Saturday, 3/23/13
St. John constructed his Gospel the way Beethoven or
Schubert wrote symphonies. He had two themes that he repeated and combined
through three movements. The first theme presents Jesus as the Savior and Son
of God; the second shows how we have life by believing in him.
The three movements echoed Exodus when: the Father brought
the people out of slavery; he
supported them through a life span; then, he brought them into the Promised Land.
In his Gospel John dramatized the way the Son does the same
things for his people. To echo the departure from Egypt John substituted the story
of Jesus cleansing the temple. In place of God’s supporting the Israelites in
the desert, John presented Jesus as the bread from heaven, as the water from
the rock, and as the light we follow through the darkness. To dramatize the Son
leading his people into the Promised Land John dramatized death on the cross as
the completion of Our Lord’s Passover. (Differing from Matthew, Mark and Luke,
St. John presented the passing of Jesus from this world on the very day of the
Passover.)
Both exodus stories, the one in the Pentateuch and the one in
John’s version, fit the pattern for classical dramas. Each has a clear
beginning, middle, and end. John cleverly supplied us with road markers telling
us what stage of the story we had reached. His road markers are the simple
phrase, “The Passover of the Jews was near.” John posted it first in his
Chapter Two when Jesus cleansed the temple. He posted it again at the beginning
of his Chapter Six when Jesus was about to present himself as Bread from
heaven. In today’s Gospel we see him posting this marker at the beginning of
the week when he would pass from this world. In verse 11:55 we read, “The
Passover of the Jews was near.”
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