John 21:20-25

01/23/11

John 21:20-25

Hudson UMC

On July twenty-seventh, two thousand eight, we began a journey through the Gospel according to John.  Since that time, except for taking breaks for seasons like Advent and Lent, we have continued on, passage by passage, working our way through the whole of this Gospel, getting a chance to take a careful look at every story, every teaching, and every event in this entire book.  Speaking personally, I can say that my whole approach to preaching, to understanding the Bible, and communicating the truth of Jesus Christ has grown radically.  Not every congregation would have the patience to go with their pastor through such a large chunk of Scripture, so I want to begin this final sermon on John by giving thanks for you who have born with me through this whole time, showing support, even if you were getting sick and tired of John.  There is, perhaps, no greater gift you could give to me as a preacher than to allow me the luxury of two and a half years to learn how to approach the gospel message in a way that arises organically out of the gospel itself.  I can only pray that you have heard the word of God during this time and learned more deeply the love that God has for you.

Indeed, when we look at this last passage of John, we see that it has some remarkable similarities to the very first passage of the book.  The very first thing that John tells us after speaking of the pre-existence of Christ as the word who was with God and who was God is about John the Baptist whose whole ministry and purpose was to point beyond himself to Christ.  Back in chapter one, we read, “There was a man sent from God, whose name was John.  He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him.  He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light.  The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.”

Just a little later in the first chapter, we continue to read about John the Baptist.  “This is the testimony given by John when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, ‘Who are you?’  He confessed and did not deny it, but confessed, ‘I am not the Messiah.’  And they asked him, ‘What then?  Are you Elijah?’  He said, ‘I am not.’  ‘Are you the prophet?’  He answered, ‘No.’  Then they said to him, ‘Who are you?  Let us have an answer for those who sent us.  What do you say about yourself?’  He said, ‘I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord.’ As the prophet Isaiah said.”  Indeed, when asked why he baptized people if he was not any of those people, his response was that someone was coming who was far greater than he was.  The implication is that this coming one is the one who really matters.

The reason why I want to remind you of all that happened in the very first chapter is because the idea is repeated again here in the last verse of the gospel.  “But there are also many other things that Jesus did; if every one of them were written down, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.”  What this is saying is that, in spite of the fact that this book was written, as it even tells us itself, “so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name,” it is only a small portion of what Jesus did while he was on earth.  This cannot surprise us because we have three other gospels, which are quite different than John’s.  We know that every time we tell the story of Jesus, it is going to be an abbreviation.  We can only hit the highlights, so to speak.  However, what we must not do is think that Jesus only did things that were completely captured in words on a page.  Jesus is far bigger than that.

Even though the Gospel of John was not written by John the Baptist, there are remarkable similarities about how they see their ministry.  Neither one of them see themselves as the truth, or even the bringer of truth.  Both of them see Jesus as being far greater than they are.  Neither is content with us knowing a lot of information about Jesus but are not satisfied until we look away from them and to Jesus himself, actually encountering the word of God become flesh and living among us.  John the Baptist said, “He must increase, but I must decrease,” because to focus on him instead of the Christ to whom he bore witness would defeat the whole purpose of his ministry.  John the evangelist, or Gospel writer, says that the whole world could not contain the works and sayings of Christ.  To him, Jesus is far greater than the greatest work of literature, far greater than the most outstanding moral teachings, more life-changing than a book on your shelf.  Jesus is not a doctrine, not story, but a living and active person who, though he was crucified, was resurrected in glory and now sits at the right hand of God the Father, always active in the world through his Holy Spirit.

In a world where Christian faith is increasingly hated and spoken evil against, where the church itself tends to either lapse into a rigid and literalist approach to the Bible or fall away from any kind of rooting in Scripture, these words closing the Gospel of John are so very important.  The Bible was written, not first and foremost as a handbook that will somehow solve every problem you have in your life, but as a witness to the everlasting love, grace and mercy of God.  It is interesting to notice that, when John lays out what he wants us to gain from his work, it is not that we would have a definitive list of what to do and what not to do, it is not to replace our minds and make us all think and speak alike, but so that we might look through the text and come to know the God that the text bears witness to.

I am not one who usually goes out of my way to lift up something that John Calvin said, but he had a very helpful way to think about the Bible.  He spoke of the Scriptures as like a pair of spectacles or glasses.  Those of you who, like me, wear glasses, should understand this image easily.  When you wear glasses, the goal is not to look carefully at the glasses, but to look through them at what lies beyond them.  Similarly, the reason that we read the Bible, at least according to people like John the apostle, is in order to know the Jesus to whom it bears witness.  To focus so intently at the words on the page so that we miss the actual, living Christ would be as foolish as to focus so much on the glasses themselves that we miss the world that we got the glasses to see.

