2025 Thoughts on the Resurrection Narratives (plus) (updated)

First, the "plus":

- Since beginning to write this post, we have heard the news that Pope Francis has died. I am both glad to read all the lovely things said about him and his ministry, agreeable to the considered reflections on his shortcomings, and feeling no need to add to fine words said by others. As good as anything anywhere by way of comprehensive appreciation and critique is this reflection by Liam Hehir, a Palmerston North lawyer and lay Catholic theologian. (For those who think Liam is being unkind, try this by Carl Trueman by way of comparison).

- For the considered words of our Archbishops on Francis, read here.

- Futher on ++Welby: an interesting reflection "In Welby's Wake" by Alistair MacDonald-Radcliff. 

- NZ's most controversial theologian, the Reverend Dr Lloyd Geering is now NZ's second oldest man and time has not wearied him of his views (including, most controversially, on the resurrection, hence, I assume, an interview of him published at Easter). [Behind a Paywall.]

- Good signs of an uptick in interest in Christianity across the Ditch.

- Last week I referenced news out of Britain of a quiet revival. Ian Paul has a helpful interview about this news here.

The Resurrection Narratives [Matthew 28, Mark 16, Luke 24 [and Acts 1], John 20-21, 1 Corinthians 15] continue to fascinate me, and especially, obviously, at this time of the church's year.

It may or may not be helpful to refer to last year's ADU post, for example, to see if my thinking is evolving ... like the narratives themselves (Mark through to John)!

Here is this year's thinking:

Why is Mark's account (16:1-8, rather than the longer ending which is clearly a pastiche of stories hither, thither and yon) so brief and abrupt, without even one appearance of the risen Jesus, only the promise of an appearance?

Might 1 Corinthians 15:6-7offer a clue? "Then [Jesus] appeared to more than five hundred of his followers at once, most of whom are still alive, although some have died. Then he appeared to James, and afterwards to all the apostles." (Note 1. This was likely written in the early 50s AD, i.e. within 20 years or so of Jesus' death and resurrection, conceivably around the time Mark's Gospel itself was written [an earliest date for which is c. 45 AD]. 2. "all the apostles" here means those designated apostles beyond "The Twelve" who have already been mentioned in verse 5.)

That is, when Mark writes his story of the life and death of Jesus of Nazareth, he has no particular need to tell his community of readers about resurrection appearances of Jesus because that community was [quite likely] in touch with people drawn from the 500+ people mentioned in 1 Corinthians 15:6-7, if not with Peter himself. Mark's interest is not in what is readily at hand (testimonies to the resurrected Jesus) but in what might be lost sight of, the mighty deeds and inspiring teaching of Jesus, as well as the stirring story of his suffering and death. Thus his resurrection account is brief and contains, essentially, the bare confession of the resurrection, "He is risen."

If so, then Matthew, Luke and John's longer resurrection accounts, likely written later than Mark's account, offer elaborations which we do not need to view as "legendary accretions" to Mark's bare narrative. Rather, we can look at them as offering for various reasons accounts of resurrection appearances [sharing an interest in these appearances with Paul] and analyse their longer accounts for what their interests are - in this way:

- Matthew: 

1. deals to rumours the tomb was empty because the body of Jesus was stolen. 

2. Notes and corrects a shortcoming in Mark's account [which implies resurrection appearances would only occur in Galilee] by offering a description of one appearance in Jerusalem. 

3. Offers, like Luke, a "final word" of Jesus - his "Great Commission" to spread the Good News throughout the world, thus wrapping up his whole narrative of the very Jewish Jesus whose mission is, nevertheless, for the Gentiles also (cf. the Gentile women in the genealogy, the wise men, the Roman centurion in Matthew 8, etc).

- Luke: 

1. for reasons I do not entirely understand, focuses his resurrection narrative on Jerusalem and close environs to the point where he changes Mark's angel's words about a forthcoming resurrection appearance in Galilee [compare 24:6 with Mark 16:7]. 

2. Adds a unique testimony to an appearance of Jesus ("The Road to Emmaus") which highlights, among other things, the continuing presence of the risen Jesus in the gatherings of believers as they break bread together. 

3. Like Matthew, Luke offers a "final word" from Jesus - a commissioning for mission, linked to waiting for the Pentecostal outpouring of the Holy Spirit to empower that mission.

