THE GOSPEL OF JOHN - MYTHOS AND MEANING

THE GOSPEL OF JOHN

I have considered many ways to describe the Gospel of John.  Unlike the Synoptic Gospels, the Gospel of John is not a linear telling of Jesus' life and ministry, though its authors borrow some stories from those Gospels upon which to build a narrative where Jesus is understood as the only-begotten Son of God through whom all things came into being.  

Without a doubt the Gospel of John is the most influential New Testament Gospel, if not the most influential book in shaping Christianity's understanding of who Jesus is.  Ingeniously, on the part of its authors, it is is largely written in Jesus' voice in which most of what Jesus says in this Gospel is not found in the Synoptic Gospels and is not something Jesus would have likely said nor, for that matter, would any reasonable person say about himself.  Had Jesus talked the way he talks in this Gospel, he would have likely been stoned to death long before he was crucified.  In psychoanalytical terms, Jesus comes across as a narcissist in this Gospel.   

In short, Jesus in the Gospel of John is not the Jesus portrayed in the Synoptic Gospels.  As such, it can be considered a work of theology (Christology to be exact) about Jesus.  Beyond that, the Gospel of John casts Christianity as a mystery religion, in which a catechumen or an initiate, for instance, is taken on spiritual journey into communion with God through Jesus Christ.  As such, there are some who consider the Gospel of John to be a Gnostic gospel that has been refurbished to suit an orthodox perspective of Jesus in the Church sanctioned by the Roman Empire of the late 4th century, CE.  

But what is it, literarily speaking?  Is the Gospel of John one big parable about Jesus?  Is it some sort of early catechism in which Jesus through various "I am" statements explains various aspects of his divine nature as God's only-begotten?   For the purpose of this post, I am presenting the entire Gospel of John as myth into what Christian liturgy calls the Mystery of Faith.  To get a good sense of this Gospel being a myth, I suggest the reader take time to read the entire Gospel of John in one sitting. 

MYTHOS

“I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." 

John 14:6

Perhaps John 14:6 best describes what the Gospel of John is ultimately about; getting to know God by getting to know Jesus as portrayed by this Gospel.  Getting to know Jesus, however, requires a spiritual journey that begins with Jesus being described as the Word: 

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God...   And the Word was made flesh (human) and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth."

In short, Jesus is the Word; therefore, Jesus is God in human form.  It is a reversal or a remake of Genesis 1 which says:

 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth... And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: ...So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.  

In John 1, it is God, the creative Word who incarnates (makes God's self in the image of a physical human) into Jesus. 

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I am not going to pursue every mythic aspect of the Gospel of John in this post.   I have already written as series of eighteen posts beginning April 4, 2016 that is basically my commentary on the Gospel of John which the reader can access by going to the archive of my posts on the right side of this page and clicking into the 2016 file. I have also written other posts regarding John that served as homilies which I delivered at the Episcopal church I am a member of.  These are peppered throughout my blog.  What I will offer here is my thoughts on why I consider the Gospel of John to be a myth.  

In my opinion, what makes the Gospel of John a myth is not only what it says about Jesus, but also what it doesn't say when compared to the Synoptic Gospels.   For instance, while John the Baptizer is prominently mentioned in the first chapter of this Gospel, John does not baptize Jesus but proclaims Jesus to be the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.  As there is no baptism of Jesus, there is no story of Jesus being sent into the wilderness to be tempted by Satan.  Jesus knows who he is.  He is God in the flesh as God's only-begotten Son.  If there is any doubt about that, Jesus will tell the reader in John 3:16, "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life."  Yes, that is Jesus talking about himself.  

The journey into knowing God through the incarnate Son of God begins with being called as one of Jesus' disciples as depicted in the story of Jesus calling Andrew, Peter, Phillip, and Nathaniel.  The next part of the journey involves turning water into wine, as told in the story of Wedding at Cana.  This is a metaphorical story which outlines the journey to God in Christ from the rite of baptism into the death of Jesus, as represented by the jars of water used in the purification of a recently deceased person to its being turned into the wine of Holy Communion.   To experience the new life in Christ Jesus, one must first experience his death.  

This journey begins with Jesus cleansing the Temple of the money changers.  Jesus is brutal. He not only overturn the money-changers tables, but is also beating them out of the Temple' precincts with whips he made out of corded rope.  This is the event where Jesus, when asked for a sign whereby the people knew what authority he is authorized to beat the moneychangers, Jesus famously says, "Destroy this Temple and I will raise it in three days."  

A much overlooked section in chapter 2 where this is recorded is the following odd statement:

"Now while he was in Jerusalem at the Passover Festival, many people saw the signs he was performing and believed in his name. But Jesus would not entrust himself to them, for he knew all people. He did not need any testimony about mankind, for he knew what was in each person." John 2:23-25 (NIV)   

Here, Jesus demonstrates the omniscience of God which is presented in a somewhat negative manner.  One can only wonder why Jesus would not entrust himself to those who saw the signs he performed and believed on his name.  He claims he did not need any testimony about mankind because he knew what was in each person.  Again, this is not the Jesus found in the Synoptic Gospels who could be surprised by people's faith.

This odd statement about Jesus not trusting people who believed in his name is a way of saying people could not choose him. Jesus did the choosing because Jesus knew what was in each person.  If this Gospel was intended as some form of initiation manual into the Mystery of Faith, the initiate was chosen to be an initiate by Christ.  One does not choose to follow Jesus.  One is called to do so.   As such, I consider the Gospel of John as an "in-house" Gospel; that is, it is not intended as the type of "Good News" one would spread around to the uninitiated or those outside the Church.  It is a Gospel written for those "who know" or the initiate who wants to know, which lends credibility to its being a Gnostic Gospel.  

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For the purposes of this post, I want to underscore some obvious mythic elements employed in this Gospel.  To understand this Gospel, one must have an appreciation for numerology, astrology, and Greek mythology which are cryptically woven into its narrative.  

Numerology

As always, numbers mean more than a numeric value.  They are codes that give meaning to what is being talked about.  For example, the numbers 5 and 2 and their multiples are notable in this Gospel.  As mentioned in previous posts, 5 and any multiple of 5 is code for grace.  The story of the healing of the man at the pool of Bethesda or at the gate is notable for this gospel's mention of five covered colonnades. John's version of the miracle of Feeding the Five Thousand involves five loaves of bread and two fish.  The combination of the 5 loaves and 2 fish result adds up to the holy number of 7 feeding the remanent of Israel as represented by the 12 baskets of left over bread.  

Astrology

One cannot help but notice that many of the stories found in the Gospel of John are not found anywhere else in New Testament.  John does not contain any of Jesus' parables found in the Synoptic Gospels, but there appear to be parabolic stories about Jesus in John involving other individuals, which I will get to.  The first is Jesus meeting the Samaritan woman at the well.  There is an astrological overtone to this story.  The image of a woman bearing a water jug to the well of Jacob to get water and Jesus offering her living water brings to mind the symbol for Aquarius, frequently symbolized by water being poured out by a woman or a man.   For Jesus living water is the truth of God manifested in himself. The woman is truthful also.  She tells Jesus the truth about her life and Jesus offers her the truth of who he is.  What is interesting about this story is that it involves a Samaritan women, someone who would be below the dignity of Jewish man to converse with.  It is Jesus who asks her for a drink (an invitation to converse) and ends up quenching her thirst for life.  Astrology is also present in the Feeding of the Five Thousand as Jesus is presented with two fish by a young boy.  The two fish is a Piscean symbol that in Christian astrology represents the age of faith and, as noted in my post on the  Feeding of the Four and Five Thousand the Greek word for fish is ICTHYS which serves as an anagram for Jesus Christ God's Son (our) Savior.

Greek/Roman Mythology

Speaking of the young boy, the Feeding of the Five Thousand in the Gospel of John is the only Gospel that mentions this boy.  There is something Eleusinian about the presence of this boy.  In Ovid's Metamorphosis reference is made to a minor Greek diety, Iacchus, who Ovid refers to as the puer aeternus, the eternal boy, who interestingly represents the god of resurrection.  While the young boy is not identified by name, his presence would not have gone unnoticed by people living in an era and culture where his story would have been know.  There is so much packed into this miracle story, that it is the most  obvious mythic story told about Jesus.   

