Survey of the Gospels and Acts - Lesson 28

This is the 28th lecture in the online series of lectures for understanding the Gospels and Acts, in complement with the textbook by Craig Blomberg’s Jesus and The Gospels: an Introduction and Survey. 

We want to go back to Matthew, Luke and John and take additional information from those Gospels and integrate it into Mark’s outline. We first begin with the Gospel of John as the Gospel accounts for Jesus’ numerous pilgrimages to Jerusalem at different festival times. The only Gospel writer to describe these trips prior to his final Passover; John’s supplementary information spans the greatest chronological periods of all Jesus’ great Galilean ministry. John’s chapters 5-11 are the seven chapters that present a unifying theme, especially for chapters 5-10, showing Jesus as the fulfilment of these festivals. Thus, the literal rituals of Judaism are being fulfilled in and hence, are no longer requirements for God’s people, though they can still be meaningfully celebrated, especially for Christians of Jewish origins. But they are being transposed into a higher key as Jesus shows that the spiritual reality to which they originally pointed are now coming to pass in the central function of his life and ministry. These are also chapters where many of Jesus’ most exhausted Christological claims appear, including the famous ‘I am’ sayings. To illustrate the PowerPoint slide, reminds us of how Jesus replies to the criticism of him working on the Sabbath. This happens after the healing of the paralytic in the opening verses of chapter 5 and the declaration, ‘My Father is working and I am working.’  Perhaps originally taken from what C.H.Dodd and A. Hunter have suggested as a small parable, entitled ‘The Apprentices Son’. But in context Jesus, in essence, is claiming that because God does not rest from his work of creating life or taking life or upholding the universe providentially by his power on any given Sabbath. 

So Jesus has the prerogative to work as well, but the logical holds only if he, in some sense, is divine and not human. Since the offspring of the Sons of Israel were commanded to cease labor on the seventh day, Saturday or the Sabbath of the week. The first of the ‘I am’ sayings in John’s Gospel comes after the feeding of the five thousand and the walking on the water when he refers to himself as the ‘Bread of Life’ in his sermon in the Capernaum synagogue, Chapter 6:35. It is John alone who declares that this took place at the Passover. And hence, we have the imaginary of the fulfillment of Festival of the Unleavened Bread in the spiritual bread that Christ provides. The Festival of Tabernacles was known particularly for two rituals, the daily procession of priest from the Pool of Siloam reciting from Isaiah 12:8, ‘with joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation.’ And the brightly lit giant candle labret in the Temple, erected especially for this feast with daily services until the eighth and greatest day of the feast in which the candle labret was left unlit and a service of darkness ensued. Into the context of these rituals, Jesus comes declaring, ‘if anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink.’  Just as he had earlier spoken to the Samaritan woman in chapter 4, being able to provide living water so that she would never again thirst.  In 7:37 and again in 8:12 and 9:5, he declares himself as the Light of the World, the latter of these two passages, in the context of the miracle of the healing of the man born blind, a powerful enacted object lesson and a miraculous one of the more spiritual meaning of Jesus’ claim to be the light of the world. 

In between these two references, appears what is perhaps the most dramatic of the ‘I am’ sayings and perhaps the most dramatic of all the Christological claims, namely in the text of John 8:58, ‘before Abraham was, I am,’ using the ego ame of the divine name of Exodus 3:14 when Moses heard the voice of God speaking to him through the burning bush and disclosing his identity as the ‘I Am Who I Am’, the eternal sovereign existing one. Then in John 10:7-11, we have Jesus as the gate for the sheep and the Good Shepherd, a text which need not represent separate metaphors though they certainly may give the background of the imagery of a single shepherd with a small flock out in the wilderness at night on his own with just a small stoned corral. The shepherd actually slept in the doorway as a night time protector of the flock. Moving beyond the chapters that explicitly involve Jesus in Jerusalem during festival time or working and teaching with John specifically citing that it was festival time. We get the very dramatic claim in the context of the healing and resurrection of Lazarus that Jesus, himself, is the resurrection and the light. 