- John: 

1. manages between John 20 [Jerusalem focused] and 21 [Galilee focused] to affirm the appearances of Jesus occurred both in Jerusalem and in Galilee [cf. Matthew but not Luke or Mark]. 

2. Highlights individual encounters with Jesus [Mary Magdalene, Thomas, Peter] as well as group encounters [the disciples, in the Upper Room and beside the Sea of Tiberias]. 

3. Offers reports of commissioning [20:19-23] and re-commissioning [21:15-19]. 

4. Possibly also refutes rumours about the body of Jesus being taken from the tomb as an explanation for its emptiness [see 20:1-10]. 

5. Affirms for all readers who were not among the 500+ direct witnesses to the risen Jesus, that believing is more important than seeing, 20:24-29). 6. Also concludes his gospel, twice!, 20:30-31; 21:24-25.

6. In John 21 offers a very specific, detailed report of an appearance of Jesus in Galilee to say something about the respective Petrine and Johannine churches. This point is a little ambiguous but may be well understood as declaring that each church is important for the risen Jesus.

Nevertheless, some challenges about the history of the resurrection appearances remain.

Paul categorically states, 1 Corinthians 15:5, "that he appeared to Peter and then to all twelve apostles." None of the gospels supports this unequivocally. Gospel appearances are: to the women who went to the tomb [Matthew 28:9-10]; to Mary Magdalene alone [John 20:11-18]; to the two on the way to Emmaus [Luke 24:13-32]; to all the disciples [save for Thomas, John 20:19-23]. 

True, nevertheless, when the Lukan-Emmaus two report back in Jerusalem to the eleven disciples gathered with others, they say "The Lord has risen indeed! He has appeared to Simon" [24:33-34] and then Jesus appears in the midst of the eleven and others gathered [24:36] - this is fairly close to Paul's account.

Cue longer discussion etc - no time today for that. Suffice to say that between the five accounts, we have a sense of multiple appearances of the risen Lord Jesus, occurring here [near the tomb], there [on the way to Emmaus], elsewhere in Jerusalem [John's two accounts in chapter 20 a week apart; Luke's accounts in Luke 24 and Acts 1], and in Galilee [so Mark, Matthew, John 21]. There is a degree of messiness but then the risen Jesus was not confined to time and space like an ordinary, physical human body.

The four gospels unite on the presence of Mary Magdalene at the tomb, and unite on the fact that the tomb is empty-because-Jesus-has-risen-from-the-dead-bodily. Three of the four gospels unite with Paul on the fact of resurrection appearances. Only one, Luke, aligns closely, though not exactly, with Paul's reporting in 1 Corinthians 15. Those three gospels have no need to invent appearances but they each use appearance reports to make various points relevant to concerns of the day in which they are composing their gospels.

God at Work in our World

Thanks to the work of others, I bring you two videos which remind us that God is at work in our world. Jesus died and rose again some 2000 years ago but the God of resurrection continues to bring new life to people!

Courtesy of The Other Cheek, this testimony:

Then courtesy of a clergy colleague:

Have a great Holy Week!

Filling the whole house of the world with the aroma of Christ

Yesterday's gospel reading, John 12:1-8, is amazing/interesting on a number of levels.

Level 1: John 12:1-8 is arguably the strongest evidence from an individual passage in John's Gospel that John knew at least two of the other gospels.

Level 2: (whether or not John knew the other three gospels, or at least Mark and Luke) this story has amazing resonances with three other synoptic gospel stories, while being "John's own" story.

Level 3: This story speak to us as disciples of Jesus: what is our devotion to him? What is our response to the poor?

Level 4: You can race to the bottom of this post if you wish ...

Level 1: John 12:1-8 offers evidence that John knew at least two of the other gospels

Each gospel has a story of a woman anointing Jesus at a dinner party: Mark's and Matthew's are quite similar, and placed chronologically near the end of Jesus' life, and geographically, close to Jerusalem, at Bethany; Luke's occurs during Jesus' ministry in Galilee and is placed before Jesus begins his journey to Jerusalem where he will die (Mark 14:3-9; Matthew 26:6-13; Luke 7:36-50).

Now, John could have composed his story on the basis of some such story (or stories, if Luke's is a distinct, second such story) being orally communicated around the Christian communities, and needing no reference to any of the texts. It is an easily remembered kind of story, "There was a dinner party ... a woman turned up ... she used her hair ...". And such a composition theory could easily account for John agreeing with Mark and Matthew, that the dinner party took place at Bethany: no need for a text lying open before John to have noted that details in the story: "There was a dinner party at Bethany and ...".

