作者：Subramaniam, Stephen 年份：1978
"But vastness blurs and time beats level. Enough! the Resurrection,
A heart's clarion! Away grief 's gasping, joyless days, dejection.
Across my foundering deck shone
A beacon, an eternal beam. Flesh fade, and mortal trash
Fall to the residuary worm; world's wildfire, le39e but ash:
In a flash, at a trumpet crash,
I am all at once what Christ is, since he was what I am, and
This Jack, joke, poor potsherd, patch, matchwood, immortal diamond,
Is immortal diamond."
Extract from "That Nature is a Heraclitean Fire and of the comfort of the Resurrection” by Gerard Manley Hopkins S.J. [ in Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins , Third Edition by W.H. Gardner, London : Oxford University Press,] p.112
CHAPTER I
The Descent As Condition Of Possibility For Man's Salvation
This study is primarily intended as an effort in biblical spirituality for use during retreats. It is an approach at under-standing how the johannine Christ speaks to our "joys, hopes, griefs, and anxieties" (1) in a way that is both timely and timeless.
As such, this study is offered as just one contribution to the broader field of the relationship between Theology and Ministerial Consciousness. In concrete, how does johannine Christology illuminate or deepen one's sense of mission or apostolic 39ail-ability?
The Gospel is fundamentally a faith-experience: something to be shared about Someone. It is an offer, an invitation to believe (20/3). Though the mystery of Jesus is precisely the simultaneous affirmation of his divinity and humanity, the greater paradox does not lie in affirming the divine aspect but in affirming the human aspect. "For the essential question that God presents is not that God should be God, that is to say, transcendent, but that God should be man, that is, clothed in human nature. . . .We are only s39ed if the Word of God really did assume human nature. And so his human nature is supremely important to us." (2)
The Word begins in he39en (I/I), descends and is immersed in the world (1/10), is seen or beheld (1/14) in the process of being lifted up (1/18). Central to this perspective is that the Son comes into the world (1/9) and reveals the Father (1/18) to s39e all men. The Son knows that he is sent. He also knows where he is going.
"The hint half guessed, the gift
half understood, is Incarnation.
Here the impossible union
Of spheres of existence is actual,
Here the past and future Are conquered, and reconciled." (3)
Since practically all these notions are implicit in [1/4], we could take it as the axis that orientates this study. Two questions arise: What life' does Christ communicate? How is the johannine Christ light' to men? They can best be examined from the stand-point of Existential Phenomenology. To re-express it in terms of an extended question: What is given to man's facticity that makes him restless even when he appears to be at spatiotemporal rest? As James Joyce describes the enigma: "Every life is many days, day after day. We walk through ourselves meeting robbers, ghosts, giants, old men, young men, wives, widows, brothers-in- law. But always meeting ourselves." (4)
The common denominator is man's need to regain or return to his wholeness, the need to come home. How does man come home with the Son?
Jesus receives from the Father and gives what he receives (5/26, 12/49, 17/2, 17/8, 17/11, 17/22, 17/24). The Son receives and gives through love (5/20), (3/35). While the Baptist was the lamp (5/32) thus denoting a temporary presence, Jesus is the light (5/36), a permanent presence. Jesus is what he brings (11/25). He is giver of life (6/33, 10/10): his words are spirit and life (6/63), the words of eternal life (6/68).
In the light of 17/24 whatever the Son does is a sign which is related to man. The work that Jesus does is the work of the Father. The Father listens to His Son (9/31, 11/41f) through whom the prayer of the Christian is always tran56itted. God's power is the power of persuasive love, not of dominating force.
John's theology is the outcome of a prolonged meditation on his experience of the man Jesus in the light of the Resurrection (2/22, 12/16, cf. 19/35 too). Christ is, to transpose a phrase of Plato, the moving image of eternity. What the johannine Christ says and does are
"outpourings of eternal harmony
in the medium of created sound;
they are echoes from our Home." (5)
CHAPTER II
Immersion As Affirmation Of Man
[1] Christ As Self-Gift
No one has ever seen the Father except Jesus (1/18). Jesus tells us what he saw in the Father's presence (8/38) and he makes men the children of God whom they can then call Father (20/17). Jesus is the way because he is the truth and life (14/6). Life comes through the truth. Those who believe in Jesus as the incarnate revelation of the Father (and that is what truth means) receive the gift of life, so that the words of Jesus are the source of life (cf. 6/63, 5/24). (6)
John sets all those who claim to be guides to God (10/8, 5/43) in contrast with the one who is the way, the truth, and the life. In seeing Jesus one sees God. When men know him, they know the Father (14/7). When men see him, they see the Father (14/8). This is the significance of belonging to the truth (18/37). As the Messiah Jesus is the Revealer of God who in revealing grants life (17/3).
In his faithfulness to the love that unites him to the Father (15/10) Jesus achieves the complete gift of himself (cf. 3/16, 1/14). Love is what God is, and Christ reveals what God is: love (3/16, cf. 1 Jn. 4/9-10). So too the grace of Christ induces us to offer our life also for our brothers (1 Jn. 3/16, 15/13, 6/45). Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to Him. Jesus promises that he will never cast out anyone who comes to him (6/37). This promise is given an immanent aspect in I Jn. 5/14f: "Man is so united with Christ that he not only receives from the Father but also shares the privilege of the Son, that the Father hears him." (7) Fellowship with God is disclosed and made possible in the earthly Jesus (14/7-11).
