26 IT IS FINISHED

John's Gospel has two further tasks:
1. To affirm that Jesus fulfills Jewish scriptures
2. To affirm the global breadth of the message and faith.

The story of Jesus lines up with the tales of scripture
and the practices of the Jewish faith are both affirmed and extended.
The body of Jesus becomes The Temple, though which God is experienced;
yet both could be raised to new life in a wider dimension.
The flesh of Jesus could be symbolically eaten
to make themselves one with God.

In the crucifixion Jesus was glorified by surmounting
the human drive for personal survival.
The Cross was a portrait of being able to live without boundaries.
God is present in our willingness to give ourselves away.

In his penultimate words "I thirst" Jesus shows his humanity,
and the soldier responds by giving him vinegar,
to complete the prophecy in Psalm 69:21
"For my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink".

His final cry "It is finished!" is one of triumph.
This is, symbolically, at the very time that the Pascal lams were killed,
and avoided the breaking of his legs, to hasten the death of the crucified,
and thus fulfilled the symbology of the perfect sacrificial lamb.

There is no attempt here at a literal description,
merely a reiteration of the main themes of John's Gospel.

27 JOHN'S EASTER

For a dead body to resusticate violates all modern knowledge.
It is, in the truest sense of the word, incredible.

Though this is the message of Luke's Gospel,
Matthew protrays it as a spiritual appearance,
Paul's writings indicate a less physical event,
and Mark did not mention any ressurection at all,
though others later appended a description.

It is a story that has appeared, and been developed,
over the life of the early Christian church,
even requiring the addition of the Ascension account
to bring things to a tidy conclusion.

John's Gospel presents four resurrection stories (Chapter 20).
The first (Chapter 20 verses 1 and 11-18) is to Mary Magdalene.
The second (Chapter 20 verses 2-10) involves Peter and the Beloved Disciple.
The third (Chapter 20 verses 19-25) is to the disciples in a locked room.
The fourth (Chapter 20 verses 26-31) is the tale of the doubt of Thomas.

These stories are covered independently in the next four chapters of this book.
In the stories John makes it clear that resurrection is not about a physical event
but about entering and participating in the New Being
which creates a new dimension of what it means to be human.

28 MAGADLENE, "DO NOT CLING TO WHAT IS"

We know little of Mary Magdalene in any of the Gospel stories.
Mark says that she was oneof those looking at the Cross.
Luke adds that Jesus "cast seven demons" out of her.
Later tradition identifies her with the woman who washed the feet of Jesus,
and still later she became seen as a prostitute, without any evidence.
(John identifies that woman as Mary, sister of Martha)

There is unlikely that "Magdalene" identifies the place of Mary's origin.
This is a device employed by pseudo-scholars to explain the appelation.
It is feasible that the word is an extension of the Jewish word
for the tower used by shepherds to view his flocks: a "migdal".
"Magdalene" might then mean "Tall" or "Great", even "Important".
It was a role that she seems to have had in the early life of Christianity,
though one squashed when it became uncomfortable to have a woman there,
to be replaced by the humble, and pure, virgin.

Is there any reality in the idea of Magdalene being the wife of Jesus?
Why is she shown as the only mourner at the tomb?
Why does she claim the right to take the body away?
John hints at a marital relationship, but
this is taking literally what is a theological device.
The role of Mary is to expose the meaning of Jesus and the Resurrection.

The Tomb holds the shattered dreams of the followers of Jesus.
Mary is there mourning their loss, notably in the dark.
She is unable to see the meaning of the empty tomb.
However she comes tro a new awareness when her name is spoken.
Death has not separated her from her love and teacher.
The Tomb can not hold him nor any barrier separate him from her.
Mary is the first to recognise that Jesus has stepped beyond human barriers,
that he has entered a new dimension of life and consciousness.
So she goes to the disciples and tells them she has seen Jesus,
meaning that she has seen and understood the meaning of Jesus,
and of life itself.

29 RESURRECTION WITHOUT A BODY

Two (male) disciples go to the Tomb to check on Mary's report,
Peter, who struggles and generally gets it wrong and
the perfect disciple "whom Jesus loved".

Both see the same thing, but the Beloved is said to have seen and believed,
yet there was no body, only the remaining impact of his life.
There are no apparations to help their belief.
They are left with the same struggles that we face,
Yet one saw and believed.

( see also Awakening Resurrection

30 PENTECOST and THE SECOND COMING

By the time of John's Gospel, the failure of Jesus to return had become of concern.
Even in Paul's time, there was surprise that it had not already happened.

The third ressurection story (in the closed room) seems disconnected to the previous two.
Jesus shows them his wounds, to prove his identity, and commissions them.
This appearance is designed to convince them that they have a job to do.
The community was to be the source of light to others.
The Second Coming is then that new life,
when Jesus enters our lives.

The Resurrection is the experience of the indwelling Spirit of God.
The Second Coming occurred for the disciples in that closed room.
The Christian life is not about believing and belonging,
but about living an loving.
( As the prophets also told us.)

31 THOMAS, THE FINAL WITNESS

Thomas is mentioned but given no role in the Synoptic Gospels.
His "Sayings" Gospel was discovered in Nag Hammadi in 1945,
though it is mentioned in other ancient texts.
It contains no miracles, no narrative descriptions.
It could have been written in the 60s, so before the Synoptics.
Thomas is believed to have taken Christianity to India.

Thomas has a larger role in John's Gospel,
where he is portrayed as not understanding the Way,
so giving Jesus the opportunity to explain what he means.
Finally, Thomas becomes the one who doubts the Resurrection experiences.
He will believe only when he sees the evidence for himself.
When he does, he responds with "My Lord and my God!"
reaffirming John's message that we see God,
when we see and understand Jesus.
Jesus responds with "Blessed are those who believe, but have not seen."
affirming the status of those in his community who have had no sich experience.

The Gospel closes with the affirmation that Jesus is "the Son of God"
and that we can have "life in his name".
Life in a new dimension,
free of the boundaries of fear that separate us from one another.
To be a Christian is not to believe that message,
but to live that message.

32 EPILOGUE THE REALITY OF RESURRECTION

See Resurrection

The story of the Cross showed that a human can move
beyond the need for personal survival.
The story of Jesus has been told,
yet there is another chapter!

This "Epilogue" (Chapter 21) is often seen as a later addition. It does not fit!
It opens with the declaration by Peter that he is going fishing.
He is going back to his normal life before Jesus called him.
This is follwed by the story of a miraculous catch of fish
which mirrors the tale, told in Luke's Gospel,
though at different stages in the Jesus narrative.

Another feature in this Epilogue which clashes with the theme of the Gospel
is the enhancement of Peter at the expense of the "beloved disciple".

The purposes of the resurrection narratives appear to be
to promote, or awaken, faith and to commission, or authorise, leaders.
Resurrection, for John, was not physical, but the dawning of a new consciousness,
the mystical act of achieving oneness with one that is eternal.

This epilogue may well have been a later addition to the Gospel,
but it does bring together early ideas of the reality of the Resurrection experience
and attempts to summarise the message of the Gospel.