I have been reading a book by a philosopher of science and physician named Michael Polanyi, who makes a distinction between being focally aware of something, where our attention is fully directed to it, and being subsidiarily aware of something, where we know it is there but it is not the focus of our attention.  For example, when we learn to read, we first learn the letters of the alphabet, then we learn individual words, then we learn how sentences and paragraphs work.  However, when we actually sit down to read something, like a letter or a book, we know that we are reading letters, words, sentences and paragraphs, but what we are really concerned with is the meaning that the author is trying to convey.

In a similar way, the Bible is written, so it is made up of letters, words, sentences and paragraphs, but we are really concerned with what lies behind the text, the meaning, or what the author is hoping to get across to us.  In the case of John’s Gospel, we read in order to somehow get through the text to the reality it refers to, that is, to actually encounter Christ.  If we were to read with our primary goal being to know the letters, words, sentences, and paragraphs, it would be like focusing on the mechanics of walking, rather than focusing on where we are going.  It leads to self-conscious and awkward behavior.

So, all of this is to say that, if you have learned nothing else during this journey through John, I hope that you have not been content to stop at the text, but to meet with the Jesus to whom the text bears witness.  Since my very first day serving this church, I have hoped to communicate a passion for the Bible but I hope that you have not gotten the idea that I think that we should have a high view of the Bible merely as a book for its own sake.  I fully agree with John the Baptist, that we must decrease and that Christ must increase, for it is Christ, in the end, that matters.  I fully agree with John the apostle, that the Jesus we worship is far greater, far more dynamic than a mere book can capture and that we only succeed in hearing the gospel if we encounter Christ and are lives are changed.  I fully agree with John Calvin that our whole purpose in reading the Bible is not to know words, but to know God.

I do want to touch on the other part of our passage which, in many ways, is a follow-up to our passage from last week.  Peter has just been told that he will suffer and die for his faith, that he will follow in the footsteps of Christ to crucifixion.  What Peter does after that and how Jesus responds is very helpful for us to remember in our own lives of faith.  “Peter turned and saw the disciple whom Jesus loved following them…When Peter saw him, he said to Jesus, ‘Lord, what about him?’  Jesus said to him, ‘If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you?  Follow me!’”

Peter was just told something very difficult, that his days were numbered and that he would follow his Lord into a very painful death.  He naturally wants to know what will happen to this other close friend of Jesus.  Will he be martyred, too?  As history shows us, John was indeed not killed for his faith, one of only two of the apostles who were not martyrs.  What is interesting is that, because John was not executed, we cannot say that all true followers of Christ will be killed.  However, Jesus does not tell Peter that John would escape the fate that he had just predicted for him.  After all, what difference would it make?  If John was to die like Peter, it would not make Peter’s life any easier.  What Jesus does, though, is say, in so many words, “Peter, it just isn’t any of your business.  What happens to John is between John and myself.  You only need to worry about what will happen to you, and that is all you need to know.”

As we live our lives as disciples of Christ, we need to always remember that Jesus calls each of us to respond and nobody else can respond for us.  Also, when we define “fair” as how we modern Western Americans often define it, God is not particularly “fair,” either.  This is shown in the fact that while Peter and John were both faithful, were both great leaders of the church, one of them met an untimely end and the other did not.  What did Peter do to deserve execution, or, to put it the other way, what did John do to avoid it?  The gospel does not recognize questions like that because it is only a small step from that to, “How can I be a disciple and not have to suffer?”  If we are asking that question, we are not yet given fully to Christ.

As we finish up the gospel of John, we need to remember the major lessons of the gospel.  Some were made explicitly, some were implied, but all of them are important.  John has taught us that Jesus is the very Son and Word of God made a human being for our sakes, that God condescended to become one of us and one with us, to live a human life, to endure the brokenness of this world, and to die on our behalf and in our place, so that we might have eternal life.  John insists that the way that so many people speak of eternal life, that it is something that we make a decision for now and then we get pie in the sky by and by, is dead wrong, that the mighty acts of God impact us even here and now and have radical implications for how we live our lives.

John reminds us that Jesus is indeed the fullness of God in our midst and that, though Jesus is no longer around for us to see with our eyes and touch with our hands, we have not been left as orphans.  The Holy Spirit, who is every bit as much God as the Father and the Son, has been given to us to continue to unpack everything that Jesus said and did, to take the things of Christ and give them to us, to bind us to Christ like branches on a vine, and to make the blood of Christ pump in our veins.

So, as we say “goodbye” to John and move into a season of considering what Paul has to tell us through his letter to the Colossians, let us take the lessons that we have learned from John and let them penetrate deeply into our hearts and lives, that we might build on them and show that we really have learned from them.  God has called each of us and has called all of each of us.  Let us go forth and worship this Christ who cannot be contained by the words of a book, but who constantly surpasses even our greatest thoughts.  Let us give everything to the God who has given us everything.  Let us pray.

AMEN