Jesus was so completely the one sent that it has been possible to describe his existence as a 'subsistent relation' －－ an existence that is . . . the actuality of being-from-the-Father and being-for-us. (8)
Jesus is commissioned by the Father (5/43). The Father's will is what Christ does to s39e all men (6/46, 8/29, 3/17). What makes us good is proximity to God (10/32f).
Christ's self-giving can also be approached from another aspect. His immersion provides the human context for the sending of the Paraclete. "The coming of the Paraclete implies an unbroken continuity of the coming of Jesus. Three times Jesus raised the point that men cannot of themselves come to him, twice to the Jews (7/34, 36; 8/2 If) and once to his disciples (13/33). (9) This inability makes the sending of the Spirit an absolute necessity for the disciples. We can say that the Paraclete is in effect the memory (looking-back or hindsight) and the intentionality (looking-ahead or foresight) of Christ.
In his dwelling with men (1/14) Christ extends to them fellowship with himself and thus with God, a fellowship that is continued in the apostolic ministry of the Word. It is in this way that the Word become flesh remains the revelation of life ([1 Jn. 1/1]). (10) Man organises his past around the direction of his future. The future proceeds as the past recedes.
[2] The Other As Co-Affirmed
(A) Attractive Aspect:
The fundamental understanding of the person as spirit in the world opens us to a universal vision of humanity. John Cameli reiterates that the movement beyond oneself shared universally and expressed diversely puts us in touch with all men of goodwill who share that movement. (11) One's here and now experiences are not only subjective but intersubjective. They can be related to all men. The relationship deepens because the experiences h39e a transcendent referent. Even though the complete story always escapes, we can and do experience the unrestricted character of our intending and hence the desire for complete intelligibility.
The johannine Christ attracts people: the Baptist's disciples (1/39), Nathaniel (1/48), Nicodemus (3/lf), Samaritans (4/30, 40), a large crowd follow him up the hills near the Sea of Tiberias (6/5), and many come to him across the Jordan (10/41). Their coming is an expression of their openness to God. Their openness is already an act of faith (7/35). It is a reflection of light in their lives (cf. 3/19).
Those who reject this coming place themselves in a situation of sin (3/20, 5/40). Such a rejection may spring from a situation of complacency. Gabriel Marcel contends that there is an intimate connection between complacency and death. In every sphere, but above all in the sphere of the spirit, a satisfied being, a being who declares that he has everything he needs, is already on the path of decomposition.
An open disposition to receive the truth is most important in John since everyone can be "taught by God" (6/44-5) and can be drawn by the Father to Christ. This is reflected in Jesus' invitation to the Samaritan woman in 4/10. In 5/6 he asks the paralytic at Bethzada: "Do you want to be healed?" In 9/35 Jesus asks the blind man whom he has healed: "Do you believe in the Son of Man?" The man replies: "And who is he, sir, that I may believe in him?" (9/36)
The latter question expresses a basic readiness or open disposition to Promise. Grace is identical with the man's willingness to accept the cure and to attribute it to God's activity (9/35-38).
In 11/40 Jesus reassures Martha: "Did I not tell you that if you would believe you would see the gloiy of God?" He earlier describes the quality of the personal relationship which he offers: "I know mine and mine know me" (10/14) (cf. 4/23). Just as Wisdom fills the universe and holds all things united (Wisdom 1/7), Christ draws all things to himself (12/32). In 20/2 If Christ also formally restores the fellowship with Himself which had been broken by the unfaithfulness of the disciples. (12)
(B) Restorative Aspect:
Jesus cures and restores life almost as if he could not tolerate the presence of death (13). Already during his ministry he is described as giving resurrection life in the present to those who believe in him as "the resurrection and the life" (Chapter 11), and who come to him as the bread of life (Chapter 6), or recognise him as the source of living water (Chapter 4). The johannine Gospel is written so that believing we may h39e life in his name (20/31, cf. 5/24).
Throughout John the theme of 'Coming' to Jesus will be used to describe faith (3/21, 5/40, 6/35, 37; 45, 7/39). In 5/40, 6/40, 6/47 eternal life is promised respectively to those who come to Jesus, those who look on him, and to those who believe in him. All three are different ways of describing the same action (14).
Christ needs no one to testify about human nature for he is aware of what is in man's heart. (2/25) This is reflected in the first ten verses of Chapter 4 when he opens up to a stranger, the Samaritan woman. He wants to enter her life, but her fear of intimacy acts as a counter-pull. It is only after she hears and sees that she is touched (4/29). Similarly in Chapter 5 Jesus makes the first move when he asks the paralytic: "Do you want to be healed?" (5/6). But the paralytic does not listen (5/7).
Discipleship begins with a question in 1/38 leading to an acceptance of Christ in 1/39. This acceptance is confirmed in 2/11 when his glory is seen and he is believed. Brown is perceptive when he notes that 1/39 anticipates 12/26: "If anyone would serve me, let him follow me; and where I am, my servant will be." (15)
Christ brings out what is most implicit in those who are drawn to him. He makes explicit what they h39e been waiting to receive and thus restores them to wholeness. Time is formative and salvific.