I Am

Jesus makes many "I am" statements throughout John.  One cannot help but see as a direct reference to God, as in God's declaration to Moses near the base of Mount Sinai where God is in the burning bush and where God identifies as, "I am who I am."  In other words, God will be whatever God will be at any given moment.  In the Gospel of John, Jesus identifies as the following:

                                                                I am the Bread of Life.

                                                                I am the Light of the World.

                                                                I am the Gate of the Sheep.

                                                                I am the Good Shepherd.

                                                                I am the Resurrection and the Life.

                                                                I am in my Father.

                                                                I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

                                                                I am the True Vine.

Roughly speaking, Jesus makes nearly one hundred "I am" statements throughout the Gospel of John.  These specific "I am" statement serve as markers along a catechumen's or an initiate's journey into the mystery of faith.   The elemental nature of Holy Communion is outlined in the I Am the Bread of Life and I am the true vine which implies a grape vine or wine.  Along the way Jesus is portrayed as the Light of the World,  the Gatekeeper into Kingdom of God's fold, the Good Shepherd who cares for his sheep.   Jesus is the puer aeternus, the "god of resurrection", the eternal child of God.  As such Jesus is the true way to the Father.  

Them/Us

There is a dark side to this particular Gospel.  There are believers and there are unbelievers.  There are Christians (the new chosen people of God) and there are Jews (the once chosen people of God).  John's Gospel is written in response to the growing chasm between traditional Judaism and the Christian movement after the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE which became the point where Judaism and Christianity parted ways.  For Jewish Christians, in particular, this was an extremely difficult period of time and there are two stories within John that make the painfulness of this division clear.  

The first is the story alluded to earlier in John 5, the healing of the paralytic man at the pool of Bethesda.  One of the interesting features of the healing stories found in the Gospel of John is person who is healed does not ask to be healed.  In this particular story, Jesus asks the paralytic if he wants to be healed.   The person tells Jesus that he has no one to help him get to the pool when the water is stirred.  Jesus tells the man to pick up his mat and walk, which the man does.  This healing occurs on the Sabbath.  Telling the man to pick up his mat and walk is a violation of the Sabbath rule of not doing work on the Sabbath.  The "Jewish leaders" informed the man that he was breaking the law and asked who healed him, but the man didn't know.  Latter Jesus finds the man by the Temple and tells him who he is and instructs the man not to sin anymore "in case something worse should happen to him."  Summarily, the healed man tells the leaders that it was Jesus who healed him.

While the story does not specifically say that this healed man telling the Jewish leaders who healed him was a sin, the implication is that it was.  One can fill in the reasons based on the practice at the time that when someone was healed the person often went to the Temple to show him/herself to the priests so that they would acknowledge that a person was healed and thus free from whatever sin (their own or a relatives) caused their condition.   That the man went back to tell these leaders that it was Jesus after Jesus warned him not to sin, implies that this is something Jesus didn't want him to do; in part, because the Temple ( as a symbol of Judaism) is not the living Temple that Jesus is; the place where God dwells.  

The second story is found in John 9, the healing of the blind man from birth.   Here we are confronted with the ancient idea that such conditions are the result of sin.  Jesus' disciples ask a rather naive question, "Who sinned, this man or his parents?"  They may not have known he was blind from birth, but we do because the Gospel says so.  Jesus says he was blind from birth for the purpose of Jesus restoring this man's sight.  

On this occasion the blind man knows that it is Jesus who healed him.  Apparently, he doesn't go to the Temple or to the religious leaders of the local synagogue.  People are confused because he looks like the blind man they had known for most of their lives.  The Pharisees set out to investigate and the former blind man tells them Jesus healed him.  They accuse Jesus of not being from God because he doesn't keep the Sabbath, but the now seeing man claims that Jesus is a prophet who indeed healed him.  

The Pharisees then ask his parents if the man is their son.  They admit that he is and that he was blind from birth, but they claim they do not know how it came to be that he can see because they were fearful of the "Jews" because anyone who mentioned Jesus in the synagogue would be thrown out and this is the sad fate of the healed blind man.  He is thrown out.  It is obvious that this story was told to assure that being thrown out of the synagogue, which likely was happening to Jews who were Christian, was a badge of honor because in rejecting a Christian, the leaders of the Synagogue (the Pharisees after the destruction of the Temple) were rejecting Christ and no long considered God's Chosen people. At the end of this story Jesus points out it is the Pharisees who remain in their sin.

Resurrection 

The prequel to the resurrection of Jesus is the story of Jesus raising Lazarus in John 11. It is in this story that Jesus tells Lazarus' sister, Martha, that he is resurrection and the life.   As if to underscore that Lazarus is truly dead, Martha makes the point that Lazarus has been dead in his tomb for four day and is likely in a putrefying state of decay before Jesus demands that the stone of his tomb be moved.    

Jesus calls Lazarus to come out of the tomb and Lazarus does.  After word is spread that Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, the Chief Priest and other leaders plot not only to kill Jesus but were hatching a plot to kill the recently raised Lazarus.  While we know that Jesus ends up being crucified, we don't hear about the fate of Lazarus beyond that point in the story.  

As I have mentioned in another post, plotting to kill Lazarus poses a theological quandary.  According to scripture it is appointed for human beings to die once.  If Lazarus has truly been dead for four days, could he be killed again?  If he wasn't dead after being in the tomb for four days, was he really dead?  There is no point in answering either of these question because, quite simply, the story of Lazarus being raised from the dead is a myth that points out Jesus has the power to raise the dead to life.

What is interesting in the resurrection story of Jesus is that the Greek text says that Jesus had risen from the dead.  The implication is that Jesus himself had done this as opposed to the more common understanding that God raised Jesus from the dead.  Jesus being the divine Son of God since the beginning through whom all things came into being undoubtedly would have the power  to literally rise from the dead by himself.  

Entry into Communion with God through Christ

The story of Thomas having doubts about Jesus' resurrection is a deliberate construct by the authors of John by which to end this Gospel.  Of course, we know there is another chapter to this Gospel that focuses on Peter which I discussed in my previous post.  In my opinion, the Gospel of John originally ended with the story of Thomas.  The reason I believe this to be true is because this is the story when Thomas, the doubter, is literally invited into the wounded side of the resurrected being of Jesus and thus into the being of God.  Thomas represents the catechumen or initiate who has moved from initial doubt to belief.  

As I have pointed out in other posts, when Thomas is confronted with the risen Christ and asked to place his hand into Jesus wounded side the Gospel of John doesn't say Thomas actually did so but rather immediately believed once his was asked to do so.  It is at this point the catechumen or initiate is also invited into the body and blood of Christ and thus into communion with God and all that God encompasses.   

MEANING

The meaning of the Gospel of John is defined by its purpose, and the purpose of the Gospel of John is basically threefold.  First, it establishes that Jesus is God incarnate, the very Word of God through whom all things came into being.  Secondly, its purpose is to be an in-house Gospel designed to differentiate Christianity from Judaism.  Thirdly, it is designed to carry the reader from rebirth, born of water and the spirit to union with God through the body and blood of the risen Christ in the rite of Holy Communion.

Having said that, I have to confess that the Gospel of John is not my favorite Gospel.  In fact, I think the New Testament would have been better understood without it.  Jesus is too aloof in the Gospel of John to be relatable as a fellow human being. In the Gospel of John, Jesus is God disguised as a human, who knows all things and although he weeps and suffers crucifixion, there is something pre-ordained and scripted as it were rather than a truly human person having spontaneous responses to human experiences with the unexpected which is evident in the Synoptic Gospel but which is often neglected due to the dogmatic rigidity of the Gospel of John which has largely influenced Christian understanding of Jesus.  

