MORE THAN ALL OF THE ABOVE

January 20, 2008

Here he is, God’s Passover Lamb… Rabbi… Messiah…

Come along and see for yourself.        

                                                Selected from John 1:35-42, The Message

            Choices – we live in a time when we have multiple choices.  From political parties to the candidates within those political parties… from street corner coffee stands to the lattes and frapuccinos on their menus… from makes of automobiles to the models and styles of those automobiles… from phone companies to cell phone carriers… from where we shop to where we go to school… from how we exercise to how we worship, from what we value to what we believe… we no longer live, if we ever did, in a “one-size-fits-all” world.  We have multiple choices. 

            I think that the author of the Gospel of John believed in choices… multiple choices… especially when it came to understanding Jesus… to connecting with Jesus on both a personal and prophetic level.  New Testament Professor Bernard Brandon Scott reminds us that “The number of Gospels produced by the early church is evidence of Jesus being interpreted in a multitude of ways from the very beginning.  Even the four Gospels that ‘made the cut’ into the canon [or Bible] represent not only significantly different political and theological agendas but very different chronologies and opinions about who Jesus was.”*

            To begin to understand this, I think we need some basic Bible study… a little Bible Study 101.  And while some of us may already know this, a little refresher course never hurt!  Because we read books from beginning to end… with each chapter building on the chapter before until we reach the very last page… most of us think that this applies to the Bible.  When we think of the New Testament we think that Matthew was written first, followed by Mark then Luke and then John.  Because the letters of Paul are after the Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and John we think that those letters were written after the Gospels were written.  And, when we think of the letters of Paul, we think that they are placed in the New Testament in the order that they were written and mailed out. 

            It turns out that none of this is true.  The letters of Paul were actually written before the Gospels and appear in the New Testament according to length, starting with the longest of Paul’s letters.  While Paul has been identified as the author of most of the letters, some of the letters were written by Paul’s disciples… close associates who were sharing his work.  And, while some of us may think that the Gospels were written by four of the twelve disciples of Jesus, the truth is, we don’t know for sure who wrote the Gospels but we do know that they were not written by any of the actual twelve disciples of Jesus. The Gospels were written at a much later date.  The Gospel of Mark came first, recorded some time around 75 to 85 in the Common Era.  It tells the basic, no frills story of Jesus life.  The Gospels of Matthew and Luke were both patterned on the Gospel of Mark, each with its own direction and purpose… each expanding on Mark’s work.  Matthew wrote for primarily Jewish- Christian believers and Luke for Gentile-Christian believers.  The Gospel of John was the last to be recorded and it was not written as an eyewitness account of Jesus’ life.  It points instead at the meaning behind the story of Jesus’ life.  “From beginning to end, John bears witness to the gift that God gives the world in the incarnate Jesus.”**  John bears witness to God in human flesh. 

            With this in mind, let’s turn our attention to today’s reading from John’s Gospel.  I don’t know if it was selected for the lectionary because it is simply the year when we work our way through the Gospel of John or if it was selected because in just a few short verses we are given multiple choices when it comes to connecting with Jesus.  Listen again to the Gospel:

“The next day John [as in John the Baptist] was back at his post with two disciples who were watching.  He looked up, saw Jesus walking nearby, and said, ‘Here he is, God’s Passover Lamb.’ 

The two disciples heard him and went after Jesus.  Jesus looked over his shoulder and said to them, ‘What are you after?’  They said, ‘“Rabbi” (which means “Teacher”), where are you staying?’  He replied, ‘Come along, and see for yourself.’”

A few verses later we read:

“The first thing Andrew did after finding where Jesus lived was find his own brother, Simon, telling him, ‘We’ve found the Messiah’ (that is, ‘Christ”).  He immediately led him to Jesus.

Normally in the weeks following Christmas leading up to Lent, we spend time with one of the Gospels, encountering Jesus… getting to know Jesus and his ministry on a personal level before we begin the journey to the cross.  This year, since Easter is as early as it can possibly be – there has only been one other time in the last 250 years when Easter was as early as it will be this year – we don’t have time to waste.  So in this short reading we are given multiple images of Jesus… multiple images of who he is.  He is God’s Passover Lamb… that is, one who forgives sins; Rabbi… that is, one who teaches; and Messiah… that is, the Christ, the Savior of the world. 

It is as if the author of the Gospel of John knew that a one-size-fits-all approach wasn’t going to work.  In speaking with long-time believers who were steeped in the faith or to first-time believers with no knowledge of faith, he needed to find images and ideas that each would understand.  Writing at a time when the early Christian movement was growing and moving outside of a small geographical and theological area, the author of John believed, to borrow John Dominic Crossan’s words, that Jesus was “God in sandals.”  Jesus was the Savior of the world.  I think that he knew that if he was going to get this message across he had to speak the language of a very diverse following of believers.  So he offered choices… choices that ranged from Jesus as prophet, teacher, and Messiah to Jesus as Lamb of God, Bread of Life, and Son of Humanity… choices that understood Jesus as the True Vine, the Good Shepherd and the Suffering Servant to Jesus as light of the world, the one who comes from heaven, and the Way, the Truth, and the Life. 

Thank goodness we aren’t expected to personally understand all of the images in John or find that every image fits within our experience of faith.  Thank goodness you don’t have to believe everything I believe about Jesus in order to be faithful and vice versa.  I think sometimes we don’t get this.  We seem to have embraced the idea that the Christian faith is a one-size-fits-all deal.  When confronted with those who understand Jesus in some way other then the way we understand Jesus then we either make it our mission to convince that person to come over to our position or we simply give up and say that we must not be as faithful as we once thought.

This brings to mind a fateful family vacation one year when our son Joel felt that it was absolutely unacceptable that our daughter Erin did not like potatoes.  Potatoes were, after all, his favorite food and since potatoes were his favorite food it was imperative that potatoes be everyone’s favorite food.  We lived in Corvallis and were taking a road trip all the way to San Diego.  It was somewhere just north of Los Angeles when Erin, having been cajoled and criticized for hundreds of miles finally gave in and claimed potatoes as her all time favorite food.  Gone was the possibility of having rice instead of a baked potato at dinner.  Gone were her own good tastes.  Gone was her own individuality. 

The author of the Gospel of John would never have believed that to be a follower of Jesus we would have to like potatoes instead of rice!  He understood that Jesus is so much more than any label or image or concept that we choose to give him.  Several times in today’s reading we are invited to “Come and see.  Come and see for yourself.”  We are invited to come and see for ourselves who Jesus is and what Jesus means to us individually and as the gathered community… in our individual lives of faith and in the life we share as a part of Christ’s body in the world.  If Jesus as God’s Passover Lamb… that is, the one who forgives sins doesn’t work for you, maybe Jesus as Rabbi… that is, the one who teaches faith lessons will.  If you can’t wrap your faith around Jesus as the True Vine… the one through whom we are all connected to God, maybe you will find Jesus as the Bread of Life… the one who sustains your life more satisfying to your soul. 

Come and see for yourself.  Come and see for yourself.  Jesus is the Lily of the Valley and the Bright Morning Star.  He is the Rock and he rolls my blues away.  He is the source of boundless love and present in every moment.  He is all of this and so much more.  Come and see for yourself.

You see, in the final analysis, when it comes to multiple choice, I like potatoes and rice and Jesus will always be way more than all of the above.

*From “Saving Jesus” – Session 1, page 2.

**From The New Interpreter’s Study Bible, page 1905.