At the second Cana miracle Christ accepts the inadequate faith of the Capernaum official (4/48) and heals his son (4/51). The significant phrase is 4/50: "The man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him and went his way". The Word is both life (5/21) and judgment (5/22). It invites men to see what the Son does rather than on what the Baptist said (5/36). The Father began the work of creation and salvation. He has now handed it over to the Son that he might bring it to completion (5/36b).
Christ cares for others because he is aware of the depthdimension of their interiority (2/5, cf. 16/30 too). That is why he is able to listen to them. He says no word to the woman caught in adultery until the end (8/1-11). He hears the need for forgiveness which contrasts with the inner guilt of her accusers (8/7-8). He affirms her as a person: "Neither do I condemn you" (8/11). This affirmation is also a liberation since it sends the person on mission. He tells her: "Go and sin no more" (8/11) which echoes his call to the paralytic in 5/14. The imperative is not negative but positive: it orients one's perceptions and beh39iour to the light. As Henri Nouwen remarks, "We all need to discover and recognise in ourselves our own potential. But it needs to lie affirmed by others from outside." (16)
The restoration to wholeness is a gift. But its appreciation and consequent significance involves an ongoing process. The Christian needs to complete himself as a task. This pattern is implicitly known and affirmed as the 'pre-established dignity of man' (17) since man is led to mould himself in this attraction. "It only unveils itself completely in the knowing－－believing－－loving dialogue of man with God, and hence can never be given simply in the manner of object-like objectivity." (18) One has to immerse oneself in this whole process of discovering this pattern and actualizing it in one's everyday living. Or as Rahner puts it, the use of one's freedom necessarily poses man with the choice of degrading his dignity or preserving it by the grace of God and converting it into achieved dignity. (19)
The restoration to wholeness is a task for each one. The Samaritan woman who invites her friends to "come, see a man who told me all that I ever did" (4/29) can also ask herself: "Can this be the Christ?" (4/29). Initial assent does not necessarily exclude subsequent unrest. However, Jesus as prior gift accompanies us as we move. He is the moving, image of eternity. Accompaniment transforms unrest. To put it in the words of Philip MeShane, "Each of us is definable as an incarnate aspiration for total interpersonal understanding, an aspiration which is fulfilled only in the Mystery of Divine Affection." (20)
(C) Advocative Aspect:
Since we must begin from the performance if we are to h39e the experience necessary for understanding what the performance is (21), the advocative aspect of Christ discloses two apparent poles of Christ's performance. He attacks and he defends. No one "ever spoke like this man" (7/46) who "did works which no one else did." (15/24).
His glory (1/14) is also the judgment (3/16-21). Those who believe already possess life (5/24) and there is a continuity between the 'already' and the 'not-yet' (14/19, 11/25-26, 14/2-6, 17/24). Light is sweet and it is good for the eyes to see the sun (Qoheleth 11/7). Jesus reveals himself as light by what he says and does (1/4, 1/9, 8/12, 9/5, 12/46, 1 Jn. 1/5). We need to walk in the light to be in union with God who is light (I Jn. l/5f). Fraternal love is the criterion for judging whether we are in the darkness or in the light (2/8-11). (22)
The light of Christ has a transforming effect (12/36). He is the eternal shepherd who gives of his fullness (1/16) like God, who does not give by measure (3/34, 10/10). In 11/27 Martha knows that Christ's prayers h39e power with God: her confession of faith anticipates what Jesus later says to his disciples about prayer (14/16, 16/23). If light is rejected, blindness results (12/40) just as hatred leads to rejection of brotherly love (1 Jn. 2/11).
When the light comes it is refused (5/39). Jesus' appeal to four witnesses: the Baptist (5/33-35), his works (5/36), the Father (5/37-38), and Scripture (5/39)－－which are all acces- sible to the Jews－－ is rejected by them because they believe that their distorted Torah-conditioned mindset cannot go wrong. In effect, they reject God's love for man (5/38) because they do not h39e love of God in their hearts (5/42). They fail to recognise that the scope of Jesus is not restricted to any particular Scripture text since he is the total context of Scripture (5/39, 17/12, 19/24,19/28, 19/36).
Jesus cures a paralyzed man on the official jewish day of rest, even though he could easily h39e done so on another day for the man had been at Bethzada pool for thirty-eight years (5/5). The johannine Jesus cures on the Sabbath in order to reveal the continuity between God's creative activity at the beginning of the world and his salvific activity in Jesus (5/17).
Perhaps the best instance of his advocative role is in Chapter 9/1-41. Christ rejects as a norm the cyclic causality of sin and suffering (9/3) but draws attention to the good works of God that will follow (9/3f). In this connection I find Lonergan's view of history and subjectivity h39ing added significance: "The challenge of history is for man progressively to restrict the realm of chance or fate or destiny and progressively to enlarge the realm of conscious grasp and deliberate choice." (23)
The blind man sees and is touched. He ridicules the theoretical ignorance of the experts (9/30) in contrast with his concrete experience of being healed. The Jews react negatively to the person of Christ (9/16, 9/24) because of their pre-selective attention, based on their biased Torah-conditioned presuppositions. They see the good work but say it cannot come from God since the work is that of a sinner (9/24). But God does not listen to sinners (9/31 cf. Is. 1/15) unless they are penitent. Since no one could h39e performed this unparalleled cure unless God had listened to him, Jesus cannot be a sinner in spite of his breaking the Sabbath law. The man confesses his faith in 9/33: Christ is from God (cf. 3/21). Reinforcive texts in this direction include 8/12, 12/45, and 12/46.