As we look on the next slide, we can see these key points of fulfillment summarized. The festival in chapter 5 was an unnamed one. It is an important debate whether this was Tabernacles or Passover in terms of trying to determine if Jesus’ ministry is to be viewed as two plus years spanning three Passovers or three plus years spanning four Passovers. But in terms of the point of the immediate episode of the healing of the paralytic, it is the conflict that emerges over the weekly Sabbath festival or feast that is the most significant. We have already commented on Passover time and Jesus as the Bread of Life, Tabernacles and Jesus as Living Waters and the Light of the World. What we see is the Good Shepherd discourse progresses is that in 10:22, if we are not to understand that Jesus is already at the Feast of Dedication, then the text jumps fairly seamlessly to Hanukkah, the December holiday in which Jews commemorated the liberation of Israel under the Maccabees after the desecration of the Temple by Antiochus Epiphanes. Recall our first lecture on the historical and political background to the New Testament. 

Speaking of himself as the good or noble shepherd is not meant to call to mind so much the nurturing, caring imaginary of an Old Testament text like Psalm 23 with its famous words about the Lord being my Shepherd but more likely texts such as those spanning Ezekiel 34 – 36 referring to shepherds as leaders and even ruler kings in Israel and also the wicked shepherds that Israel had to suffer under, leading to the exile forming the backdrop of so much of Ezekiel’s prophecy. But now we are into the messianic and eschatological forward looking part of Ezekiel. So that Jesus in John 10 presumably is implying that he is the messianic shepherd who will replace the corrupt shepherds in Israel, an interpretation that fit the continuing conflict between Jesus and the Jewish leaders in the fourth Gospel. It’s interesting to pause and reflect on more timeless applications of these central themes in the sections of John and paralleled in the synoptics which overlap with Jesus’ great Galilean ministry. If it is coming to Jesus in faith and entrusting one’s life to him that brings about true Sabbath rest, one thinks of Jesus’ words in Matthew 11 where he invites all who listen to him, ‘to come to me who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest.’ 

This contrasts Jesus invitation with the oral sayings of the Pharisees imposed as the Mishnah and Talmud which would later enunciate up to thirty nine different categories of work prohibited on the Sabbath. That which was meant to be a liberating festival, could easily be distorted into a time of being scrupulously obsessed with what a person could or could not do. One wonders if our modern western world with its obsession with work performance and workers working record long hours and also record numbers of family members in the work force with record number of jobs to try to make ends meet or supply and finance a debt or create a life style which is unrealistic for the family income but which is desirable and achievable for a period of time. We encounter it in schools, in the workplace, in sports; we also encounter this in competitions. Should the church and Christian communities be something of an oasis from this driving performance? But it would appear that we have yet to extend too much creative thought into thinking what this might look like and as a result, simply transfer that same driving motive of performance to our entire Christian context. 

What about Jesus as the Bread of Life? At Passover time, at the festival that commemorates Israel’s physical liberation by God through the Exodus. We seek people’s physical liberation including countries around the world where non-democratic governments hinder what our politicians call our national interest. Is this particularly and perfectly appropriate?  Or individual Christians to determine which government policies they wish to support? Should not the church, an oasis form that kind of driving force as well? We may choose to work momentarily through democratic processes to bring about political decisions that we believe would be easy for most Christians and the most beneficial for our people. But let us never confuse that with God’s primary way of working for his social and political purposes in the world which has always been through the community of God’s people, the church. 

Or again, consider Jesus as the Living Water and the Light of the World. But like all rituals, especially those that are repeated daily or seasonally or both. Such rituals can easily devolve into something done more out of tradition and more out of rote memory than full hearted participation. Of course, this can be applied to any religion, and Christianity is as guilty with its own repeated or mindless rituals. And not only in the high church where more immediate examples of such rituals show themselves, but in any form of church practice where one simply does the same thing, time after time, with little thought given to why one does it as one functions solely out of habit. This often challenges those who would suggest constructive changes; especially those who don’t want to continue in the same way of doing things. 