But there are some common phrases and words, which of themselves do not prove John knew the texts of Mark (and possibly Matthew) and Luke, but point in that direction.

Consider:

A. John/Mark parallels

John 12:3: murou nardou pistikes polutimou (ointment of nard pure costly)

Mark 14:3: murou nardou pistikes polutelous (ointment of nard pure costly)

(Note that Matthew does not follow Mark closely here. Matthew 26:7 has: alabastron murou barutimou (alabaster phial of ointment very expensive)

John 12:4-6 is paralleled in both Matthew and Mark. The latter offer an argument among the disciples about the waste of money the perfumed ointment represents. John focuses attention on one of the disciples, Judas. John and Mark mention the same sum of money the ointment might have been sold for, three hundred denarii (Matthew mentions a large sum of money rather than a specific amount); all three talk about the money being given to the poor.

John 12:5: dia ti touto to muron ouk eprathe triakosion denarion kai edothe ptoxois?

Mark 14:5: edunato gar touto to muron prathenai epano denarion triakosion kai dothenai tois ptoxois

Matthew 26:9: edunato gar touto prathenai pollou kai dothenai ptoxois.

In response to this avalanche of unimpressed criticism from the disciples, John and Mark record Jesus offering his sympathy to the woman, "Let her alone, ...":

John 12:7: eipen ouv o Iesous afes auten, hina eis ten ...

Mark 14:6: O de Iesous eipen afete auten ti aute ...

Finally, John has the same words as Mark (and Matthew, see below) in respect of the famous saying "You will always have the poor with you but you will not always have me":

John 12:8: tous ptoxous gar pantote exete meth eauton, eme de ou pantote exete.

Mark 14:7: pantote gar tous ptoxous exete meth eauton, ..., eme de ou pantote exete.

B: John/Luke parallels

Whereas Mark/Matthew have the woman anointing the head of Jesus, John and Luke are in parallel over the feet (tous podas autou, John 12:3/Luke 7:38) being anointed and the woman (Luke) / Mary (John) wiping his feet with her hair. If John is drawing on Luke then he simplifies Luke whose account includes tears and a kiss as well as ointment. In the excerpts below I have italicised the words common in Greek to both accounts.

Luke 7:38: and standing behind him at his feet, weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears, and wiped them with the hair of her head, and kissed his feet, and anointed them with the ointment [the same word for ointment is used here as John uses in 12:2.

John 12:3: and anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped his feet with her hair.

C: John/Matthew parallel

This one is arguably weak, since John and Matthew could have independently come to the same decision about something they choose to omit from Mark, but it is worth noting. Mark, in 14:6-7, records Jesus as responding to the disciples criticism of the woman (see above re his first words, "Let her alone ...") with a short speech about how she has done a beautiful thing; the poor will always be with them, when they have opportunity to do good to the poor, and that the disciples will not always have him. Matthew shortens the last part of this speech by omitting talk of doing good to the poor. Thus, in respect of the last part of the speech, John appears to follow Matthew rather than Mark, but offering a similar omission to Matthew (who undoubtedly was following Mark):

John 12:8: tous ptoxous gar pantote exete meth eauton, eme de ou pantote exete.

Mark 14:7: pantote gar tous ptoxous exete meth eauton, ..., eme de ou pantote exete.

Matthew 26:11: pantote gar tous ptoxous extee meth eauton, eme de ou pantote exete

That is, in sum, there is evidence, as cited above, for John knowing and choosing, here and there, to follow the texts of Mark and Luke and, possibly, also Matthew. The evidence does not constitute proof.

Attribution: nothing above is original to me nor new to the world of Johannine scholarship. Many commentaries on this passage pay attention to these parallels. They are readily observable in "synopses" which set out the four gospels side by side - in this case I used both Greek and English synopses.

Level 2: (whether or not John knew the other three gospels, or at least Mark and Luke) this story has amazing resonances with three other synoptic gospel stories, while being "John's own" story.

Irrespective of theories about how John came to compose the story in John 12:1-8, the story has resonances with the synoptic accounts: Jesus is anointed in a poignant scene, set at a dinner party, with expensive perfumed ointment, which occasions sharp criticism from one or more of his disciples, and leads Jesus to support the woman and her action while offering an observation about the permanency of the poor in human history. The poignancy of the scene is that in John's and Mark/Matthew's stories, the anointing of Jesus is an anticipation of his burial, that is, of his death which will occur not many days hence.