One of the unfortunate results of this Gospel is its anti-Judaic stance which was used to comfort and strengthen those Jewish Christians being expelled from their synagogues. Although I do not believe the authors of this Gospel intended it to be, this stance forms a Gospel-based premise for anti-Semitism not found in the Synoptic Gospels. The idea of God disguised in human flesh, which orthodox Christianity denies as a heresy, is obviously suggested to be the case in this Gospel which lends itself to believing that Jesus was not really a Jew. 

Mythically speaking, the Gospel appears to have borrowed its mystical understanding of Jesus as the only-begotten Son of God from Greek and Roman mythology and mimics the exclusive mystery religions of ancient Greece and Rome.  In particular, the Eleusinian and Dionysian mysteries come to mind which would have made Christianity particularly attractive to the inhabitants of the Roman Empire and beyond.  It is an example of the Pagan Continuation Hypothesis discussed in Brian Muraresku's book, "The Immortality Key." 

Above all, the Gospel of John presents Christianity as an exclusive religion in which there are the called disciples of Jesus and those who are "condemned already" as noted in Jesus' description of those who do not believe that he is the only-begotten Son of God which Jesus declares himself to be in John 3.  The Gospel of John is the flagship of what I have referred to as the Johannine school of theology, known today as Christology.  The Johanine school of thought is found the Letters of John and the Revelation of John.  This Christological perspective of Jesus promotes the being of Jesus as more than the Jewish idea of the Messiah.  The Greek term for messiah or the anointed one is Christos, Christ in English.  Today, Christ has come to mean more than the anointed one.  Today the Christ has been mythologized into a cosmic term; as in, Jesus is the cosmic Christ through whom all things were made and who, at the end of time, will come to be the judge of the world.   

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Until next time, stay faithful.

Norm

THE RESURRECTION AND ASCENSION OF JESUS - MYTHOS AND MEANING

    "If Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins".                                                                1 Corinthians 15:17

MYTHOS

As Holy Communion is central to Christian Worship, the resurrection of Jesus is what the Christian religion is centered on.  Writing about something that is so central to the beliefs of close to two billion people as a myth may seem blasphemous, but bear with me in considering it as such.  As I have mentioned before, I do not consider myths lies but rather stories that seek to expose truths that are not otherwise explainable.  In theology and philosophy one should not equate truths with facts as one might in science or history.  The simple reason for this is that truth in science and history is equated with fact because an event can be replicated or if theoretical can offer consistent results when applied. 

The resurrection and ascension of Jesus is not a replicable factual event and there is no hypothetical, much less, a theoretical scientific basis for its occurrence.   One cannot create an experiment by which to replicate it and one must remember that resurrection is not resuscitation.  It's not about bringing a physical body back to life but rather there is an ethereal spiritual aspect to the resurrection and ascension story of Jesus.  

What we have in the Gospels are stories in which people are said to experience seeing Jesus alive three days after he was crucified and these stories vary from one Gospel to another.  In fact, the quote above from Paul's first letter to the Corinthians is evidence of it not being a verifiable fact but rather, at best (to put it in scientific terms), a hypothesis cast in relatively negative terms.  "If Christ be not raised" is a statement that admits a lack of verifiability.  One's faith or belief that it is a fact does not make it a fact. Nevertheless, Paul is on to something that comes closer to the philosophical idea of truth as intuitive reasoning.   

The story of the resurrection and ascension of Jesus is what one might describe as a fact-based myth; in that, it is based on a likely historical event, Jesus' crucifixion.  Crucifixions in the Roman Empire was a consistent form of execution of those who were not Roman citizens and were convicted of being insurrectionists.  In order to get to the mythos of Jesus' resurrection and ascension, one must begin with that historical fact.   If it wasn't for Jesus' crucifixion there would be no story of his resurrection and ascension.  For the authors of the Gospels there appears to have been a need to seek verification of such a major premise in the scriptures of the Old Testament.  There are two references found in the Old Testament frequently used to support both Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection.  

With regard to the crucifixion there is the Isaiah 53, a prophecy about the Suffering Servant which gave meaning to Jesus' crucifixion, but that prophesy does not mention the servant being resurrected.  To find a reference to the resurrection one has Psalm 16:10, "For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell; neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption."  While that verse does not mention resurrection directly, the implication of a resurrection was drawn from that this verse.  

In the Synoptic Gospels of Matthew and Mark, Jesus is accused at his trial before Caiaphas of saying that if the Temple was destroyed, he (Jesus) could rebuild it in three days.   In John 2:19-22, Jesus is quoted as indeed saying what he was only accused of saying in Matthew and Mark with the added editorial note that Jesus was referring to his body, thus predicting his own resurrection.  

* * *

The basic mythos of Jesus' resurrection begins with the empty tomb.  The empty tomb may, in fact, be a fact; as well as, women coming early on a Sunday morning to perform the customary practices of Jewish burial and finding the tomb empty.  That is were any factual side of this story ends and where it becomes mythologized.  

None of the Gospels totally agree on specific details or the stories associated with Jesus' resurrection beyond that point, with the one exception that Mary Magdalene is noted as one of the women who found the tomb empty in all four of the canonical Gospels.   In Matthew 28, it is Mary Magdalene and "the other" Mary who go to the tomb.  In Mark 16, it is Mary Magdalene, Salome, and Mary the mother of James.  In Luke 24, it is Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and others.  In John 20 it is only Mary Magdalene who comes to the tomb.  Mary Magdalene is the one witness that all four Gospels agree on.  Where one starts seeing a divergence in presentation in the resurrection story is what these women experience once they discover the tomb is empty.  

Not only is there a divergence in regarding details in each of the Gospel presentations, there is also an evolution regarding the number of details that are added to the story as time passes.  To illustrate this, I will start with the earliest Gospel account and proceed to the later Gospels accounts.  I base my chronology of earliest to latest Gospels based on their evolving content.  As such, my sense of chronology of the Gospels begins with Mark, then Luke, then Matthew, and finally John.  Historians may disagree with this chronology, but it seems Mark and Luke are likely written by people whose names were Mark and Luke, whereas Matthew and John contain material and editing that suggests they were not written by Jesus' disciples with those names but by others who ascribed their work to Jesus' disciples. 

Mark's Gospel is perhaps the most interesting; in that, the earliest manuscripts stop at Mark16:8.  It is clear that verses 9 through 20 were later additions.  In Mark, as the women approach the tomb, they are trying to figure out who will roll the stone away from the tomb, only to find that when they reach the tomb the stone already has been rolled away.  As they enter the tomb they see a young man dressed in white who tells them Jesus has risen and instructs them to tell the disciples.  Verse 8 is where this account ends with, "Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid." (NIV)

The Gospel of Luke follows Mark's storyline, but instead of finding a young man dressed in white, they find two who were dressed in glowing clothes like lightening standing next to them. They tell the women, "Why are you seeking the living among the dead," and instruct them to tell the disciples.  When the women tell the disciples what they had experience, the disciples don't believe them, but Peter takes it upon himself to check their story out and enters the empty tomb and sees the linen strips lying were Jesus had been laid and leaves "confused."

The Gospel of Matthew elaborates with details not found in either Mark or Luke.   Beginning on the afternoon of Jesus' crucifixion the "Chief Priests" and the "Pharisees" come to Pilate to request that he assigns guards to Jesus' tomb to ensure that no one is able to steal Jesus' body in order to claim that Jesus had resurrected.  This detail is an imaginative leap, since at his trial Jesus was accused of saying he would destroy the Temple and in three days rebuild it, but there was no interpretation in Matthew prior to this concern of Jesus was referencing his crucifixion and then his resurrection.  At the point of his trial before the Caiaphas, there was no assurance that Jesus was going to be crucified since that fate rested in the hands of Pilate; much less, that the allegation that he could rebuild the Temple in three days was Jesus prophesying his resurrection.  

The Gospel of Matthew says that Pilate agreed to post guards at the tomb with his seal on the tomb. Who witnessed this is not known or where this account came from.  It appears to be a creation of the author of Matthew's Gospel to assure the Christians he was addressing that the claim of Jesus being being stolen was a conspiracy theory promoted by the Pharisees.  According to Matthew,  at some point early on Easter Sunday, there was a great earthquake and an angel came and rolled the stone away. There is no reference to the an earthquake in the other Gospels.  The assigned guards were petrified with fear, but some later ran to the city and reported to the chief priests what they experienced.  When the women arrived they encounter the angel who told them not be afraid and to go tell the disciples that Jesus is risen.  On their way, the women encounter Jesus and the fall down to worship him, grabbing his feet.  Jesus then tells the women to tell his disciple to go to Galilee where they will see him.

