St. John the Amazing
I've been working my way through St. John's Gospel again, taking notes and preparing to write a good study of the gospel that condenses and distills all of the many good commentaries and lectures I've heard over the last few years.
I am absolutely amazed at the first 18 verses - the Prologue. This is just beautiful stuff. I can't imagine that any one of us could accomplish what St. John accomplishes in this short cluster of verses.
Imagine what you would write if I asked you to read the Gospel of St. John and come up with a short summary of all the themes found therein: Jesus is the light, Jesus is the life, you must believe in Him, He bears the divine name, the world will reject Him, the Jews will reject Him, etc.
What would you write if you only had 18 verses at your disposal? Even if you could compose such a summary, it would be difficult to make it easy to read, or intelligible - much less achieve the level of super-poetry with as much theological richness as St. John manages to accomplish.
Even on a purely literary level, this prologue is a piece of art - it really demonstrates St. John's ability as a wordsmith and an artist.
For example, he manages to construct the prologue as a kind of Overture - a brief piece of literary music in which you can hear snippets of the larger works which will appear later in the Gospel. He speaks of light and darkness, which is later picked up by Our Lord when He says He is the "light of the world," that we must "walk in the light" - a theme which He demonstrates later by healing the blind man and thus bringing light to his eyes. St. John also touches on the theme of Our Lord as the New Moses when he writes that "the Law came through Moses, but grace and truth through Jesus Christ." This is unpacked all throughout the gospel as St. John shows Our Lord claiming to be the true manna from heaven, acting as the true Passover Lamb, etc.
Even within the prologue itself there is obvious craftsmanship. Consider how the passages lead you logically from a picture of the Word as located in Heaven, followed by the Word located in the world, followed by the Word located in the Church/believer.
There is a lovely bit of parallelism between vs. 1 and vs. 14, perhaps the two most glorious statements in the entire prologue: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God," followed by "and the Word became flesh and tabernacled among us."
"The Word was" in vs. 1 is met with "The Word became" in vs. 14.
"The Word was God" is met with "The Word became flesh."
Finally, "The Word was with God" is matched up with "The Word ... tabernacled among us."
Again, I ask ... how many of us could write a prologue that is this succinct, this theologically rich, this well-constructed, both as a whole and in its constituent parts?
I think I'm falling in love with St. John's Gospel all over again...
I am absolutely amazed at the first 18 verses - the Prologue. This is just beautiful stuff. I can't imagine that any one of us could accomplish what St. John accomplishes in this short cluster of verses.
Imagine what you would write if I asked you to read the Gospel of St. John and come up with a short summary of all the themes found therein: Jesus is the light, Jesus is the life, you must believe in Him, He bears the divine name, the world will reject Him, the Jews will reject Him, etc.
What would you write if you only had 18 verses at your disposal? Even if you could compose such a summary, it would be difficult to make it easy to read, or intelligible - much less achieve the level of super-poetry with as much theological richness as St. John manages to accomplish.
Even on a purely literary level, this prologue is a piece of art - it really demonstrates St. John's ability as a wordsmith and an artist.
For example, he manages to construct the prologue as a kind of Overture - a brief piece of literary music in which you can hear snippets of the larger works which will appear later in the Gospel. He speaks of light and darkness, which is later picked up by Our Lord when He says He is the "light of the world," that we must "walk in the light" - a theme which He demonstrates later by healing the blind man and thus bringing light to his eyes. St. John also touches on the theme of Our Lord as the New Moses when he writes that "the Law came through Moses, but grace and truth through Jesus Christ." This is unpacked all throughout the gospel as St. John shows Our Lord claiming to be the true manna from heaven, acting as the true Passover Lamb, etc.
Even within the prologue itself there is obvious craftsmanship. Consider how the passages lead you logically from a picture of the Word as located in Heaven, followed by the Word located in the world, followed by the Word located in the Church/believer.
There is a lovely bit of parallelism between vs. 1 and vs. 14, perhaps the two most glorious statements in the entire prologue: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God," followed by "and the Word became flesh and tabernacled among us."
"The Word was" in vs. 1 is met with "The Word became" in vs. 14.
"The Word was God" is met with "The Word became flesh."
Finally, "The Word was with God" is matched up with "The Word ... tabernacled among us."
Again, I ask ... how many of us could write a prologue that is this succinct, this theologically rich, this well-constructed, both as a whole and in its constituent parts?
I think I'm falling in love with St. John's Gospel all over again...
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