PLOTTING
It's important to note that the writers and editors of John are giving the story of Jesus's arrest and trial a twist to subtextually address the issues of their day. What is generally explained in the synoptic gospels as occurring after Jesus's arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane has been, throughout John, part of an ongoing narrative where the Pharisees and/or disbelieving "Jews" are constantly plotting to kill Jesus. John deepens the sense of plot by bringing in the chief priests.
The dialogue at the end of John 11 exposes a perceived concern the writers of John believed the Judaic community had regarding Christianity at the time John was being written. The concern cryptically referenced is that Jews are being lured away from Judaism by the Christian message. What provides a clue to this concern is the question John has the members of the Sanhedrin asking themselves in verse 47, "What are we accomplishing?" The question is intended to belie what John sees as the Jewish community's angst over Christianity.
The news that Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead (code for Jesus being raised from the dead) is portrayed as being a threat to their authority. There is no rationale as to why this would be the case prior to Jesus death and resurrection. After all, Christianity as a religious entity did not exist at the time John is talking about. John depicts the Sanhedrin accepting as fact that Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead. There is no questioning on their part whether the story was a hoax. On the contrary, they give credence to its occurrence and that Jesus had, in fact, performed "many miraculous signs;" that if allowed to keep on doing this, everyone was going to end up believing him.
This is how John is coding the concern the writers of John believe the Judaic Jews of their time had regarding Christianity; that it was growing and drawing members from their community away. That John doesn't follow the timeline of the synoptic gospels is not a result of John not knowing the timeline of these events as recorded in the other gospels. Rather, John is deliberately changing them to address the concerns of the day. Historical accuracy is not John's goal, John's goal is to define Truth (not the facts) and encourage the members of their community to remain faithful to their beliefs
The outcome of John's twisting the story is its portrayal of the Jewish leaders and by extension, the Jews as a whole, deliberately going against God's plan to redeem Israel via the promised Messiah who would make Israel a light to nations. The question this poses is, if Jesus is true Messiah, why weren't they climbing on board?
According to John, it was their greed; that they feared for their bottom line, loss of the little power they had and the destruction of their nation by the Romans. In essence, what John is saying is that the Sanhedrin really did not want the Messiah showing up and upsetting the status quo. John was utilizing a real time concern the Sanhedrin lived with; an open rebellion against Rome that would be directly connected to events in Jerusalem and the Temple. Rebellions by Galileans happened before and Jesus was from Galilee. That there would be a legitimate concern about Jesus's motives when in the Temple's precinct would have been very likely.
BETTER THAT ONE MAN DIES
John utilizes the legitimacy of this concern by having the High Priest, Caiaphas, reason that it is better one man dies "for the people" rather than the whole nation. John said this was a prophetic moment for Caiaphas, in his role as High Priest, but what I suspect John does is to take the pragmatic solution of killing one person (a perceived troublemaker) as a means to avoid a massacre (something the Roman garrison located next door to the Temple, to keep an eye on it, would not bat an eye doing) and give it a slight twist by adding "dies for the people" to give it a prophetic tone.
I doubt that the Jewish Christian writers of John had given any thought to the long term effect their portrayal of Pharisees and Judaic Jews would have; that they helped plant the seeds of anti-Semitism that would emerge centuries after them. Fortunately, John is tempered by the messages of Jesus found in the other Gospels and in the authentic letters of Paul. If John were the only gospel upon which Christianity was based, it would be a far different, more stringent and phobic religion than it is.
One might question how the writers of John would know what was said in a private meeting of the Sanhedrin. Remember, John has an insider available, Nicodemus, who the reader can assume is the source of this information. Of course, apart from John, there is no other record that Nicodemus existed. Nicodemus primarily exists to give credence to the perspective John has of the Pharisees and traditional Judaism.
Jesus, always aware of people plotting against him, decides to avoid Jerusalem until the time is ripe for him to offer himself as the sacrificial lamb. This brings us to the verge of the main event in John, the Eucharistic meal - the dawn of a new creative order.
PREPPING
Once again we have a feast day that draws Jesus back to Jerusalem for the last time, Passover. In John 12 we learn that Jesus arrives six days before Passover at the home of Lazarus, Mary and Martha, just outside of Jerusalem. As noted in past posts, numbers mean something in John. The number six is the number of chaos (see my post on Mercy and Truth) and also represents the six days of creation - Out of chaos comes creation and order, which is both a theological truth and a theoretical finding in Quantum Physics.The period of Jesus's preparing for his being the sacrificial Lamb of God is marked by chaos and preparation - chaos for his followers, preparation for a new creative order by Jesus.
THE ANOINTING OF JESUS AS THE SACRIFICIAL LAMB OF GOD
As I have suggested before, John borrows heavily from the Lucan story of Mary and Martha and Jesus' parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus. Martha, once again, is seen preparing and serving a meal for Jesus, Lazarus is John's coded symbol of Jesus being raised from the dead by God and a warning sign meant to convince those, who blinded by the concerns of the here and now, the "riches" of worldliness to see the light of God's new creative order. Then we have Mary who, once again, is seated at Jesus's feet, but this time is entrusted with honor of anointing Jesus's feet with Nard and wiping them with her hair. The story of Jesus having his feet anointed by a woman with her hair is also found in the gospels of Matthew (Ch. 26) and Mark (Ch. 14), along with Judas's complaint of the Nard being sold and the money given to the poor.