The Gospel of John has only Mary Magdalene approach the tomb on that Easter Sunday morning.  She sees that the stone has been rolled away and apparently peeked inside only to find that the tomb was empty.  She immediately runs to tell Peter and presumably John that someone had removed Jesus' body.  Peter and John run to see the tomb for themselves and peeking in, Peter sees the strips of linen where Jesus was laid and the cloth that covered his face folded up.  

Mary is left standing by the tomb crying when someone she assumes to be a gardener asks why she is crying.  She tells him about Jesus' body missing and asks where it has been taken.  Then the supposed gardener calls her by name and Mary immediately recognizes Jesus. When she bows down and reaches for his feet, Jesus says that she is not to touch him because his has not ascended to his Father, a warning not said to the women in Matthew's Gospel.  Jesus instructs Mary to go tell his disciples that he is ascending to his Father and their Father, to his God and their God which Mary does.

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There are several mythic stories associated with the basic mythos of Jesus being resurrected.  In all four of the canonical Gospels Jesus literally appears to the disciples behind closed doors and then disappears.  In Luke, we have the story of "The road to Emmaus" where two of Jesus' followers are talking about Jesus' crucifixion and reports of his being raised from the dead when they encounter a stranger who explains the meaning of Jesus' crucifixion and how he must be raised from the dead.  They invite the supposed stranger to dine with them and when the stranger blessed the bread and give it to them they immediately recognize Jesus at which point Jesus immediately disappears.  A similar incident then occurs with the eleven remaining disciples.  They are afraid at his appearing behind closed doors and they offer him fish and bread to eat, and when he eats,  they know it is Jesus is truly alive who then explains the meaning of his death and resurrection to them  

The author(s) of the Gospel of Matthew is forced to deal with the quandary created by the presence of the guards at the tomb.  If the guards deserted their post and some ran to the chief priests with the story that Jesus had been raised from the dead, this would spell trouble for the guards.  For one thing Matthew's author or authors had to come up with plausible reason why Roman guards would have gone to the Chief priests to report their experience.  The reason suggested is that going to Pilate would have resulted in a charge of deserting their post and severe punishment, if not death.  So Matthew says the guards were paid off and the priest provided a cover story for them.  It would have been interesting to know what that cover story entailed.

It is almost as an aside that Matthew reports that Jesus appeared to the eleven disciples with some doubting that Jesus had been risen and there were Jews who believed that Jesus' body was in fact stolen.  It is an odd ending to this Gospel's presentation of the resurrection mythos.  The Gospel of Matthew ends with Jesus' ascension in to heaven with Jesus telling his disciples to spread the Gospel and baptize people in his name  (the original ending of Matthew according to the early church historian Eusebius which was later changed to baptizing people in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit).

The Gospel of John has two stories associated with Jesus appearing to his disciples.  The story of Thomas who, for some reason, was not with the other ten disciples when Jesus first appears behind locked doors and breathes on them saying, "Receive the Holy Spirit.  If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven.  If you retain the sins of any, they are retained."  Thomas misses out on all of that and when he shows up a week later, he has doubts about Jesus appearing and says that unless he can touch Jesus' nail prints and thrust his hand into Jesus' side, he will not believe.  Almost on cue, Jesus appears and invites Thomas to do just that.  Thomas then believes.  

The last story in John is Jesus going to Galilee and meets with a few of his disciple on the shore of its sea where Jesus is cooking fish.  This story involves Peter and Jesus having a private conversation in which Jesus restores Peter to the faithful disciple he was prior to his denying Jesus three time to those gathered outside of Jesus' trial.  Jesus tells  Peter three times, "If you love me, feed my sheep."   Being asked so many times, makes Peter break down and commit to what Jesus is asking.

As mentioned above, the Gospel of Mark originally ends with the women being too afraid to say anything to anybody.  In the latter additions made to Mark, Jesus first appears to Mary Magdalene who then tells the disciples, but they do not believe her.  Then Jesus appears to two followers of Jesus and when they went back to tell the disciples, they would believe them either.  Finally Jesus appears to the eleven who gives them the same commission as he did in Matthew.  In short, Mark ends with snippets found in the other Gospels regarding the appearance of Jesus.

* * *

The three synoptic Gospels end with scant mention of Jesus' ascension into the heaven.  All three of them have a version of Jesus commissioning them to be his witnesses.  John does not contain a story of Jesus ascending into heaven.   Only in Matthew do we have Jesus mentioning baptizing people.  The place where the story of Jesus' ascension offers any detail is in the first chapter of the Acts of the Apostles.   

After teaching them things about the Kingdom of God to which the readers of Acts are not privy, Jesus, as he is teaching, starts to ascend into the heavens until he is covered by a cloud.   Two men dressed in white robes suddenly appear and ask the disciples why they keep looking up into the heavens.  They tell those gathered there, Jesus will return in the same way he was taken up.  

MEANING

Starting with the story of Jesus' ascension into heaven, one can look at this myth in two ways.  In Luke, and in the edited version of Mark the resurrection and ascension could have taken place on the same day.  The Gospel of Matthew says that the eleven disciples were directed by Jesus to go to Galilee to a certain mountain.  This would have taken more than a day for the disciples to make such a journey.  It is the book of Acts that gives us a definite timeline of forty days following Jesus' resurrection.    

It would seem that the authors of the Synoptic Gospels had to find a suitable way for Jesus to exit the earth and explains why he no longer was around  The question of why Jesus did not stick around and remain on earth after his resurrection presents a quandary as it seems very few people (despite Paul's claim that more than five hundred people saw Jesus at the same time in 1Corinthians15:6).  Had Jesus done so, it is likely the world as we know it wouldn't be the same.  Honestly speaking, this is a perplexing problem for a literal interpretations of these stories.  

Both the meaning of Jesus resurrection and ascension is not handled very well in the Synoptic Gospel as there appears to be a concerted effort to treat it as a factual event, which it is not.  There is a sense of overkill when it comes to making claims that Jesus ate fish and broke bread as proof of his body was physically resurrected.    HOW CAN I SAY SUCH A THING?  

I can say that because Paul also says it and Paul's account of the resurrection predates the Gospels  In Paul's discussion of the Jesus' resurrection, Jesus is spiritually resurrected:  

"So also is the resurrection of the dead. ... It is sown a (physical) body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a (physical) body, and there is a spiritual body." 1 Corinthians 15: 42-44

If Jesus is spiritually resurrected then one can assume that he was spiritual ascended.  The question remains whether there was a need for an ascension story.  If Jesus was resurrected as a spiritual body, was there a need for him to ascend?   Interestingly, it is the Gospel of Matthew that provides a solution with very last thing Jesus says,  "And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (Matt. 28:20b) As a spiritual resurrection, Jesus transcends the physical limitations of time and place.  Jesus is not bound by the physical location of the time and place pose on physical existence.

* * *

"If Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins". 

We need to come back to this verse and provide and answer to Pauls rhetorical question.  I would argue that if Jesus wasn't literally raised from the dead, faith would still be operative because the mythic Jesus consists of stories about Jesus or, more to the point,  stories upon which the teachings about Jesus are based rather than the teachings of Jesus.  Ultimately, faith in what Jesus taught should be more important than the teaching that are taught about him which are largely theological speculation.  

Myths have a role to play in every religion.  The myth of Jesus' resurrection and ascension has a role in Christian faith because it hits on something that is experiential; not in the sense of someone being physically raised from the dead, but in the sense of resurrections that don't involve someone physically dying do occur.  There are many forms of death we experience in life, all of which are potentially life changing.  

In life, the resurrection experience involves a death of some kind; the death of an idea, the death of an occupation; the death of one's beliefs, the death of a personal relationship with someone,  and so on.   It is likely all of us have experienced some personal forms of death within our lives  These can be extremely painful, frightening moments in which it is hard to see life being the same or going forward after such an event or events.  