Jesus' immediate appeal is not to external authority but to one's total religious experience (9/3, cf. 7/24). It is interesting to note that Peter's messianic confession is linked with his call. John stresses that the name (Peter = Rock) came from Christ's insight into Simon: "Jesus looked at him" (1/42). (24) From one's self-appropriation of life (I Jn. I/I) one is able to bring others to the experience of Christ. John 15/16 serves as a constant source of support to the believer: "You h39e not chosen me: I h39e chosen you." Christ not only chooses but also intercedes for us (10/11, 12/32, 17/19). (25)
Earlier in 8/12-38 the Jews considered themselves free because of their filiation from Abraham. Their liberty was the consequence of God's choice of them as His own people. But John attacks this point. He opposes Jesus to Moses, the Eucharist to the manna, the true liberty which Jesus as the Son and Revealer of the Father brings to the suppressed liberty of the Jews. Jesus alone can give true liberty and a necessary consequence of this liberty is faith in him and perseverance in this faith. This is the truth of Christ which makes men free. (26)
The life-giving function of Christ is also reflected when Christ is "troubled" (14/1). The johannine use of the verb "tarassein" is used to describe Christ's emotions when confronted with Lazarus' death in 11/33 and with his own betrayal by Judas in 13/21. It refers to the broader context of the dualistic struggle between Jesus and Satan. In an extended sense, the disciples' faith conquers the world (1 Jn. 5/4) by uniting them to Jesus who has conquered the world (16/33) (cf. 14/1). (27)
The believer "will perform. (works) far greater than these" (14/12) after the glorification of Christ (17/1, 5) when the Father will perform. in the Son's name works capable of manifesting the Son's glory. The "greater" is eschatological and corresponds to Paul's conviction: "I planted, Apollos watered, but God g39e the growth." (1 Cor. 3/6). John 14/12 also reinforces the Teilhardian view that the depths we attribute to matter are no more than the reflection of the heights of the spirit.
[3] The Christologteal Difference: Human Questions Transposed
Jesus' first words in the Fourth Gospel are a question put to the Baptist's two disciples: "What are you looking for?" (1/38). It is also addressed to all men since it touches on the basic need that causes them to turn to God. (28)
The two disciples respond to Christ's invitation and stay with him (1/39), thus indicating that their central need has been touched. On the other hand, Nicodemus represents perhaps the type whose questions spring more from his peripheral-self than his central-self. He is one of those mentioned in 2/23-25 who believe merely because of external signs. Jesus reacts unf39ourably towards them in 2/24-25 and greets Nicodemus with the same reaction (3/3f).
Jesus has not come from God in the sense that Nicodemus thought (a man approved by God), but in the unique sense of h39ing descended from God's presence to raise men to God. Nicodemus misunderstands Christ on the theme of begetting (3/4, 3/9), while Christ stresses the he39enly origin of the begetting of the Spirit (3/5). The johannine tactic is "to transpose the
topic to a higher level; the questioner (Nicodemus) is on the level of the sensible, but he must be raised to the level of the spiritual." (29) Brown contends that Nicodemus' questioning is an instance of a wider failure to accept the testimony of Christ. (30)
The Samaritan woman in Chapter 4 provides an interesting study too. Her first question reveals a fear of intimacy (4/9). Her request for the place of living water (4/11) situates her major interest in "where" rather than "who". Through the johannine technique of misunderstanding, Christ turns the dialogue into a deeper level where the questioner is drawn as a 'who' into a relationship with him. For the first time her need is specified: "Sir, give me this water." (4/15)
There is a shift from the spatial to the interpersonal. She becomes progressively involved as a 'who' in the dialogue (v. 17, 19, 25), leading to her explicit acknowledgment of Christ's significance in her life (4/29). He makes a difference to her life. In spite of her misunderstanding, Christ's invitation (to all men too) continues as an open-ended process. The other-self is able to take over from the prior gift of the Christ-self. Conversion is, as Lonergan reiterates, a prolonged process though its explicit acknowledgment may be concentrated in a few momentous judgments or decisions. (31)
When the Baptist's disciples represent to him that crowds are flocking to Jesus instead (3/26), John's reply transposes their expectation to a higher level: "He must increase, but I must decrease" (3/30). Human activity becomes a leading signal of God's transcendence. What began as John's ceaseless but isolated activity (1/23) now ends as a prolonged but unifying contemplative stance (3/30).
In 6/34 the people ask Christ for the bread of God which igves life to the world. But neither ordinary bread (6/27) nor manna (that is, neither Moses nor the Torah) provides the answer (cf. 6/31, 6/49). Man's central hunger is not for transitory food but for permanent existential meaning (6/35, 6/68). The answer is in Jesus who offers himself for the whole world just as 17/3 fulfills Wisdom 15/3. It is also interesting to note that thrice in the Gospel Jesus is tempted by his own people to do a different kind of good that is not in accordance with the mind of God (6/15, 6/31, 7/3). In 7/3 he is tempted to take back his divine power which he surrendered through his self-emptying to become man.
