John
John might as well have been written in a different century than the three synoptic gospels — and may very well have been. It is so different, focusing as it does on long speeches by Jesus. Some scholars speculate that John may have been written to counter “heretical” gospels circulating by the turn of the second century. Gnostic Christians claimed that Jesus could not have been human as well as divine.
John opens with a refutation of that. To those reason-loving Greeks, John affirms: “In the beginning was the Word (logos or reason), and the Word was God. … And the Word became flesh and lived among us” (1:1, 14).
The word “love” appears twice as often in John’s gospel (55 times) as in the other three combined, resulting in tender conversations between Jesus and companions. “I give you a new commandment: Love one another” (13:34), says Jesus.
Jesus’ strong ties to women, found in Luke, continue in John. The woman at the well (4:7) and the woman caught in adultery (8:3) are stories found only in John. As is the first resurrection appearance of Jesus to Mary Magdalene, and the loving “Mary–Rabboni” exchange.
Jesus identifies himself as the route to God: “I am the light of the world” (8:12); “I am the good shepherd” (10:11); “I am the resurrection and the life” (11:25); “I am the way, the truth, and the life” (14:6); “I am the vine, and you are the branches” (15:5).
Disciples of Christ find their Christian unity passion expressed in a passage from John, with an added evangelism incentive. In the garden, Jesus prays about his followers: “May they be one, so that the world will know that you sent me” (17:21).
The Jesus of John is very much in control of his message and destiny, unlike the uncertainties Mark expresses in his gospel. “The hour has come (17:1),” Jesus says at the time of crucifixion, and confidently from the cross, “It is completed” (19:30).
Writers are Gregg Brekke, pastor of Nexus Church, a United Church of Christ Community, in Fairfield, Ohio, and Beverly Dale, ordained Disciples minister and executive director of the Christian Association at the University of Pennsylvania.