I know that I have experienced such "resurrections" and it is not necessary to go into personal details because everyone or anyone who has been faced with the death of something thought vital to one's existence will recognize the dynamics involved.  Luke captures this dynamic best by  his description of the Jesus' crucifixion.  In Luke,  just as Jesus is about to be crucified, he says, "Father forgive them for they don't know what they are doing."  

The death of something can seem totally unjustified at the time.  Ideas and long held beliefs are the hardest things on earth to let die.  It usually takes a shocking revelatory experience to let go of something that is is no longer life-giving; especially, when a false belief is undeniably destroyed by a factual truth.  Unless one is open to the factual truth of a situation, one can wither on the vine and remain an ideological corpse that serves no purpose.  Letting go of something held a long time that has been proven wrong can be one of the most resurrecting, liberating, and life giving experiences one can have.  

Losing a job that one has been at and one has been good at can be another experience that is like dying, but resurrection can occur there too.  Ending a necrotic relationship with another person or group of people that is sapping the life out of one, can result in resurrection to new life.   The phrase, "Letting go and letting God" is very operative in such situations.

In Luke's version of the crucifixion, Jesus is seen doing this when he forgive those who are crucifying him and when with his last breath, he commends his spirit to God.  This is the relevance of these myths in the twenty-first century.  I know in my own experiences of resurrection, the story of Jesus' crucifixion came to mind in each case and it was that realization that allowed me to let go and let God.  The end result has always been resurrection to a new way of looking at life and a new way of enjoying life.  It is an ascending feeling that rises above the doldrums of negative events that if one were to dwell would merely keep one mired in anger, fear, and/or self-pity.   

While the resurrection story of Jesus cannot be replicated as a scientific event, it can be experienced in this life as a new perspective of life after having experienced a loss of some kind.  Death is a fact of life, but experience also teaches us that life comes from death and one doesn't have to hold out till one is physically dead to experience resurrection and a sense of an ascending beyond what was to a new life in this life.  In spite of all the variants stories associated with the mythos of Jesus' resurrection, it ultimately suggests and underscores an intuitive human awareness that this life suggests more life and if there is more life to be experienced beyond this life, death as letting go and letting God is a requisite part of such a journey.

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Until next time, stay faithful.

Norm    

HOLY COMMUNION - MYTHOS AND MEANING

MYTHOS

"For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, that the Lord Jesus the same night in which he was betrayed took bread:  And when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me.   After the same manner also he took the cup, when he had supped, saying, this cup is the new testament in my blood: this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me. For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord's death till he come."  1 Corinthian 11:23-26  (KJV)

The first mention of Holy Communion is not found in any of the Gospels, but in Paul's first letter to the Corinthians, which I have quoted above.  Paul's letter to the Corinthians predates the earliest Gospel of Mark by at least twenty years.  Consider the first sentence of Paul's description of Jesus instituting what is widely known as Holy Communion.

"I have received of the Lord that which I also delivered unto you..."   

This statement should give us pause.   Paul is not claiming he was told this story by any eyewitness.  There is no mention of his version being confirmed by Jesus disciples.  He is saying Jesus taught him this.  He doesn't say how he "received" this information.  Was it in a vision or a dream?    

How, then, did renditions of what Paul wrote to the Corinthians end up in the Synoptic Gospels? 

Nobody really knows.  What we do know is that Paul's version of Jesus' instituting Holy Communion during the Last Supper became the central rite in the emerging Christian church.   Most Christians assume that Jesus instituted the rite of Holy Communion  during the Last Supper is common knowledge.  Little thought, however, is given to Paul's role promulgating that story.

Acts 2:42-42 introduces the shared meal by Jesus' earliest followers, which is widely known as an Agape meal today  In the book of Acts it is referenced as breaking bread together.  What it indicates is that Holy Communion, as Paul described it, was not ritualized when the followers of Jesus lived communally in Jerusalem in what became known as the Church in Jerusalem.  

Whether Paul "received" a vision or had a dream in which Jesus told him what Paul passed on to the Corinthians, it is Paul who introduced this rite within the early church.   1Corinthians 11, suggests that the Church at Corinth  may have been the first Christian gathering in which Holy Communion was practiced.  By the time the Synoptic Gospels were written, Paul's description of Holy Communion in 1 Corinthians was accepted as fact.  

PAUL

Paul figures prominently in New Testament literature.  His epistle or the epistles attributed to him make up more than half of the 27 books of the New Testament.  What we know about Paul comes from his letters and a probable disciple of his, Luke, who is the nominal author of the Gospel by that name along with The Acts of the Apostles.  Apart from the Acts of the Apostles and Paul's epistles, there is only one reference to Paul which is 2 Peter 3:15, "And account that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation; even as our beloved brother Paul also according to the wisdom given unto him hath written unto you," which tells us very little about Paul other than by the time the second letter of Peter was written Paul's influence in the early church was being noted.

Paul is a complex person as his epistles demonstrate.  He was the product of two worlds; being well-versed in both the world of Judaism and the world of the Greek speaking Roman Empire.   As a Jew, he had to know that the mere thought of eating human flesh, much less drinking human blood, was about as repulsive as one can imagine, but as a Roman citizen he would have known that the symbolism of Jesus changing bread into his body and wine into his blood would have resonated within that world where mystery cults of the Greeks and Romans was an attraction that Paul could adapt to help spread the Gospel in Hellenized world of the Roman Empire.  

The Eleusinian and Dionysian (Bacchus) mysteries come to mind.  Paul would at least have had an awareness of them and their popularity in Greek and Roman culture.  Paul was no fool to what appealed to his audiences, and the audience that he found willing to listen to him, was not the Jewish communities that resided in almost every major city of the Roman Empire but the Greek-speaking gentiles.  What they would find appealing was ready access to a mystery religion that offered them a way to eternal life.  To this day, mystery is a literally at the center of the Holy Communion liturgy:

                                                 "Let us proclaim the mystery of faith:

                                                                        Christ has died

                                                                        Christ is risen.

                                                                        Christ will come again."

This  mystery of faith is not only central to Holy Communion but also reflects Paul's theological perspective.  In Paul's view, participation in Holy Communion literally incorporates the faithful into what Paul referred to as the Body of Christ, the living presence of Christ in our world.  

* * *

Brian Muraresku's book, The Immortality Key, explains that wine in ancient times was frequently mixed with herbs, mushrooms, and ingredients that would result in psychedelic experiences. Muraresku points out that wine wasn't the "weak" wine we drink today.  It was potent and particularly potent if mixed with substances known as psychedelics today which were likely perceived as visionary pathways the divine in ancient time.

In Corinthians 11, Paul is upset with the Corinthian church because they turned Holy Communion into what sounded like a Bacchanalian event.  Paul comments, " For those who eat and drink without discerning the body of Christ eat and drink judgment on themselves.  That is why many among you are weak and sick, and a number of you have fallen asleep (1Cor 11:20-30 Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® ).  

Muraresku suggests that the reason people mixes a psychedelic brew back then was to enhance a spiritual experience, to have a taste of eternity or to have a vision of the divine. These were mixtures that could be lethal, especially, if not done accurately or people overindulged.  He hypothesizes that the people Paul is talking about may have become sick and died  because the wine they were drinking was mixed with such substances that led to overdoses which killed some and made others sick.  It is an interesting hypothesis.   

Paul's pharisaical side comes through in his epistles as expressions of moral outrage at the behavior exhibited in places like Corinth and Rome.  Things that he railed against such as drunkenness and sexual promiscuity were commonplace in the cosmopolitan atmosphere of the Roman Empire.  Drunkenness was often associated with religious and civic events and where there was excessive intoxication other behaviors were likely to emerge.   

In his effort to spread the Gospel, Paul admits to trying to be all things to all people, as he says in 1 Corinthians 9:22, "To the weak I became weak, to win the weak.  I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some" (NIV).  Paul understood what appealed to his audiences with regard to spreading the Gospel message.  Salvation, eternal life, as the result of Jesus atoning sacrifice for sin, "once for all" was something that would have had great appeal to vast number of people who understood that sacrifice was necessary in order to appeal and appease the gods or God. 

