that struck us was the positive nature of all the statements about Jesus as expressed by the disciples (“We have found the messiah, you are the Son of God, you are the King of Israel”). Practically every title associated with Jesus is given here in the space of 15 verses, and we are still in chapter 1! The prologue began with Jesus linked to God as Logos and here we see John expressing this Christology again. Like God, Jesus is able to recognise the inner nature of these first disciples. Simon is renamed Peter, or Cephas the rock, although it will be a long time before he shows his rock-like character. Nathanael is recognised as a true Israelite. Jesus’ ability to see into the heart of Nathanael is the trait which draws Nathanael to Jesus.
We were drawn to look at the second section of the passage first as the last verse intrigued us. In verse 51 Nathanael is told that he will see angels ascending and descending on the Son of Man, yet Nathanael is not mentioned again and only appears in John’s gospel. (He may be the Bartholomew in Matthew’s gospel). This reference to angels refers back to Jacob’s ladder in Genesis 28:10 – 22. Jacob dreams of a ladder reaching between earth and heaven with angels going up and down. During his dream he hears God promising him the ground on which he sleeps and many descendants who will spread out east and west and that through his descendants “all clans on earth” will be blessed. We now understand Jesus to be the ladder between heaven and earth and we believe that all people now have access to God through Jesus. Jacob was a schemer but was chosen by God. It is not only Jacob’s dream that is significant but Jacob himself. If Jacob can be chosen then anyone can. Is it possible to fully understand this last verse without prior knowledge of the Genesis passage? After his dream Jacob names the place of his dream Bethel meaning House of God. Could we see this as a reference to God pitching his tent with Jacob at Bethel, meaning that wherever we are we are in God’s presence? Phillip, Simon and Andrew all come from Bethsaida, - is this significant?
In verse 45 Phillip introduces Jesus to Nathanael as the one written about in the Law. Genesis is part of the Pentateuch supposedly written by Moses the giver of the Law. Is there a link to Luke and the story of Emmaus where Jesus expounds to the two disciples all the scripture that refers to him? Tom Wright’s commentary is very helpful on verse 51. Even though the disciples do not actually see angels coming and going to heaven they are enabled through Jesus to see God everywhere and in everything. It is a great blessing to God’s people to see God in everything. Referring back to the Old Testament is a common tactic of John. It is important for the reading and understanding of John’s gospel to have a good knowledge of the Old Testament, so that we can pick up references easily.
Nathanael’s scathing question “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” is one which the original readers would have identified with, as it was a well-known fact that some very peculiar Jewish sects came out of Galilee in that period. But it is also a question that people might recognise today and have to deal with “Can anything good come out of the church?” We do hear some terrible stories in the news about the antics of both clergy and laity. How do we answer these questions? The same way Phillip answered Nathanael’s question with “Come and see”. It is Jesus that people must come and see. Nathanael is so scathing that he must have respected Phillip’s judgment to actually go and see! Nathanael’s question could also be used to highlight how lack of understanding between different cultural groups (i.e. north and south, Christian and Muslim, Roman Catholic and Protestant) can bring difficulties. The only response to break down these barriers is “Come and see”. Come with open minds and hearts in the name of friendship, like Nathanael.
Who is Nathanael (see above)? Nathanael is called an Israelite not a Jew or Hebrew. What is the significance of this unusual reference? Following a reference to Micah 5 Nathanael is found under a fig tree. Devout Jewish men would study the Law under a fig tree, so here is a man who is well versed in the scriptures and is able to make the ultimate declaration of exactly who Jesus is (“Rabbi you are the Son of God, you are the King of Israel”). Does this tell us something of our own spiritual journeys? Phillip has recognised Jesus as the Messiah but has not grasped what this means. Even as late as Chapter 14 Phillip is admonished for not understanding (14: 9), but here is Nathanael immediately recognising not just Jesus as Messiah but the sort of Messiah that Jesus is. In this passage we see two disciples being brought to Jesus by a friend (Phillip) and family (Andrew). This is how most people come to Jesus. There are many stories of people being brought to Jesus by a Christian friend and then overtaking the friend in understanding.
When we began our studies we deliberately followed the lectionary because we were using our discussions to inform our preaching, but we did wonder whether dipping in and out of the gospel was a good thing. Coming back to chapter 1 at this time has allowed us to pull some threads together and have a clearer view of John’s themes and how he has put his gospel together. Because this gospel is mostly discourse and not narrative we were able to dip in and out of it without losing the thread. We felt that this approach would not work with the synoptic gospels because they follow a narrative or Paul’s epistles where he refers back to previous paragraphs and letters all the time, so that one is forced to read the previous chapters just to understand what he is talking about! We have found that far from making life more difficult, dipping in and out of John makes the themes clearer. These thoughts led to a discussion on the lectionary and whether it would be a good idea to try and follow a gospel all through instead of having just chunks; and why John does not get a year to himself. We decided on balance that the lectionary was correct and that the chunks of John included did cover the great themes of the gospel and that with the movement of Easter and following festivals it would be quite difficult to follow a gospel all through as the reading might not be appropriate to the time of year.
We finished by asking which bit of the passage we would preach on:
- Some would take a broad brush and use the whole passage to illustrate how we needed others to bring us to Jesus
- Some would have used the final verse and concentrated on “You will see greater things”
- Some would use the first verse where John the Baptist describes Jesus as the Lamb of God and use this to show Jesus as a sacrifice and what this means for us
- Some would concentrate on Peter and how he does not fulfil the meaning of the name he is given until much later on.
SC