NARD
Nard is an aromatic oil that was used as an incense in Temple worship and in purification rites. John makes it clear that what Mary is doing is in preparation of Jesus's sacrifice and his burial. Anointing his feet is significant. Foot washing is symbolic in John, more than in the other gospels. Generally, if someone were to anoint someone in ancient times, it would be from the head, but Jesus is anointed on his feet. The practice of foot washing in the Middle East upon entry into one's home or place of worship is well known and was often the job of servants in wealthier households. To cleanse the feet is to cleanse the body. To anoint one's feet was to anoint the whole person from the soles of one's feet to the very soul of one's being; that is what is being implied by foot-washing in John. Jesus's whole being is sanctified by the act of Mary. Wiping his feet with her hair is not only an act of extreme humility, it is a very sensual, intimate act and marks a transition in themes from what differentiates Judaism from Christianity to the unitive intimacy that exists among those who believe Jesus to be the only-begotten Son of God.
In the act of wiping Jesus's feet with her hair, Mary is anointed by the very essence of Jesus divine sacrifice. Once again, it is a woman who demonstrates and personifies divine wisdom. She demonstrates divine knowing without uttering a single word. She merely acts. The only interruption comes from the pragmatic voice of Judas Iscariot, who chides this lavish act as wasteful. Judas, like the Sanhedrin and Caiaphas are the brothers of the Rich man in Luke, who are blinded by the concerns of this world and cannot see the larger picture of God's salvific act in Jesus.
Jesus gives one of his most interesting statements found also in Matthew and Mark in response to Judas's concern, "The poor you always have around, but not me." [My paraphrase] On the surface it would seem Jesus is callously dismissing the needs of the poor because the fact is Judas is right about the cost, and John, like the other gospels, points out that Judas is, in reality, a thief who has a tendency to pocket the disciples' money.
At first sight, this accusation of Judas being a thief who steals from the common treasury of the disciples paints a despicable picture of Judas as the soon to be betrayer of Jesus, to make him out to be lowest character imaginable. This may be John's intent, but I would suggest that John is aligning Judas with the mindset that Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin has; that he, like them, is blinded by what appears to be pragmatic reasoning from seeing the light of God's bigger picture in Jesus. Of course, according to John, they can't help it. Their blindness, in fact, plays a necessary role in facilitating God's bigger picture.
GETTING RID OF LAZARUS
Now that Lazarus is brought back to life, John has to find a way to remove him from the scene, so that there are no questions as to why he doesn't play much of a role in the story after this meal. John tells us that the Pharisees hatch a plot to kill Lazarus along with Jesus. We never find out what happens; if Lazarus is murdered, but the suggestion that there is a plot and that Jesus is killed suggest that Lazarus suffered the same fate because he disappears from the narrative after Chapter 12. Again, the story of Lazarus is a mythic story, an amalgam of several stories about Jesus.
MOVING FORWARD
The next day, we are told, Jesus enters Jerusalem to the welcome of a great crowd who gathered because of those who testified that Jesus brought Lazarus back from the dead. This is the Palm Sunday scenario recorded in the other gospels. The story is familiar enough to Christians that I won't go into detail as to its prophetic meanings. What I find relevant to John's particular portrayal of it is that Pharisees express the same concern expressed by the Sanhedrin; that they were helpless to stem the tide of Jesus's popularity; that everyone was following him - a coded message that the Pharisaical elements at the time John was being written could not stem the tide of Jesus's popularity.
MEETING WITH GREEKS
John briefly mentions that there were some Greek followers of Judaism who asked to meet with Jesus. We don't know whether Jesus met with them, but again John uses a question to provide an unrelated answer. There are some interesting lines in Jesus' response that merit some attention. What catches my attention is they reflect teachings that Jesus actually gave, such as in Luke 9 or reflect other teachings about Jesus from Paul's first letter to the Corinthians, but John is putting it in the context of his entry into Jerusalem as a teaching about himself:
"I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant will also be." John 12: 24 -26 [The Holy Bible, New International Version 1984 by International Bible Society]
John does not have a Garden of Gethsemane scene as the synoptic gospels do, but captures an important moment of that scene which John borrows from Luke: "Now my heart is troubled, and what shall I say? 'Father, save me from this hour?' No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour. Father, glorify you name." John 12: 27 - 28 [The Holy Bible, New International Version 1984 by International Bible Society]
At this point, God thunders that his name has been glorified and will be glorified again. This is a somewhat veiled reference to the creative power of God; that his name was glorified ( made known) in the creation of the universe and is about to be glorified again (made known again) in the recreating of creation through the sacrifice of Jesus.
John then addresses a problem that is plaguing the Johannine community. One of the arguments against Jesus being The Messiah is that The Messiah does not die, how is it that Jesus died and is considered the Messiah. Where is he? Where was he when the Romans destroyed Jerusalem and Temple? Jesus, again responds in a vague manner to the "Jewish" question, but John is directing Jesus's answer to the Christian Jews of the day, "Put your trust in the light while you have it, so that you may become sons of light" John 12: 36 [The Holy Bible, New International Version 1984 by International Bible Society]
After this, John says Jesus left and hid himself from the people. This is an odd piece of information in the narrative and I suggest it is code for saying that only the believing person can know or find Jesus because John goes on to explain that Jesus's hiddenness is in fulfillment of Isaiah's prophecy because God has "blinded their eyes and deadened their hearts." Isaiah 6:10 [The Holy Bible, New International Version 1984 by International Bible Society]
Jesus reiterates what he has said earlier in John that he and the Father are one. That he does not judge anyone, but rather that people are judged by not accepting what he says because what he says comes directly from and at the direction of his Father and that what he says will lead to eternal life. With that John changes the conversation from the differences between Judaism and Christianity and concentrates on the unitive intimacy of the Eucharistic meal.
Until next time, stay faithful.
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