In addition, the rite of Holy Communion allowed everyone, regardless of status, to participate in the ultimate sacrifice of Jesus, once for all.  "There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.  If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise." Galatians 3;28-29 (NIV)  Interestingly, over time Holy Communion became known as the sacrificed offered for us; the concept of the Sacrifice of the Mass that continues to this day.  

JESUS

As I have mentioned in other post, Jesus was not into sacrifice.  In Matthew 9:13 and 12:7, Jesus quotes Hosea 6:6, "For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings." Jesus quoting Hosea seemingly supports the notion that Jesus would not have considered any suffering he would go through as a sacrifice to God for the sins of others.  Human sacrifice was an abomination in eyes of Jews.  

Being a devout Jew, it is unlikely that Jesus would not have entertained such a repulsive idea of equating bread and wine as symbols of his body and blood.  In chapter 6 of the Gospel of John, this repulsion is noted when a number of Jesus' disciples leave him when he states in John that he is the Bread of Life and mentions eating his body and drinking his blood.  I will address this further when discussing the mythic features of that Gospel.

Offering sacrifices made sense in the religious world of the first century CE and one can understand how Jesus crucifixion was cast as a sacrifice to God for the sins of the world.  Jesus' crucifixion as an insurrectionist against Jewish authority and the Roman Empire was seen as the ultimate putdown and degradation of a human being.  The resurrection of Jesus, which we will come to in the next post was understood in the early chapters of the Acts as a reversal of the degradation Jesus suffered.  In fact, the first seven chapters of Act in which Peter and Stephen make speeches at theTemple, they never allude to Jesus's death on the cross as a sacrifice to atone for their sins.  

MEANING

Paul made a huge leap from Judaism's repulsion at the thought of eating human flesh and drinking human blood to presenting such an act under the species of bread and wine as active participation in Jesus' atoning sacrificial act on the cross; nevertheless, we see him trying to rationalize that leap in Judaic terms justify the  practice of Holy Communion.   For example, in 1 Corinthians 5:7 he writes, "For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed," and in Romans 3:25-26." God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood—to be received by faith.  He did this to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished— he did it to demonstrate his righteousness at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus."  (NIV)

In Paul's first letter to the Corinthians, we see the first mention in the New Testament of Jesus' crucifixion linked to the Jewish celebration of Passover, which according to the Synoptic Gospels was the setting of the Last Supper.  In Paul's mind, Jesus becomes the sacrificial lamb by which death passes over us or rather that death passes us over to life in the resurrected Christ.  In his letter to the Romans, Paul links Jesus crucifixion as a sacrifice of atonement "to be received by faith."  This is a bizarre statement that becomes even more bizarre as Paul continues to say that God did this to demonstrate God's righteousness, because God left sins go unpunished before Jesus atoning sacrifice in order for God to demonstrate God's righteousness in justifying "those who have faith in Jesus."  

Whether Paul intended it, the rite of Holy Communion provided the gravitational force needed to give structure to the emerging Church and to draw people into its orbit.  While Paul seemed to be unaware of the teachings of Jesus found in the Synoptic Gospels,  Paul's point of reference to Jesus in his epistles is Jesus' last supper with his disciple, his trial and crucifixion, and his resurrection/ascension.   

While one can only hypothesize, there is good reason to consider that Paul created this myth to incorporate both Jews and gentiles into a cohesive religious group that became Christianity.  He rejected his Jewish proclivity to repulsion at the thought of the flesh and drinking the blood of a crucified victim in order to create a sacrificial meal that crossed the boarders of Judaism by allowing the gentile a place at the table of God's love in Christ Jesus; as such, Paul's actions support the Pagan Continuation Hypothesis that archeologist are seeing at play within the rites practiced within the early church.

* * *

For the vast majority of Christians throughout the world today, Holy Communion remains the gravitational center of Christian worship, while losing much of its gravitational pull to those outside of the Church's orbit. That it has lost its gravitational pull is due, in large part, to access to it has been guarded to ensure that those who partake of it are worthy of doing so.  This can also be traced back to Paul who wrote to the Corinthians: 

So then, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord. Everyone ought to examine themselves before they eat of the bread and drink from the cup.  For those who eat and drink without discerning the body of Christ eat and drink judgment on themselves. (1 Corinthians 11:27-29 - NIV)

Throughout the centuries the glue that held the church together was the belief in "one holy,  catholic, and apostolic Church," whose central rite was Holy Communion.  Today the idea of "one holy, catholic, and apostolic Church" is largely a rhetorical construct found based on the Nicene Creed which is said in most liturgical churches, but this statement belies the fact that the Church has fractalized into numerous denominations where the rite of Holy Communion may no longer be central in some denominations' worship.  The emphasis throughout the centuries has been that participation in this rite ensured the participant being one with Christ and if one with Christ then one with God; therefore, securing the full atonement of sin and the promise of life everlasting.  

Today, many Christians see Holy Communion as a sign and symbol of God's forgiving love for the world; that participation not only brings us into a deeper relationship to God in Christ, but into a deeper relation with those we are sharing this minimal meal of consecrated bread and wine with.  Increasingly mainline Protestant church practice "open" communion; that is, communion offered to all who seek a deeper relationship with Jesus.  As a result, Holy Communion is increasingly being treated as entry into the   ongoing redemptive ministry of Jesus;  that those who partake of it are called to bind up the wounds of those who are hurting, heal the broken hearted, and recognize a child of God, a sibling of Jesus and oneself, in every human encounter.

* * *  

Until next time, stay faithful.

Norm

 

  

THE TRANSFIGURATION OF JESUS - MYTHOS AND MEANING

 MYTHOS

The story of the Transfiguration is recorded in the Synoptic Gospels of Matthew 17:1-13, Mark 9: 2-13, and Luke 9:28-36.  It  is not recorded in the Gospel of John. 

I have written several posts on the Transfiguration of Jesus and I invite the reader to take a look. The first is a homily I delivered at Christ Episcopal Church  on February 14, 2021 which you can see here.  I also wrote about the Transfiguration in a 2017 post that was the start of a series of posts on "The Mystic Journey" which can be viewed here. 

As I have mentioned in other posts, visions are personal experiences such as Jesus experienced at his baptism where he heard God identify him as God's beloved son and saw the Spirit of God descend on him like a dove.  It is rare to have a shared vision, although the Roman Catholic Church has recorded such multiple events, the most famous and relatively recent is the Miracle of Sun associated with sightings of the Virgin at Fatima, Portugal in 1917 which was reportedly witnessed by 70,000 people.  I must let such things stand for those who experienced such events.  It would be wrong for me to question their experiences as they remain highly personal regardless of how many or how few people experienced such visionary events.

Could the story of Jesus' Transfiguration which was witnessed by three of Jesus' disciples Peter, James, and John have occurred?  Yes.  What leans me towards it being presented as a myth in the Gospels is the construction of its telling and the purpose for being presented at all. 

According to the Gospels of Matthew and Mark, six days after predicting his death Jesus takes Peter, James, and John up a high mountain where Jesus begins to glow and Elijah and Moses appears and are seen conversing with Jesus. The disciples are afraid.   Peter offers to build three shelters or tabernacles for them, after which a cloud overshadows the scene and the Voice of God proclaims, "This is my Son.  Listen to him!"   The cloud  suddenly disappears as it appeared leaving only Jesus and the three disciple.  Jesus instructs Peter, James, and John not to tell anyone what they have experienced.  The disciples then question Jesus about Elijah's presence.

