Reader’s Guide: “The Word for Today” Friday, February 28, 2014 Read John 5, 7-8 again It might be well to reflect back over the whole section of John’s gospel that we have been reading since Jesus arrived in Jerusalem for the Feast of Booths. The whole section reflects a growing hostility between Jesus and the Jewish religious leaders. We witnessed that growing hostility before – in Mark’s gospel as Jesus enters Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. A question we might ponder is whether or not Mark and John are speaking about the same encounter. Students of John’s gospel have noticed that once Jesus enters Jerusalem in the fall of the year for the Feast of Booths he will not travel far from the area again until he is crucified just prior to Passover in the spring of the next year. From chapter 5 on there is a growing controversy between Jesus and the religious leaders of Jerusalem. That controversy would have lasted for over five months culminating in the death of Jesus. As mentioned above Mark tells of a similar time of controversy that last for only one or two days. While the episodes are not the same the growing controversy is. When you stop and think about it, Mark’s storyline seems too compressed. A close reading of Luke’s use of Mark reflects that perhaps Luke was aware of a much longer controversy but chose to stick with Mark’s compression. All of this has led students of both John and Mark to wonder if they are not reflecting the same time in the ministry of Jesus. For most of those students John’s storyline is more realistic than Mark’s. Mark had his reasons for compressing it all into a couple of days. Mark’s goal was getting Jesus, the crucified Messiah, to the cross. His storyline which has Jesus exclusively in Galilee and entering Jerusalem only once works for him. If John and Mark are reflecting the same historical time in the ministry of Jesus, then it seems likely that Jesus came to Jerusalem in the fall, did battle with the religious authorities for about five months in which hostilities grew eventually to the point of Jesus being killed through the actions of those religious leaders. John’s chronology is more likely the accurate depiction of what happened. Mark has compressed that chronology for theological reasons. I think this way of thinking about things makes a good deal of sense. In the end, however, there is no way to make a definitive choice about any of this.