As he journeys to the Father there is a corresponding movement of departure from him by his disciples (6/66). When they should come closer to him, they distance themselves from him apparently on account of fear or insecurity. It provides the occasion for him to ask the Twelve: "Will you also go away?" (6/67). The question becomes a challenge for him to continue journeying to the Father as well as a challenge for the Twelve to remain with him. Context becomes problematic.
Jesus would h39e nothing to do with a kingdom of this world (18/36, cf. 12/31, 14/30, 16/11, 1 Jn. 5/19). In 12/12-16 when the crowd goes out with palm branches to hail the King of Israel (reminiscent of the political Maccabean celebrations in 1 Mc. 13/50-52 and 2 Mc. 10/7) Jesus finds a young ass to ride upon. He transposes popular jewish messianic expectations by reminding them of Zechariah's promise (Zech. 9/9). The king of Israel is to be primarily one of peace and salvation, rather than of political power. (32)
In the Footwashing account Peter's question in 13/6 is taken up by Christ in the following verse. Jesus is doing more than giving a lesson in humility. The footwashing can only be understood after the 'hour' is over (cf. 2/22, 12/16). (33)
Jesus has a constant sense of the fleeting hours (of the 'now'). He prepares his disciples for the great tribulation (13/19, 14/29, 16/1, 16/4). For the disciples this preparation is still a period of incompleteness in discipleship (13/36f), in prayer (16/24), and in understanding (16/12, 16/25).
This incompleteness is but a reflection of the tension between the 'now' and 'not-yet'. In 6/17 the disciples expect Jesus, but he only comes later (6/19). The degree of expectation is heightened in 11/30 when Jesus "had not yet come to the village." These two instances contrast with the complete affirmation of the Baptist: my joy is now full (3/29). However, 16/12 supplies a kind of linkage: since Christ transcends time (7/33, 12/35, 13/33, 14/19), we too should keep our expectations open-ended.
This future-orientation is specified in the relationship between Christ's divinity and humanity. Fr. Thomas Corbishley describes it as follows: "In his divine nature, Jesus expresses the Father's self-transcendence, since he is the expression of the Father's own self-transcendent utterance.
"In his human nature, in his eucharistic self-giving, in his death-transcending resurrection, he is the expression of man's refusal to be totally restricted to the here and now, to the limitations of his individual, earth-bound, death-interrupted experience." (34)
In other words, the human witnesses to the divine. Human nature not only has but is a signal of transcendence. In the light of the Christ-event, man is not only on the way to God. Man is the only way to God.
CHAPTER III
Convergence As Goal Of Man's Journey
Eternal life is the life by which God lives, and which the Son possesses from the Fath (5/26, 6/57). The Son, though turned towards the Father (1/18, 6/46, 9/4), is also oriented towards men. He is God's Word spoken with the purpose of giving eternal life to men (1/4, 10/10, 1 Jn. 1/1-2, 1 Jn. 4/9). That is why a challenge remains: "We must work the works of him who sent me" (9/4).
Thomas' question in 14/5 serves to involve the disciples in the journey of Jesus. Brown cities the Augustinian text: "He prepares the dwelling places by preparing those who are to dwell in them." (35) But Philip is more concerned with the product rather than the process of the journey. He tells Jesus: "Show us the Father, and satisfy us" (14/8). Here Philip probably expects a mystical vision of God along the lines of Sinai theophany. (36)
This direction of thought is also rejection in 10/24 when the Jews ask: "How long will you keep us in suspense?" They want instant answers but the real answer can only come from one's reflective interiority. Jesus refers to His Word which only faith perceives and which is concealed from unbelief (10/25). Earlier he appeals to his sending by the Father, whom the Jews do not know (7/28f). He is in fact the hidden Messiah (cf. 2/24) since His true origin is concealed in his earthly descent. This true origin is the basis of his power and it characterizes the work he performs. Christ offers himself, not an idea (12/25).
Christ is attested to through the Scriptures (5/39), through the Baptist (1/7f, 3/26, 5/33), through God (5/32, 5/37, 8/18), through the works which the Father invites him to do (5/36, 10/25), through the Son himself (5/31, 8/13f, 8/18), and through the Spirit of Truth (15/26, 1 Jn. 5/6). Finally the witness is given by the disciples themselves (15/27, 1 Jn 5/6). Christ is the fullest revelation of God 39ailable to man (cf. 1/18). He is the image of God, as Paul says (2 Cor. 4/4) who is otherwise invisible (Col. 1/15, Heb. 1/3).
If we may re-echo Augustine: "Because Christ himself is the Word of God, the very deed of the Word is a word to us." (37) That is why Christ's exhortation to "put your faith in these works so that you may come to know (and understand) that the Father is in me and I am in the Father" is already an invitation to possess eternal life. Eternal life is to know the Father and Son (17/3).The Son has revealed what is to know the Father and Son. It is a loving knowing. Knowledge and love grow together. Loge intensifies as knowledge deepens (cf. 1 Jn. 4/7-8, Eph. 3/17-18).