In the Gospel of Luke,  this event occurs eight days after Jesus  predicts his death.  Jesus takes Peter, James, and John up a high mountain to pray and while they are praying Jesus' face changes and his clothes take on the brightness of a lightening flash.  Then Moses and Elijah appear in "glorious array."  Jesus, Moses, and Elijah are talking about Jesus' departure.  Luke notes at that point the disciple become very sleepy and it is during this period of sleepiness that Peter suggest building three dwelling for Moses, Jesus, and Elijah.  Suddenly a cloud appears and overshadows the frightened disciples who "enter" into the cloud as it envelops them.  It is then they hear a voice saying, "This is my Son whom I have chosen.  Listen to him!"  After this,  the cloud disappears and the disciple become fully awake and see only Jesus standing by them.  In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus doesn't need to tell his disciples not to tell anyone.  They simply don't or can't tell anyone about what they experienced because they remain both frightened and confused.

MEANING

There is no small amount of the mystical about this story.  As I am prone to do, I would point out some of the elements of this story usually overlooked when the story is presented as a factual event and taken literally.  Speaking of facts, the most overlooked fact of this story is that all three of the Synoptic Gospels point out that a number days that pass after Jesus predicts his death to his disciples.  Numbers are important in any story found in biblical literature.  In the Gospels of Matthew and Mark, the transfiguration of Jesus takes place six days after he predicts his death and in the Gospel of Luke it is eight days after his prediction.

Six days after Jesus' predictions of his death symbolizes the near completion of Jesus redemptive ministry, in the same way that six days represent the near completion of God's creation.  In light its numerological significance,  Jesus taking three of his closest disciples represents half an equation of God's creative order, the mortal or earthly creation.  Once the disciples reach the top of the mountain, Jesus begins to glow in brilliant radiance and two other radiant being, Elijah and Moses appear with Jesus forming the other half of the equation as the eternal divinized.   The three of them are conversing, but the disciples are not able to hear or recall what they are talking about.

Peter intuitively, within his awestruck confusion, perceives that the fulfillment of creation, the harvest, the end of time is upon them and thus offers to build the dwellings used in the Jewish festival of Succoth.  After this a cloud overshadows them and they hear the voice of God saying, "This is my Son.  Listen to him."  

The presence of God's voice reveals the presence of a seventh being, the fullness of all creation, God's self, the cloud that envelops all of them, that being in which all things exist.  When the cloud lifts, Jesus awakens his disciples back to the reality we know and warns them to say nothing about this vision to anyone.  In the Gospels of Matthew and Mark the disciples question Jesus about the presence of Elijah.  They ask when will Elijah come to which Jesus replies, that Elijah has already come, implying that John the Baptizer was/is Elijah.  Such talk almost borders on describing a multiverse in which past, present, and future have no real meaning as everything is eternal in God's being.  Identity, itself, is nebulous.  Elijah and John the Baptizer are interchangeable characters or identities.  

In the Gospel of Luke Jesus takes his disciples up to a high mountain to pray eight days after he predicts his death.  Luke seems to like adding some nuances to these shared stories.  The number eight is significant in this story as it is after eight days that a male baby is named and circumcised, thus Jesus in this myth is named (identified) in the presence of both living in this life and those living in the next life.  God gives Jesus his identity as God's Son; that is,  the person God has chosen to be God's Son.   This is an interesting twist to the earlier birth story of Jesus in Luke, where Jesus is the conceived Son of God via the Virgin Mary.  In this myth, Jesus is God's chosen one to be God's son, which begs one to question whether this myth or the birth myth of Jesus were later additions to this Gospel.

In Luke's account, the three disciples become very sleepy when Moses and Elijah appear.  Sleepiness represents a state of liminality - a place where visions and dreams emerge.  It is in this liminal state that Peter offers to build a shelter for Moses, Jesus, and Elijah.  That the disciples immediately understood who Moses and Elijah were is a bit of mystery.  How did they know?  

The suggestion of liminality strips away the mask of mundane reality to reveal the holy other.   The disciples just know.  James and John are rendered speechless during this event.  In fact, Jesus doesn't have to remind the disciples not say anything to other disciples, suggesting that they were too overwhelmed by the experience to be able to do so.  Was it a dream or a vision?  At this point, the disciple are not even talking about this experience amongst themselves, which is supposedly due to its being so otherworldly; as such, they have no point of reference to make what they experienced as real for them.  The time will come, according to all three of these Gospels, when its meaning will become apparent as the point of reference needed to understand Jesus' death and resurrection.

In Luke, the nebulous is expressed by the claim that Jesus' face changes; that is,  was "heteros" meaning other in Greek.  The transfigured Jesus is a vision of something other than the mundane likeness the disciples recognized.  There is no description of what this face looked like, but it was different.  

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The myth of the Transfiguration of Jesus is like something out of a sci-fi movie.  Reality as the disciples knew it became altered.  The long-ago dead are not dead or as Jesus once said, "(God) is not the God of the dead, but of the living," Matthew 22:32.    Identity is nebulous and indeterminate as this vision demonstrates.  Elijah is John the Baptist in another age.  All of which leads me, at least, to say there is more to this story than merely pointing out that Jesus is the Son of God; that there is more to life than this life.  For the moment, we are who we appear to be, who we think we are, and who others think we are but there is larger sense of life that is obscured by the cloud of God's Being that overshadows us.  

All three of the Gospel presentations of this myth proclaim in the presence of witnesses, what at Jesus' baptism was only presented to him; the Voice of God proclaiming Jesus to be God's beloved son in whom God is well-pleased.  In this myth that proclamation comes with a command, "Listen to him."   It is that command which is the true purpose of this myth.  One can walk away from its telling thinking that this is simply another myth telling us that Jesus is God's Son, but there is more to it.  "Listen to him" is what this myth is telling us to do.  Ingest Jesus' teaching. 

Traditional theological conclusions draw attention to the fact the Moses and Elijah represent the Law and the Prophets.  Undoubtedly that is a meaning derived from this myth.  I would suggest that there is more it than that.   Jesus is portrayed as central to understanding the law and prophets, not merely the ultimate keeper or fulfillment of the law nor merely the fulfillment of what the prophets prophesied.  Jesus is the ultimate voice of God's law and prophetic vision.  Jesus represents a new vision and a new version of law and prophesy.  He is Jesus.  He is Moses.  He is Elijah.  All are one in the Being of God; as all are one in Christ (Galatians 3: 28).

That's a lot to wrap our finite brains around, but in this twenty-first century, we are faced with trying to wrap our finite brains around a lot of things that border on the unreal.  Accepting the nebulous nature of our being is the first step to understanding the meaning of this myth and its pointing to the truth of a greater reality.

Until next time, stay faithful.

Norm

   

  

JESUS AND THE SEA OF GALILEE MYTHS - MYTHOS AND MEANING

 MYTHOS

There appears to be two different myths involving Jesus and the Sea of Galilee which are largely the same thematically, as there was with the myths of Jesus feeding the four and five thousand.  All of these the Sea of Galilee myths involve stormy weather and rough seas, with Jesus walking on the water in one version and  Jesus calming the storm that is rocking the boat where Jesus and his disciples are in in the other.

Jesus walking on the water is found in Matthew 14:22-22, Mark 6:45-52, and John 6:16-23.  Jesus calming the stormy sea is found in Matthew 8:23-27, Mark 4:35-41, and Luke 8:22-25.  Once again Matthew and Mark contain both stories, but Luke has Jesus calming the sea and John only has the story of Jesus walking on the water.   

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JESUS CALMS THE STORMY SEA

I'll begin with the less dramatic of the two myths, Jesus calms the stormy sea.  Since the three gospels in which this myth is found are almost identical, I am going to offer the portions of homily I delivered at Christ Episcopal in Yankton, SD on June 16, 2021. The gospel for that Sunday was Mark 4:35-41.  For the purpose of this post, I am substituting myth for the word "miracle" in the original text of my homily:

"The myth of Jesus calming the sea paints a picture, an icon, or a triptych to meditate on. If this myth was to be depicted as a triptych, the first panel might portray a boat packed with Jesus’ disciples.  The boat has a mast with the sail loosed from its fittings and flapping wildly in the wind. The boat is being buffeted by the waves on all sides and filling with water.  Nobody is in control of the boat’s rudder. Jesus is asleep in the stern near the rudder and appears oblivious to the storm raging about him. The disciples, drenched with water, are depicted pleading with Jesus to wake up, with gesture suggesting they want him to take control of the rudder.  Jesus does not appear wet at all and has a serene expression on his face.