If Luke's story is distinct from Mark/Matthew's story (e.g. the former having occurred in Galilee and the latter in Bethany near Jerusalem), nevertheless the manner of John's telling, even though the setting is Bethany, recalls the Lukan story for us as well as the Mark/Matthew story.

Yet John makes this story his own: only he names three people present who are not named in the other stories: Lazarus, Martha and Mary. Lazarus figures in the story not only to underline the anticipation of Jesus' death inherent in the anointing with ointment but also to offer the hint of hope, that death will not be the end of Jesus: he like Lazarus will be raised to life after (and beyond) death. 

Martha and Mary, who have figured in John's overall narrative, one chapter earlier, as the earnestly entreating sisters of Lazarus, believing that Jesus can do something about the death of their brother, appear here: one, Martha, undertaking necessary service for the meal to happen; the other, Mary, being the named anointing woman. But their figuring in the story is itself resonant with another story, told only by Luke, in 10:38-42, in which Jesus is at their house, with Mary sitting at the feet of the Lord (and doing precisely no housework) and Martha doing all the housework and complaining to Jesus about Mary's lack of involvement. Mary, perhaps annoyingly for Martha, is commended by Jesus for her attention to him and his teaching!

In John 12:1-8 there is no specific approbation for Mary in comparison to Martha, and Martha has no complaints. But Mary serves (12:2) and Mary anoints the feet of Jesus.

If John knew not the synoptic texts, he seems to have imbibed their spirit from the ethos-sphere!

Level 3: This story speak to us as disciples of Jesus: what is our devotion to him? What is our response to the poor?

The story John/Mark/Matthew tell is sophisticated and nuanced (so is Luke's story). On the one hand the story sets in motion 2000 years of expensive, extravagant devotion to Jesus: churches, cathedrals, stained glass windows, works of art in paint and in marble, lives devoted in sacrificial ways to being with Jesus (e.g. through the prayer work of religious orders).

On the other hand, the story sharply remind us that the poor are (as has been the case and still is) always with us, and the implication, even if we read Matthew and John and not Mark is, nevertheless, the point Jesus makes in Mark's story: "any time you want to [help the poor], you can help them" (14:7). Indeed, a bunch of other texts in the gospels and in the epistles challenge us to make "can help them" into "will help them."

If, focusing on John's story, Mary is a model disciples in respect of extravagant devotion to Jesus, then Judas is a model anti-disciple: we should not be like him, harping on about the waste of money, nor like him being a thief, nor like him being a mouther of words and a non-doer of relevant action.

This story offers, subtlely, the both/and of extravagant devotion to Jesus and of generous provision for the poor.

Level 4: Filling the whole house of the world with the aroma of Christ

The Good News Bible renders John 12:3 in a lovely and inspiring way: 

The sweet smell of the perfume filled the whole house.

Is John offering a little descriptive flourish here, or teasing the reader to think outside of the story, to the ongoing story of each of our lives as followers of Christ?

We are the salt of the earth (Matthew) and meant to season and flavour all of life and all lives around us.

Here, John is implying we are the perfume of the world and meant to spread the sweet fragrance of that perfume into every corner and nook and cranny.

If so, John is not alone in such conception. Paul writing in 2 Corinthians 2:14-16 says:

God uses us to make the knowledge about Christ spread everywhere like a swet fragrance. For we are like a sweet-smelling incense offered by Christ to God, which spreads among those who are being saved and those who are being lost. For those who are being lost, it is a deadly stench that kills; but for those who are being saved, it is a fragrance that brings life.

Beyond the obvious challenges in the story: to be devoted to Christ, to help the poor, there is another challenge.

How might we fill the whole house of the world with the aroma of Christ?

New Blog on the Block, and a couple of other thoughts for the week

Mark Murphy, commenter here, has developed his own blog, Tumbling Ages.

Welcome, Mark!

His "About" page is here and his initial, vision-casting page is here.

I like what Mark says at the last link:

"I’m calling this blog Tumbling ages because it seems appropriate for the polarities, disorientation, intersections, and complexity we are living through. My particular focus will be Christianity, the religious tradition I was born into and have practised all my life, and which I’ve been rediscovering with special urgency as a middle adult. I hope this blog might be read by others on their own tumbling journeys of curiosity, disintegration, and wonder."

