Why is John’s Gospel so difficult to understand?

August 11, 2024

Today’s Gospel is a continuation of the “Bread of Life” discourse that has been going on since last Sunday’s Gospel, and will continue for the following two Sundays.  This discourse, like John’s Gospel in general, is replete with various kinds of symbolism which have often created a lot of debates especially with reference to understanding the Eucharist.  And so in addition to  “I am the bread of life”; there are other symbols like “I am the light of the world” (8:12; 9:5) “I am the gate” (10:7, 9) “I am the good shepherd” (10:11, 14) “I am the resurrection and the life” (11:25) “I am the way, the truth, and the life” (14:6) “I am the true vine” (15:1, 5) - all statements that clearly use symbolism to ‘explain’ who Jesus is.  In fact the  entire Gospel itself is narrated around a symbolic structure of seven miracles, which this Gospel tells us are SIGNS (symbols) to lead us to Jesus.  Or again, surely it is symbolic language when, in the light of the destruction of the temple in 70 AD, after which this Gospel was written, we have Jesus claiming in this very same Gospel: “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up again” (John 2:19)  And so on and so forth.

But why was there the need for symbolism when talking about Jesus or God? Why couldn’t John’s Gospel just talk about Jesus’ life and message instead of giving us all these symbols to explain Jesus to us? After all, it is quite difficult trying to figure out the meanings of these symbols several years later, at least for a normal reader today. In fact, the very strong disagreements among Christian Churches about the in-dwelling of Jesus in the Eucharist is a good example of how various Christian groups down the centuries struggled, and still struggle, to understand this discourse on the Bread of Life.

The reality is that Symbolism offers us  something that other kinds of writing are unable to give. It does not present us with a black-and-white answer, but offers various images to help us perceive more deeply, sometimes doubling back on itself to push us to a deeper understanding. We find this ‘doubling back’ pattern in the Bread of Life of Discourse, where, for instance, Jesus first says  ‘I am the Bread of Life’ (v.35), then the ‘bread that came down from heaven’ (v. 41 and 50), then “I am the living bread (v.51) and so on and so forth,  each time offering a new idea to expand on the basic theme of the Bread of Life.  Thus, to adapt what one writer said, instead of placing before us a propositional argument, a symbolic discourse jolts us with incongruity even as it nudges us with possibilities; and even as we are still  grappling with trying to understand it, the discourse comes back again with a further embellishment, and so on, again and again, until it finally grows silent, leaving us to choose a meaning or a value or a commitment. This is exactly what happens in John’s narration of this discourse (John, ch.6).

But symbolism is unclear and unsettling because it only points the direction to us, as it leaves us stretching for the truth.  And we human beings generally prefer clarity and certainty in the truths we hold, because clarity gives us control.  In the Old Testament we have this very interesting incident when Moses asks the Divine Reality that he meets in the burning bush to tell him his name.  It must be remembered that in the Jewish tradition, knowing someone’s name, or giving some one a name, indicated a kind of ‘power/control’ over that person.  And the divine reality rebuffs Moses, with the answer, I AM WHO I AM.   In other words, I will not tell you my name, for “I am who I am, I exist” - and that is enough for you to know.  Sadly, such lack of clarity is not something we human beings are comfortable with.

 

However, as I have said many times before in various blogs, it is impossible to talk of God in human terms for we do not have the language for it (See my Parable of the Plants in the blog on June 4, 2023).  But that doesn’t stop us, and in our hubris we constantly try to create God in our own image and likeness. And so, for most of us, God is a ‘super-human’, a person like us  with good human qualities, but of course, with those qualities in the greatest degree. So God is most caring, most loving, most just, and so on and so forth.  We can relate with such a God whose qualities are clear to us.  But God refuses to fit self into this kind of personhood, and so we are upset when God doesn’t stick to the kind of person we have made God out to be, when God does not always bring about justice, God does not always seem caring, and so on and so forth.

And so, what else could the followers gathered around John do? They hear of the stories of Jesus and it seems to them that this man was so close to God and so powerful that he could change water into wine, walk on the waters and quell a raging storm, raise to life a Lazarus who had been dead for many days, and so on and so forth -  and yet could not prevent himself from being arrested and finally crucified like a criminal on the cross.  And strangely, despite this, they felt a power in him that was beyond all that. And since John himself was “uneducated” (Acts 4:13), it fell to his disciples who were with him on the Greek island of Patmos (Revelation 1:9), and who wrote this Gospel in erudite Greek, to communicate his experience to the larger community which was spread out over the Roman Empire. And how could they explain this incongruity, this Jesus who was not superhumanly powerful,  in the way that we would understand it, and yet full of power? How could they do that except through a Gospel that embodies a symbolic and yet true narration of his life!

John’s Gospel, thus, offers us multiple symbols, and perhaps we need to latch on to the symbol that makes sense to us, or create our own symbolic way of thinking about God.  Here is one example of a personal symbolic way of speaking about God that was shared with me by my daughter:

I am but a tiny thread,

Part of creation’s entire spread;

Like so many others, a tiny strand

Of a tapestry, infinite and grand;

And YOU are all our strings, but even more,

And it is into YOU that we grow,

For each of us is touched by YOU.

 

But each of us is also changing YOU

Through our own tiny tapestries

That celebrate our own individualities,

For when we pull our own string

We too are creating, we too are harming,

That entire tapestry that is YOU

 

Can we each then find ways to expand our ways of thinking about God, and about Jesus, so that our mind’s reach exceeds our grasp, even as it stretches towards the unknown and Ultimate Reality?

1st Reading – 1 Kings 19:4-8

Elijah went a day’s journey into the desert, until he came to a broom tree and sat beneath it. He prayed for death saying: “This is enough, O LORD! Take my life, for I am no better than my fathers.” He lay down and fell asleep under the broom tree, but then an angel touched him and ordered him to get up and eat. Elijah looked and there at his head was a hearth cake and a jug of water. After he ate and drank, he lay down again, but the angel of the LORD came back a second time, touched him, and ordered, “Get up and eat, else the journey will be too long for you!” He got up, ate, and drank; then strengthened by that food, he walked forty days and forty nights to the mountain of God, Horeb.

 

2nd Reading – Ephesians 4:30-5:2

Brothers and sisters: Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with which you were sealed for the day of redemption. All bitterness, fury, anger, shouting, and reviling must be removed from you, along with all malice. And be kind to one another, compassionate, forgiving one another as God has forgiven you in Christ.  So be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us and handed himself over for us as a sacrificial offering to God for a fragrant aroma.

 

Gospel – John 6:41-51

The Jews murmured about Jesus because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven, “ And they said, “Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph? Do we not know his father and mother? Then how can he say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?”
Jesus answered and said to them, “Stop murmuring among yourselves. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draw him, and I will raise him on the last day.  It is written in the prophets: They shall all be taught by God. Everyone who listens to my Father and learns from him comes to me. Not that anyone has seen the Father except the one who is from God; he has seen the Father.  Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life.
I am the bread of life.  Your ancestors ate the manna in the desert, but they died; this is the bread that comes down from heaven so that one may eat it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the  world.”