The restoration of Notre Dame de Paris gives us an idea of the feeling behind Haggai’s prophecy for the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem. The national effort and generosity that went into the restoration are worthy of the pride in its achievement, and I for one am longing to see it.
So we can understand and sympathise with the “the Jews’” reaction to Jesus’ claim to rebuild the Temple in three days; the Temple, like Notre Dame, meant more than just a building. Jesus’ claim was ridiculous, provocative and, it will transpire, obscure. A certain contrariness and even obfuscation are present in the other three Gospels, but John seems to exaggerate and even revel in them. Why?
It is particularly odd that John’s Jesus should be so seldom clear when he is announced as the light that the darkness of the World could not extinguish and the Word which is the origin and explanation of everything. Odd too, that John who speaks so eloquently (albeit not very practically) of love as the expression of all that is or can be good and bright in God’s Creation, depicts Jesus as distinctly prejudiced and needlessly provocative and even rude.
This is perhaps just the inevitable consequence of the Gospel; it was, it is, good news but it’s not always very palatable news. We do not hear this in John’s Gospel, but the revolutionary message is clear in the other three. Not only are the deaf to hear, the blind to see and the imprisoned be set free but the rich and powerful are to find their values-and probably their lives too- overturned. This hardly makes for easy listening in establishment circles
In John’s Gospel, however, the message is mostly to the individual, not society; it is eternal life that is promised, not the Kingdom of God or of Heaven. What angers the Jewish authorities in John’s Gospel is not radical politics but the claim to be the Son of God and I suggest that was offensive because it challenged the nature of their and our relations with God. Jesus’ claim in John’s Gospel is that one can only know God through him, not through the observance of extensive and complicated regulations, not through the intermediary of Temple worship with its ritual and sacrifices. This was in a way more provocative because aimed at the inner person. The social challenge of the Kingdom of Heaven entailed change, but change of one’s outward social self (although Jesus does, of course, emphasise in, for example, the Sermon the Mount that it is inner conviction that matters more than mere outward display- but not outward action). John’s is a personal challenge and must have raised the temperature of any debate. It perhaps natural that such debates were often at cross purpose retaining their heat even, or especially, when recorded in a stylized way some 40 or more years later, when the young Christian churches were under attack from the Jewish establishment and the Roman authorities.
That perhaps explains the hostility we read in John’s Gospel, but how should we explain the obscurity of the message; why is it so arcane?
In part because that was the tradition in which Jesus taught, and John wrote. A tradition of using stories or parables to make a complex point or ambiguity and aphorism to provoke thought rather than give a simple answer, especially where there is no single
simple answer. There are no parables in John’s Gospel but several-and perhaps if we look hard, all- the miracles are very much more than factual accounts of strange events. The words mean more than their face value; similarly, the events of Jesus’ life speak more of the Gospel than his words.
Thus, Jesus having cleared out the traders, who were only facilitating compliance with Jewish law and regulation, cannot say the real Temple- the real presence of God in the world- is his body which will be put death but will return bringing eternal life to all who will believe in it. Such a blunt and bald statement would be as incredible as the claim to build rebuild a temple in three days. Indeed, it is only comprehensible, if one does believe in the resurrection, that is, one who for John is already within the sheepfold and not with the marauding wolves outside.
Nevertheless, one can’t help thinking that the confrontational manner, here and elsewhere, was unnecessary.
For some the exclusive secrecy, will be cosy the comfort of those “in the know”; but more, I think, will be uncomfortable with the understandably obscure nature of the belief and equally the fear or dismissal of those who do not accept it. This is perhaps behind John’s generalisation of “the Jews” who in his Gospel represent all opposition to Jesus, and who so often make the reasonable response to his extravagant claims which I suspect we would also make in their place. It’s a generalisation that is also the seed which grows into the canker of antisemitism.
This arcane belief may be understandably exclusive but is not inevitably so. We too belong to a church that is increasingly out of place and marginalised in our national life. One that seems to exist chiefly for the spiritual and social comfort of its members. Its voice in society and in national and world affairs is increasingly faint. It is not, mostly, exclusive but try as it does to be inclusive, is not that good at either retaining its members or attracting new ones.
The context of John’s Gospel may explain some of its less attractive features, but that particular context also enables us to put them aside; despite some similarities with John’s world, we are in a very different place. Perhaps if we concentrated, even more than we already do, on bringing practical love to the poor and the so variously and many needy people around us, we would as Jesus himself did, tell the Gospel story better in actions than in words, better in practice than in ritual. And perhaps then our prophetic voice would carry more clout.
Amen