In the "disintegration" of the world around us this week, I note (in no particular order of merit or demerit):

- a news report this morning that Trump is "very angry" with Putin. As best I can see, his anger is that Putin is just the person many of us in the West had already marked him down as. In the language of a former time, he was, is and always will be "a cad and a bounder."

- lovely, joyful to be in Dunedin on Saturday for the ordination of the Reverend Dr Anne van Gend as bishop and installation as new Bishop of Dunedin. (No news report yet on Anglican Taonga.)

- Archbishop Justin Welby has given a first interview since concluding his term as Archbishop of Canterbury: sorrowful, regretful, explanatory. I feel for him. There is much that is "overwhelming" for bishops.

- it was good to participate in an Evensong last night to celebrate the life and achievements of one of Christchurch's most renowned architects, Benjamin Mountfort (1825-1898). This month of March being the 200th anniversary of his birth. His imprint is on our city (albeit with some removals from the scene due to the earthquakes in 2010-2011), and on our nation.

I have tried telling you so

Something I am often saying is that we (Western Christians in respect of living Christianly in the Western world) are in a very difficult place because there is a tide of secularization sweeping our world and it makes our gospel work of witnessing to the Good News of Jesus Christ very difficult.

Secularization is the notion that one doesn't need God to live a blessed life, that society can operate more or less effectively without organised religion, and it has an ever increasing grip on the way we Westerners live. 

So we see these days: few people want to hear our message; many people who have heard the message no longer identify as Christians, or if they do still identify as Christians are no longer active in the church; even if there is not outright hostility to the gospel, there is steadfast indifference to it; and generally, in a wonderful world of material plenty, longlife through good health and effective health systems, there seems, for many, no need of God in any sense, let alone the God of Jesus Christ. (Please remember that no matter how long the waiting lists for operations, or how many people need food from foodbanks, across the whole of Western societies we are way better off than our forbears ever were.)

Incidentally, secularization doesn't have much trouble coping with "spirituality" compared to "organised religion"; and it seems, in NZ, to be coping with karakia in public events (whether or not those karakia are thoroughly Trinitarianly Christian or not). What secularization doesn't cope with is that there might be another authority - indeed, the Authority of authorities - than "the state", "public opinion", "me."

Let's be honest: the secularization sweep across societies and cultures has absolutely enjoyed a boost from the many, now well reported failings of churches, especially in respect of sexual and spiritual abuse. failure to lift women into leadership and slowness to keep up with scientific discoveries.

Back to my key point which is this, we underestimate the tide of secularization at our ecclesial peril. We are in a situation where we must pray, be faithful to Jesus, bear testimony to Jesus, and hope hugely that God's power through the pervasive Holy Spirit in our world will find a way out of this current "dark age" into a new age of (true, gospel) enlightenment. Yes, let's do all we can with our courses and programmes, with improving our welcomes at the church door and what happens inside the church worship and teaching spaces: through such things people come to faith, people remain in the faith, and God is honoured. Yes, let's celebrate every church which is growing in numbers, especially because people are becoming Christians.

But let's do all we can with eyes wide open to the scale of what we face as census declarations of Christian identity wane, as church attendance (across all churches) declines (either in sheer numbers or in proportion to a growing population or both), and as we face closures of churches, parish mergers and so forth.

What prompts me to write thus and so this week?

A recent post by John Sandeman at The Other Cheek alerts us to this:

"... Nexus, a conference attended by evangelical ministers mostly of the Sydney Anglican variety. ...

From all accounts, they were examining responses to the attendance drop in Sydney Anglicanism, frankly facing up to their problems. For a overview of the stats a good place to start is the passionate speech by Dominic Steele complete with graphs that slope down, down that he gave at the Sydney Synod (church parliament) – he happens to host the Nexus conference at the Annadale Village church he leads."

(As an aside, the post linked to above is actually about some interesting observations made by a Presbyterian at the conference.)

What did Dominic Steele have to say?

"Steele began with this graph, which shows a steady attendance until 2017, then a decline which is projected through the Covid years of 2020 and 2021 and a bounce back in 2023. Steele noted: “Sydney Anglican adult attendance declined 6.7% between 2013 and 2023, or 14 percent against population.”"