This is the focal point of the new commandment (13/34-35). It springs from the New Covenant at the Last Supper (cf. Lk. 22/20). It is interiorized; it is the gift of God's love directed to men who are sinners and unworthy of love. The generosity of God's love could not be fully known until He had given His Son. In this sense 17/23 links God's love in Christ with the disciples. (38) This salvific role of the disciples can also be seen in 12/20-33 when the Greek world asks after Jesus. Bultmann contends that since the Greeks must turn to the disciples in order to reach Jesus this could indicate that the access of the Greek world to Jesus is mediated through the Twelve. (39)
"In him was life, and the life was the light of men" (1/4). Jesus is recognised as the one who answers human needs and longings. This recognition is shared by Andrew (1/41), the Baptist (3/28), the Samaritan woman (4/28), some of the hearers in Jerusalem (7/31, 41), and Martha (11/27). As Jesus goes across the Jordan to the place where John first baptised, many come to him and proclaim: "Everything that John said about this man was true" (10/41). Sight beckons, leading to a confession of faith. The visual provides the context for a faith-experience. Already he is drawing all men to himself (12/32). Similarly, the works of Christ bring the Sanhedrin officials, Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus closer to him (19/38-39).
The visual provides the context for a faith-experience because the context itself is a structural linkage or a point of conjunction between man's inner need for wholeness and Christ's response to that need. For instance, the Samaritan woman's confession in 4/39 is made possible because she has received light from her encounter with Christ. We are told that "because of her testimony" (that is, her concrete experience and conviction), "many Samaritans from that city believed in him" (4/39).
If we take 4/10 and 4/14 together, it can be said that h39ing received prior light we too are a derived source of living water. Christ's prior act of knowing and loving the Father sets in motion his own service of others and generates in turn the disciples' subsequent service of others. In other words, the Gospel rests on the disciples' experience and appropriation of Christ's love for them. The whole process is seen as theoteleological－－going up to the Father (13/lf).
Another situation is when Christ heals the Bethzada paralytic. Note how the latter responds to his directive (5/8, 5/11). He tells his questioners who protest that it is not lawful for him to carry his pallet on the Sabbath: "the man who healed me said to me: 'Take up your pallet, and walk' " (5/11). The tone is that of a counter-reply uttered from a conviction that has been generated through empirical events.
Christ's critical stance is also reflected in Chapter 8 when the Scribes and Pharisees question him: "According to this law Moses commanded us to stone such women to death ..." (8/4). But the incarnate eyes look in a different direction. "Jesus bent down and began to write with his finger on the ground" (8/6). The law was given through Moses, but truth through Jesus (1/17). Jesus goes beyond Judai56. The criterion is not external conformity but one's inner need for salvation. Bruce Vawter takes up this point: "The Christ-event has revealed the inadequacy of Judai56 to give a final answer to what is truth－－an inadequacy shared by the Gentile world, for Pilate too is ignorant of truth" (18/38). (40)
When people meet Christ and are healed they go back (that is, they are sent in some way) to their own community to share their joy with others. The going back itself expresses a deep need to proclaim to others the goodness of His work (3/12, 5/15, 6/14, 9/1 If, 12/3).
However, in spite of Christ's many signs "many did not believe in him" (12/37). He appears a failure (6/66, 7/5). The disciples' lack of understanding is also a severe burden to him (14/9). Yet he remains patient with them and continues to make their salvation his concern in sayings like 16/12; 17/lf and in acts like those in 13/lf and 18/8. If we view 12/37 in the light of 14/lf there is no abandonment by God but a co-presence. The Father accompanies His Son's journey. So too will the Son accompany His disciples (cf. 15/9).
The case of Judas serves as a kind of contrast insofar as he abandons Jesus. 13/26 indicates Christ's last visible attempt to s39e him but this offer is not received (13/27). In the johannine Passion key elements converge: giving (18/11), caring (10/17), obeying (10/17f), and glorifying (13/31-14/13, 17/lf) by which all men are given access to the Father.
The humanity of Christ in 12/27-33 is very striking. He is "troubled because he fears the threat of Satan's victory. But his endurance shows how every man ought in such an 'hour' to make such a decision. His endurance confirms that he is "above all the Revealer, whose decision alone makes possible in such an hour the human decision for God (cf. 16/33). (41)
The johannine crucifixion is less concerned with the fate of Jesus than its significance for his followers. Jesus dies as the model shepherd who lays down his life for his sheep (10/11, 10/14-15). These are those who hear his voice and know him. (42) His death is not only kingly but priestly: "It is for them that I consecrate myself' (17/19). This intensity of inferiority cannot be adequately thematised. Fr. Malatesta holds that one of the sufferings of life in this world is precisely the impossibility of total mutual transparency and therefore of perfect communica- tion between those who love one another. (43)
Christ's death marks the completion of all that the Father had given him to do (19/28-30). His last words as man: "It is finished" (19/30) are a victory cry over Satan (44) insofar as he has finished his work and obediently fulfilled the Father's will. His lifting up from the earth on the cross will draw all men to him (12/32). When Jesus dies he hands over the Spirit which seems to indicate that his own Spirit will now take up his work (16/7).