In the second panel, we see Jesus standing serenely at the stern, ignoring the rudder, with one hand raised to the wind and the other pointing to the waves. He appears to be talking while his drenched disciples are crouched down and holding on to the sides of the boat, the mast, or each other.  

In the third panel, Jesus hands are still in the position we saw them in the second panel, but now the sky is blue and cloudless, the sun is shining, and the sea is as calm as glass. The disciples are no longer wet, their faces are lit with a mix of amazement and laughter.  If this triptych was in a museum, a docent might ask, 'As you are looking at this triptych, what do you think is going on? What is your take away?'”

JESUS WALKS ON WATER

Of the two myths, Jesus walking on water is by far the more dramatic.  Nothing says myth than using an  impossibility to explain a proclivity we humans are prone to.  Jesus walking on the water is treated differently in each of the three Gospels it found.  I want to start with John's account because oddly it is the most straightforward.  It's as if John really didn't want to spend much time on it.  In all three of the gospel accounts that contain this myth, this event takes place after the feeding of the five thousand.  After which Jesus heads toward the hills.  In Matthew and Mark Jesus went into the hills to be alone and pray.  In the Gospel of John's case, it is to escape from the crowd who wanted to crown him king because he fed them. 

John points out that Jesus's disciples went ahead of him in a boat to get to the other side of the Sea of Galilee.  Later when the sea was getting rough Jesus come to them walking on the water. Naturally the disciples frightened, but when Jesus says that it is him, they stop being afraid and helped him in the boat.  That is all there is to it.  The people on the side of the sea who were present when the disciples took off without Jesus wondered how he ended up in the boat when the disciples arrived. 

Mark offers a similar account.  After Jesus was praying around dawn, he noticed that the disciples were struggling with their oars as a wind came against them. Jesus takes off and walking towards them he almost passes them by.  The disciples are frightened because they think Jesus is ghost, but Jesus tells them it is him and Jesus helps himself into the boat and immediately the wind stops blowing.  Marks tells us that the disciple were amazed (as well they should have been) but Mark says they were amazed because they did not understand the miracle that Jesus did in feeding the five thousand because their hearts were "hardened."  

The Gospel of Matthew basically follows the story line of Mark.  Jesus goes into the hills to pray and sends his disciples into a boat to cross to the other side of the Sea of Galilee.  While Jesus is prayer a strong wind comes up and the disciples are struggling against it.  When its about dawn, Jesus goes to them by walking on the water. As in Mark the disciples are terrified by what they perceive is a ghost coming towards them.   

It is at this point that Matthew adds a twist to the whole story.  The ever-questioning Peter offers a test to Jesus, "If you are who you say you are, tell me to come out on the water."  That should give anyone ready pause to question Peter's sanity.  As fisherman by trade, he should know, better than anybody, that people immediately sink if they step on water. At any rate, when Jesus says, "Come," Peter steps out of the boat and starts to walk towards Jesus, but then notices the waves and the wind and immediately starts to sink and cries out, "Lord save me."  Jesus does, saying to Peter, "O you of little faith.  Why did you doubt?"  After entering the boat, the wind stops and all are safe.  

MEANING

The original meaning of these myths of the miraculous calming of the sea is that Jesus is truly the Son of God; as evidenced by the wind and wave obeying him.  But every myth, biblical or other, is layered with meanings.  Mythic stories are there for us to explore and probe the meaningful depths they contain. 

As the wilderness is used as a metaphor for transitional and/or transformative periods in biblical mythology, storms on the sea are a metaphor for the storms we encounter in life, those moments when it is rough going is caused by some form of chaos.  Whatever blows our way or is impeding our progress is when Jesus comes to us in order to calm the chaotic environment we find ourselves in.

In the story of Jesus calming the stormy sea, Jesus is asleep, resting on a pillow in the stern of the boat.  It is only when awakened to the disciples's fear he calmly rebukes the wind and immediately everything is back to normal. The meaning of this myth is quite simple when the disciple proclaim, "Surely this must be the Son of God; " Even the wind and the waves obey him." 

Awakening Jesus is a metaphor for prayer in this myth.  In some ways, this myth implies that Jesus, knowing that everything will ultimately turn out just fine, doesn't seem a bit bothered by the chaos of the environment.  Jesus knows everything will turn out just fine, but as far as Jesus' disciples are concerned everything is not fine.  They fear being swamped by the waves and drowning in the sea.    Jesus is awakened by their pleas for him to wake up and do something.   Jesus awakens and rebukes the wind and the wave and immediately the sea is miraculously calm as if nothing ever happened.  

Did Jesus know the storm was scaring the dickens out of his disciples?  Was he waiting for them to come to him and ask for help?  Perhaps.  The Gospel of Mark implies a connection between the disciples failure to see the miracle that took place in feeding the five thousand and probably didn't see the "miracle" in the feeding of the four thousand either because feeding themselves was not the issue for them, even though they were concerned about a large number of hungry people..  It is probable, in Mark's view, that Jesus delayed in stopping the storm until they demonstrated a personal need for an answer to their immediate concerns.

In the myth of Jesus walking on the water,  Jesus takes leave of his disciples to go off on his own to recoup by heading into the hills - the high place above the fray of life and nearer to heaven from where he can see his disciples, his followers, struggling against the sea of life.  Interestingly, Jesus doesn't stop praying when he sees them struggle.  He completes his moment of meditation and prayer and when a new day is about to dawn he comes down from the hill walking on the surface of surface of the water as his disciples are battling the forces of nature. 

Jesus is unaffected by the storm, a sign of his being above nature (supernatural) and beyond the limitations of other mere humans.  Jesus knows that he will calm the storm.  He could have done it from where he was praying but he comes to them on the water instead. Why?  As mentioned above to prove a point of his ability to do the miraculous in order to meet their needs.  Their lack of faith is the issue in both of these mythic representations.  

Matthew's Petrine twist to the myth of Jesus walking on the water is both baffling and intriguing.  If Jesus walking on water is not enough, Matthew drags Peter into the scene for a purpose that is not entirely clear. The absurdity of this twist to the original story begs either its dismissal or a deeper look into its presence.  What is absurd about this story is Peter's response to Jesus declaration that he is Jesus, "Lord if it is you, tell me to come to you on the water."  WAIT - WHAT?  

If Peter had any doubts about who he was talking to why make such a ridiculous suggestion?   

Perhaps therein lies the point of Matthews version of this myth.  If one follows the story of Peter in the Gospels, one can see that Peter has a problem with distinguishing between what he believes should be true and faith that will lead him to what is actually true.  In the twenty-first century we are seeing this difference between beliefs and faith being played out in real time in our politics and in the rise of Christian Nationalism within the United States. What we believe to be true can carry us only so far before one starts realizing that one is in deep water and sinking fast.

Belief is not Faith.  

What Peter believed prompted him to jump overboard.   If Peter had faith, he would have waited in the boat to discern whether it was truly Jesus. He would not have challenged Jesus to perform a personal miracle to validate his belief.  As a mythic story this Petrine twist exposes the naivety of those who possess ardent religious beliefs in the absurd.  

Peter's belief that he could walk on water if Jesus' says faltered as soon as he comes to realizes that the sea he is walking on is anything but a walk in the park.  If this wasn't a mythic story, he would have started sinking before both feet hit the water, but as a myth we need to suspend the rational to explore the meaning it is offering.   Even though Peter is able to make a few steps towards Jesus, the sea being rough and the waves are high, his common sense kicks in at the most inopportune time making him realize he should be sinking which he immediately does.   If this myth was written in the present day, the author or authors might have been compelled to attach a warning banner which would read:  "Kids, don't try walking on water!"  

Personal beliefs that are not based on fact or experience can be fatal; especially, when the obvious is being ignored in the belief that the obvious does not apply to one.  How many cults in recent years have led people to take their own lives, to justify killing as righteous cause?  These myths possess the tint of truth.  Faith is not belief.  Faith discerns.  Faith does not challenge.  Faith awaits.

Until next time, stay faithful.

Norm