Now, in the Anglican world of the West, Sydney is "the" diocese which stands staunch on certain fundamentals of the "orthodox" Anglican faith, stands true as "conservative" on the spectrum of theological positions held by Anglicans, and stands out in its contribution to leadership of and within GAFCON. When the jibe is made (often by certain pundits of my acquaintance) that the only growing churches in the Anglican Communion are the conservative, orthodox ones, I can only presume that such generalisation includes the Diocese of Sydney ... even as it is meant to exclude, oh, I don't know, my own diocese [smile].

But the evidence is not supportive of this generalisation that the staunchly orthodox grow. Church growth through conversions is hard in our secular world. If any diocese in the Western world should grow on the basis that one particular approach to gospel ministry is destined to succeed, then it should be Sydney. But like all of us, it too is finding it difficult to counter the tide of secularization.

To be very clear: this post is not having a go at Sydney re its particular character. That might or might not be a post for another day. It could be that the statistics of church attendance are such that Sydney is doing, so to speak, "least worst" of all dioceses in the Western world, that is, it is the best of all of us.

The question remains, I suggest, that there are no easy answers to the matter of "what then should we do?" as gospel Anglicans eager to see people come to faith, for the church to grow in numbers as well as in depth.

There are, however, some straightforward things we should do simply because we love the Lord Jesus Christ: pray, bear witness to the love of God in Jesus Christ, through word and deed, give praise to God, and break bread together. The Holy Spirit is in charge!

New Sights to See in John's Gospel

This past weekend I have been at a retreat for bishops and spouses - something we managed two years ago and then again this year. Hopefully we can do this again next year. What follows are some insights I gained, catalysed by things said during the weekend, but for these thoughts, especially if deemed heretical, I am solely responsible!

So: something said about Jesus being fascinated with us; about how we respond to the word "heart" (e.g. Jesus looking into our hearts and being fascinated by us) got me thinking ...

- When God or Jesus looks into human hearts, with the notable exception of the young David's heart, it is (interestingly enough) often less than good things that are found there.

- My thinking, for instance, was drawn to John 2:23-25 where Jesus does not trust himself to people "because he himself knew what was in their hearts."

- Yet, thinking about where in the gospels Jesus might be "fascinated" with someone, my mind went to John 1:43-51, the story of the call of Philip and Nathanael. When Nathanael and Jesus meet, Jesus says something about Nathanael - that he is an Israelite without guile - and Nathanael asks Jesus how he knows him.

"Jesus answered, 'I saw you when you were under the fig tree before Philip called you'."

Jesus "sees" Nathanael. Although there is no mention of Nathanael's heart, it is pretty clear that Nathanael's heart is looked into by Jesus, and he likes what he sees.

- But, further, that got me looking again at this chapter and the verb "see". Jesus invites two disciples to "Come and see" where he lives (39). So, "they went with him and saw where he lived" (39). Andrew introduces Simon to Jesus. Jesus "looked at him" and tells him his name will now be Cephas/Peter (42). Jesus then finds Philip and Philip finds Nathanael. When Nathanael questions whether anything good can come from Nazareth, Philip says - of course!! - "Come and see" (46). Then, per above, Jesus says he "saw" Nathanael (48).

Are we done yet on the verb "see" in John 1?

Not at all!

"Then Jesus said, 'Do you believe just because I told you I saw you when you were under the fig tree? You will see much greater things than this!' And he said to them, 'I am telling you the truth: you will see heaven open and God's angels going up and coming down on the Son of Man'." (50-51)

I realised, pondering these occurrences, that I had never really seen (!!) this verb "see" so often in this chapter.

What is going on?

With some background learning about John as a gospel of revelation, of disclosure of inner secrets of the divine life (e.g. John 3), I make the not particularly original suggestion that John is not merely reporting an interesting dialogue to us which points to his gospel being a gospel of revelation - enabling us to see things about God's purposes in Jesus Christ - but is, in fact, issuing an invitation to us as readers ... to see. 

To see for ourselves what the disciples here in John 1 have been invited to see: who Jesus is, what his relationship to God the Father is, what the significance of his life, death and resurrection is, what life in the Spirit of God holds in store for those who not only "see" but also "believe."

And there is more: just as the disciples-and-also-us-who-read-the-gospel are invited to come and see for ourselves about Jesus; we are also being invited to understand that Jesus sees us: he knows who we are, he knows what we are like, nothing is hidden from his sight, and yet, wonderfully, marvellously, he loves us and he invites us to "Follow me".