Incidentally, William Johnston discloses that the Church Fathers loved to quote John 16/7: "It is to your advantage that I go away". His understanding of the patristic exegesis was that Jesus himself wanted to liberate his disciples from an excessive and possessive attachment to him. "They might well h39e added that in all friendship separation plays an important role in leading friends away from absorption to an ever greater universality." (45)
A pull-to the future is made possible because of a push-from the past. The human heart remains basically restless until it experiences a gr39itational pull to, and arrives, at its still point. The Spirit not only touches the personal centre of the believer but becomes part of that self-transcending movement and experience of restlessness. Union with Christ in the Spirit means being in relationship with and movement to the Father.
The apparent moment of sorrow is transformed by the higher subsequent moment of joy. Mystery transposes and elevates problem. We see the convergence of promise and fulfillment as 19/30 illuminates 12/32. In John there is a triple movement of "being lifted up": when Jesus is lifted up on the Cross, when he is raised up from death, and when he is lifted up to he39en.(46) This triple movement reconciles the tension between initial sorrrow and subsequent joy (14/1, 14/27).
The blind man in Chapter 9 derived his sight from God when he was sent "to wash in the pool of Siloam" and came back seeing (9/7). With his explicit affirmation in 9/38 he found his still point. He arrived home (cf. 3/30 too). The sign is secondary to the referent.
When the Risen Lord calls Mary by her name in 20/16 the calling is itself a sign. But what gives it significance is its referent: the fact that the Lord has come home (20/18). Though the johannine account emphasizes continuity (20/16) and transformation (20/14, 20/17), it certainly reiterates that Christ does not call us apart from the familiar but in terms of the familiar (20/16, 20/20, 20/27, 21/5, 21/10, 21/12, 21/25). Life is not interrupted (14/19).
The Beloved Disciple "saw and he believed" in 20/8. He believes because he has become very sensitive to Jesus through love. (47) When one is touched by love one becomes a poet. In 21/4 when Jesus stands on the shore of the Sea of Tiberias, the Beloved Disciple is the first to recognise him, and it is he who informs Peter: "It is the Lord" (21/7).
John's Great Beatitude is in 20/29 when Jesus praises the majority of the people of the New Covenant who, though they h39e not seen him, through the Spirit proclaim him as Lord and God. He assures these followers of all times and places that he foresees their situation and counts them as sharing in the joy heralded by his resurrection". (48)
Eternal life and divine sonship are gifts already in the possession of the Christian. However, there is room for future perfection even when physical death is no more (5/28-29).Bultmann takes up this point and holds that "the believer already enjoys in the present what apocalyptic speculation had expected from a future transformation of the co56os." (49)
CHAPTER IV
Depth-Subjectivity As Convergence Of God And Man
Light invites, heals and transforms (4/29, 8/11, 8/12f, 21/17). Though Nicodemus' acceptance of Christ's message is more passive than active on account of the former's Torah-conditioned mindst (3/4) he reaches out to CHRIST as a person (19/39). On the other hand, the blind man's instant healing (9/7) brings him closer to Christ (9/25f) with an increasing critical negativity towards his persistent questioners (9/30-33). His growth in awareness of Christ could be viewed as a growing approximation of his centre.
This movement is a growth in depth-subjectivity. This could be defined as a dynamic process in which one's personal centre is gradually touched, where a personal core decision is reached or is in the making. Other instances of depth-subjectivity include 1/39, 4/29, 8/10-11, 9/39, 10/41-42, 11/27, 19/30, 20/16,21/7, and 21/17.
Depth arises from an awareness of who one is. Depth springs from one's centre. The centre is an explicit awareness or acknowledgment of one's goal, Ultimate Meaning. Only in the journey can one find one's centre. Even if there is no clear-cut way to go one makes a way by going. In the 'making' one comes to know what home is. The centre is the point where God's call and man's response, where intrapersonal and inter-personal states of consciousness coincide, where aspiration and fulfillment, departure and arrival converge. Ultimately the journey of the Self is not merely individual but social. The Father accompanies the Son, and the Son accompanies His disciples as they accompany each other through the Spirit.
Christ's descent and man's ascent are inextricably connected. Christ came to make the human heart a temple, the soul an altar, and the mind a priest. (50) One's centre is first received before it can respond, (cf. 17/11). Others are a constitutive part of Selfhood. One can receive others because of the Father's prior self-gift in His Son (15/17). The Paraclete is invisible to the world because he is within the disciple (14/17). God is the sphere whose centre is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere (cf. Mt. 24/23, Mt. 24/27). He is, in Augustine's phrase intimius intimo meo, altius altissimo meo. The centre is both personal and universal.
In Giordano Bruno's view, the soul is a centre because "this pace of divine dwelling is ... the convergence of all co56ic phenomena" (51). Fr. Thomas Clarke develops this point and treats this centre as "both my own human self, the image of God that I am, and the Self of God, the holy Spirit, given precisely to be the selfing of myself, bestowed in order to give me (back) to myself by being given to me as the Self of Father and Son." (52)
This is where the action is: where data-collection leads to praxis and internalization, where theology is given flesh and blood to generate ministerial consciousness, and where history is taken up and once more offered as a Hymn to Eternity. As Mencius observed:
"He who goes to the bottom of his heart
Knows his nature as man.
To know his nature as man
Is to know He39en." (53)
It is at the Centre that one knows, insofar as one can know. One can only reach out if one first reaches down.
