Reading the Gospels Together How do you begin a gospel? – Part 6 We have one last gospel writer to consider. How did John begin his gospel? John begins his gospel in what might be the most unusual way of all. John begins his gospel with a theological statement about Jesus and about God. John does not begin with a narrative as the others do. He does not begin with a preface as Luke did. He begins with a theological formulation of how he wants his readers to think of Jesus and of God. He does theology. John makes it abundantly clear that the Jesus about whom he is going to tell his story is none other than God in human flesh and blood. The very presence of God dwells in Jesus. Of course John is also aware that Jesus is a human being. For all intents and purposes Jesus looked and acted like any other human being in the experience of those who shared life with him on earth. But John is intent on telling his readers that Jesus was more than just an ordinary human being. In his flesh dwelt the very being of God. As John puts it, “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” This of course is an argument that moves far beyond the ability of our minds to either fully comprehend or to explain. John does not attempt to explain but he does intend to proclaim to his readers this important reality. To use later language used by church theologians, Jesus is the God-man. Jesus is fully God and fully human. Likely John has come to this conclusion after much reflection of the story of Jesus and the events that unfolded in Jesus’ life. It is likely long after the fact that most followers of Jesus came to understand that Jesus was not just a mere human being. After contemplating those events John could come to no other conclusion. And John thinks it is very important that his readers know from the very beginning that the main character in this story, Jesus, is God in human flesh – the he is the God-man. Knowing that colors all of the rest of John’s story. In this way John is very different from Mark and thus from Matthew and Luke who inherit from Mark a sense of secrecy regarding the identity of Jesus. There is no secret in John’s gospel. Jesus is the God-man. And the story John tells will reflect this reality from beginning to end. John does interject a brief reference to the narrative that will follow by telling of the witness of John the Baptist. This reference to John the Baptist is really not a part of John’s theological statement. As we move through John’s gospel we will encounter other instances in which theological statements will interrupt the flow of the narrative. This weaving together of theological statements and narrative does make listening to the Gospel of John more challenging. At times it may be difficult to distinguish between the narrative and the theological content. But that is not difficult in John’s beginning. This is theology. Why did John choose to begin his gospel in this way? Again we cannot read the mind of John so we can only speculate. If it is correct that John wrote his gospel toward the end of the first century then it makes sense that by that time it would be necessary to provide for readers statements about the meaning of Jesus more than to simply tell the story. A later date calls for theology because now the questions of meaning and purpose are far more prevalent than simply telling the story. John’s readers needed to know what the Jesus event meant. How are Jesus and God related? If God was active in the Jesus event, what was God doing and how was God doing it? John began his gospel with a theological statement and John weaves theology into his gospel to provide meaning to what had occurred. Likely another factor for John was that he sensed a need to proclaim to his readers that Jesus was no mere human being. In our time, we are challenged to think of Jesus as a human being. We overemphasize the divine sometimes to the near exclusion of the humanity of Jesus. Jesus is God. John faced a completely different challenge. Everyone knew that Jesus was a man. They had no trouble with his humanity. But was Jesus more than that? John believed so and he set out to present Jesus as that “something more than a mere man.” Thus Jesus is for him the God-man. And we would do well to learn from John that Jesus is more than God. His challenge was the opposite of ours today. It is likely for these reasons that John chose to begin his gospel in the way he did. Was John successful in his choice of how to begin his gospel? Certainly he was. John moved the church from an emphasis on the humanity of Jesus to a fuller position of seeing Jesus’ divinity too. Though his beginning is much different from the others and though wrestling with theology is challenging we can be thankful for the brilliance of John’s choice to begin his gospel as he did.