A final insight - though I think this one came to me a little while ago rather than at this retreat - but I thought some more about it while on retreat: it concerns why the great theme of the Prologue (1:1-18), that Jesus is the Logos/Word is hardly touched on again in the remainder of John's Gospel.

In John 1:14, we read - the very familiar words - "the Word became flesh" - the Word took on the full form and substance of a human being, Jesus of Nazareth. Is the remainder of the Gospel concerned with the history of "the flesh" the Word has become, and that is why we see little further reference to Jesus being "the Word" (and such reference as there is, is somewhat oblique rather than explicit)? The Word becomes a human being and John is now focused on the meaning of the human being (with particular and recurring reference to this fleshly Jesus being the Son of the Father).

In particular, in John 1, we see "the Word" being, in the fleshly man, Jesus, addressed with all the familiar christological titles from the other gospels: Son, Son of God, Rabbi, Messiah/Christ, King of Israel,  Son of Man, plus the novel-to-John title, Lamb of God. Through the remainder of the Gospel, John will stick to familiar titles, but all, it could be argued, as stretching out and focusing within the meaning of Logos/Word; and all such titles being used of the historical Jesus of Nazareth, whose history is retold because when Jesus is, according to the awesome, profound insight of John, "the Word became flesh" there is more to see than has been brought into the light by Matthew, Mark and Luke.

The critical importance of theology in the world today (according to Jesus himself)

Yesterday's gospel reading, Luke 4:1-14, The Temptation of Jesus, is pertinent for the world today in which Christians in some places are taking positions (supporting Trump, supporting Putin, calling for women to be removed from public life because Supreme Courth Justice Barrett voted with other, 5-4, to ... wait for it ... insist that the Trump government pay for work the US government had said it would pay for, writing about "the sin of empathy" and for forth) which come with a Scriptural backing but which seem very, very, very at odds with the main run of Christian thinking through 2000 years, or, more simply, are theologically unsound. 

Famously, in this narrative, the devil attempts in the third temptation to draw Jesus away from God's will, by quoting Scripture at him and Jesus responds by quoting Scripture back to the devil. Dare we use the word? Jesus trumps the devil's knowledge of Scripture! In this case, Psalm 91:11-12 v Deuteronomy 6:16.

But the obvious question to then ask, not only of this narrative, but any such exchange between people quoting Scripture to (or, at) each other, is, on what basis is one Scripture "better" than another Scripture? It turns out that Why is Jesus right and the devil wrong?, has the same answer as Why am I right and the Jehovah's Witness knocking at my door wrong?

That is because what Jesus is doing in Luke 4:1-13 is not a kind of "Scripture chess" (To your Knight to D6, I counter with my Queen to B8) but an exercise in theology - in the right understanding of God's will for the world. That is, what God wants and what the devil wants are at odds with each other, and the resolution of the dispute does not come from mere knowledge of Scripture (noting Jesus quotes Scripture to the devil in the first two temptations (4:2-3 [Deuteronomy 8:3] and 4:5-8 [Deuteronomy 6:13]). Resolution comes through Jesus' knowledge of the will of God - the mainline, if you like, of theology: in this theology, Jesus is to be God's agent (God's Son, God's Servant, God's Anointed) in the redemption of the world; not the agent of the devil. Moreover, Jesus will be the suffering servant of God (see the passage following, when Jesus is rejected at Nazareth, 4:14-30) rather than the triumphant, magically powered, populist servant of Satan. Jesus knows and understands this, not only because he has read Scripture and studied it well, but also because of his experience of God at work within him and around him (so, Luke 1-3): his theological understanding is informed by Scripture but it does not solely consist of a treasury of memorised verses. Jesus' theological understanding flows out of a reckoning with the main message of Scripture: that God is God, God has created the world, and even when the world has rebelled against God, God's love for the world sets out to redeem the world back to God. Jesus is committed to that plan and not to the devil's alternative.

So, Jesus himself affirms, through this passage, the importance of theology: of rightly understanding God and God's will for the world.

In our crazy, upside-down world - and, also, in this weekend's horrible, terrifying news, that Christians and others are being massacred in Syria - we need theology as much as ever in the history of the Christian faith. We need a right understanding of God and God's will for the world.

Otherwise the charlatans calling for women to be removed from public office, finding no fault in the supine surrender to Putin or, conversely, willing to remove Russian Orthodox priests from office for proposing a [Russian] end to the war will win. And the massacres will spread unabated.