If contemporary man is homo quaerens seipsum, he is also homo quaerens Deum. God is the good news that humanity is possible. And Christ demonstrates that friendship is both desir-able and necessary. By his descent Christ reveals God's way of love to man. By his ascent he becomes man's way to God. Here is the 'place' where a double recognition takes place. One is recognised as being loved by Father and Son. One also recognises others－－in the light of the glorified Christ－－through the Spirit (2 Cor. 13/14, Phil. 2/1), since the Father of Jesus is our Father because Jesus is our brother. We are back to where we started.
The humanity of Christ continues to speak to man's immersion in the finitude of spatiotemporal worlds. Descent invites Ascent. The Risen Christ calls men and women to greater heights, to possibility, to Promise. His enduring presence and support (14/1) accompany us home and give added significance to that infinite horizon of meaning underlying Peter Berger's words:
"Over the memories of pain looms
The solitary figures of the
Virgin of Consolations,
Ever wiping the brows of
The Quixotes of this world." (54)
REFERENCES:
(1) Gaudium et Spes, N.7.
(2) Jean Danielou, Christ and Us, (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1961), p. 21. cf. "The full content of divine nature lives in Christ, in his humanity, and you h39e been given full life in union with him." (Col. 2/9: Breviary text for Eastertide, Week 2, Monday).
(3)T.S. Eliot, The Dry Salvages, Four Quartets, (New York: Faber, 1959).
(4)James Joyce, Ulysses, (London 1958), p. 273.
(5)J.H. Newman, Fifteen Sermons, Oxford, (London 1872), p. 347 quoted in Philip McShane, Music That Is Soundless, (Dublin: Milltown, 1969), p. 19.
(6)Raymond Brown, The Gospel According To John, The Anchor Bible Volume 2, (New York: Doubleday, 1970), p. 631.
(7) Scan O Cearbhallain, All Who H39e This Hope in Him－－1 Jn. 3:3－－A Contribution To A Johannine Theology Of Hope, (Rome: Gregorian University, 1975), p. 27.
(8)See Joseph Ratzinger, Priestly Ministry, (New York: Sentinel Press, 1971), p. 12.
(9)See Kittel, TDNT, Vol. 2, p. 673f.
(10)See Bruce Vawter, "Johannine Theology" in JBC, Vol. 2, p.832, n. 24.
(11)See John Cameli, "Spirit, Holy Spirit, Spiritual Life" in Chicago Studies, (Chicago: Spring .1976), p. 72.
(12)See Kittel, TDNT Vol. 9, p. 644-5.
(13)Leon-Dufour (ed.), Dictionary Of Biblical Theology, (London: Chapman, 1973), p. 315.
(14)Brown, Vol. I, p. 79.
(15)Brown, ibid.
(16)Henn Nouwen, Out Of Solitude, (Notre Dame: 1974), p. 36.
(17)Karl Rahner, "The Dignity Of Man" in Theological Investigations II, p. 238-9.
(18)ibid.
(19)See Do You Believe In God, (New York: Paulist Press, 1969), p. 38-41.
(20)Philip McShane, God, Man, Mystery, (Dublin: Milltown Park), p. 14.
(21)Bernard Lonergan, "Christ As Subject" in Collection (London, New York, 1967), p. 186.
(22)Dufour, DBT, p. 318-9.
(23)Bernard Lonergan, insight, (London: 1961), p. 228.
(24)Brown, Vol. 1, p. 79f.
(25)See TDNT, Vol. 4, p. 623f.
(26)See TDNT, Vol. 2, pp. 487-502.
(27)See Brown, Vol. 2, p. 618, 624.
(28)Brown, Vol. 1, p. 78.
(29)Brown, Vol. I, p. 138.
(30)ibid.
(31)See Bernard Lonergan, Method In Theology, (London: 1971), p. 130.
(32)See Raymond Brown, New Testament Essays, (Milwaukee, 1965), p. 205f.
(33)Brown, Vol. 2, p. 565.
(34)Foreword to G. Martelet, The Risen Christ And The Eucharistic World, (London: Collins 1976), p. 7.
(35)Brown, Vol. 2, p. 627.
(36)Brown, Vol. 2, p. 632.
(37)Quoted in 39ery Dulles, Revelation Theology, (New York: Herder, 1969), p. 28.
(38)See Brown, Vol. 2, p. 614.
(39)Bultmann, The Gospel of John, p. 423.
(40)See JBC, p. 831.
(41)Bultmann, The Gospel of John, A Commentary (Oxford: Blackwell, 1971), p. 428.
(42)See Brown, Vol. 2, p. 912.
(43)Edward Malatesta, "Jesus And Loneliness", The Way, (London: October 1976), p. 251.
(44)See Brown, Vol. 2, p. 931.
(45)William Johnston, Silent Music, (New York: [1974] ), p.160-5.
(46)Brown, Vol. 1, p. 146.
(47)See Brown, Vol. 2, p. 1005.
(48)Brown, Vol. 2, pp. 1048-9.
(49)Bultmann, p. 357.
(50)See Kahlil Gibran, Secrets Of The Heart, (New York: 1964), p. 103.
(51)Quoted in Thomas Clarke, "Finding Grace At The Centre", The Way (January 1977) p. 14.
(52)ibid.
(53)Quoted in Supplement To Progressio, (Rome: CLC), p. 20.
(54)Peter Berger, Pyramids Of Sacrifice (New York: Basic Books, 1974), p. 232.