The next slide moves us to John 10 showing Jesus as the Good Shepherd vs all of the corrupt or wicked masters. That can be easily contemporized to other times and places when we simply brainstorm and take stock of who are all the other potential masters, whether humans or other religions, whether mammon or materialism, whatever becomes the most consuming allegiances in our lives. Continuing on in chapter 10 in that part of the Gospel where it is unambiguous, celebrating the liberation of the Maccabees. Jesus declares himself to be the true liberator who in the first instance does not necessarily bring political independence or liberation for the people in whatever state they find themselves. But rather he calls them to lay down their lives for their friends, to follow him who is the Good Shepherd, like beautiful sheep and by the language of Mark and the synoptics to take up their cross daily, even to the point of death, if that should be what is required of them. The devil attempted to tempt Jesus at the outset of his ministry to bypass the way of the Cross. And the devil will continue to try to tempt all of Jesus’ followers to do the same, one way of another in some point in their lives. 

Finally, we will reflect on Jesus as the resurrection and the life. It is only eternity that will last and therefore count, despite all of the scriptural mandates to make the most of every moment that God gives us in this world. And therefore, Jesus as the resurrection and the life contrasts with anyone and anything that would limit our focus merely to life in this world. 

Now, we turn to the major segments and material in the Gospel of Matthew and to the format which we have used already of having the students to reflect on different aspects of exegesis. The in class exercise accompanying this portion of this lecture includes the following statements and claims which are based on passages from Jesus’ teaching. However, each discloses one or more exegetical fallacies to the careful reader. Make sure you, as the student, read the synopsis in the Bible carefully and in context which may include a few verses or several paragraphs. Then do your best to determine what is wrong with your assigned statement. Consider the following:

In Matthew 10:8, Jesus commands his disciples to raise the dead, to heal the sick, to cleanse lepers and to cast out demons. You don’t have to be a charismatic to realize that God still uses his followers at time to heal the sick and to declare lepers ritually clean and to help them to become physically clean. Therefore, we can assume that he may at times use us to raise the dead. If only we would believe him and look for the opportunity. So there are a number of ways to consider this short paragraph. On the one hand, there do appear on rare occasions, well documented instances of God’s people within a very short time of what appear to be certified physical death; being resurrected in the sense of being brought back to full human life though all of them including those who Jesus raised would die again. On the other hand, it’s not obvious and universally agreed that such miraculous claims have been documented and even if they have, it is perhaps less justifiable to find Biblical supply for this fact simply from this particular passage. Our Bible verse in 10:8 appears in the context of Jesus missionary discourse that forms all of chapter ten, begins with words which are universally understood to be limited to this particular mission of sending the twelve disciples out to Israel because they were to go first to the lost sheep of Israel. We know after the resurrection that Jesus rescinded this, changing it to all the nations of the world and not merely to the lost sheep of Israel.

But if this paragraph or this portion of Jesus’ missionary discourse which most pointedly deals with the restrictions for this single foray by the twelve initial followers of Jesus extends to the end of verse 15. Most of the details in this segment would very much appear to sit this restriction, depending on others for gold, silver, copper, extra clothing, sandals, a walking stick etc. staying with people and one family the entire time they’re in one particular community depending on their hospitality, etc. Then it seems very unlikely that we should take any or all of verse 8 out of this larger context and thus, based on this verse alone, that these miracles must be intended to be repeated throughout church history. Once we get to 10:16, a transitional verse and certainly 10:17; then from there to the end of the chapter we have predictions of various kinds of hostilities which the disciples didn’t experience until after resurrection of Jesus. And therefore, it is clear that Jesus is looking beyond this initial mission with the kinds of commands and perditions that he makes. But he may well being doing so in two clear cut stages of the discourse. So it is not fair to assume that prior to verse 16 that there is anything that is necessarily looking beyond this immediate mission.