lenten blog | February 28, 2024

Did Jesus say that?  Yes and no.

Throughout the year, the Southern New England Conference of the United Church of Christ reproduces the Daily Lectionary for use by churches.  These are the suggested readings for February 28th:  Psalm 105:1-11, 37-45; Jeremiah 30:12-22; and John 12:36-43.  I would encourage you to read these short selections as part of your Lenten practice.

At our online Bible study group a couple of days ago, we discussed a Johannine passage that has a connection with today’s Gospel where we read, “[F]or fear that they would be put out of the synagogue…”  We were reading John 9’s account of Jesus’ cure of the man born blind.  The religious authorities questioned the healing as from God because it was performed on the sabbath.  To do work on the sabbath, even the work of healing a man born blind, was judged as breaking the commandment of sabbath rest.

The man was not believed.  They brought in his parents to see if they would corroborate his story of being born blind.  They demur because they were afraid of the consequences of opposing the authorities who “had already agreed that anyone who confessed Jesus to be the Messiah would be put out of the synagogue.” (9:22) 
During Jesus’ historical ministry this was not the case.  At the time, Jesus could be seen as at the fringe, but Jesus and His followers continued to worship at synagogues, follow the commandments and even journey to Jerusalem’s Temple.  However, following Jesus’ lifetime, as His followers grew more and more distinct from their Jewish neighbours, then a formal separation was enacted.  Rudolf Schnackenburg writes, “If we also take into account that the curse on the heretics in the 12th of the 18 Benedictions was inserted under Rabbi Gamaliel II around 90AD, and that from that date extremely severe measures came into force to ensure social segregation between Jews and the ‘Nazarenes’ and heretics, it is clear that John is writing against the background of his own time.” (John, Vol. 2, p. 250)

The biblical reference in today’s Gospel passage and more so in John 9 help scholars to date this Gospel to the end of the first century.  It is also a clear example that the biblical authors felt no compunction as they inserted contemporaneous materials into their accounts of Jesus’ ministry.  Schnackenburg argues that members of John’s community had experienced personally expulsion from their places of worship.  They were forbidden synagogue membership because they accepted Jesus as the Messiah.  The impact of these expulsions was profound among those to whom John wrote, and John placed these same concerns within the story of the historical Jesus retroactively.  John did so because his Gospel is not explicitly history.  It is evangelism.  It is explaining who Jesus is to his readers.

This is an example within the canonical text of the Bible of the still-speaking Word of God.  The historical Jesus had been absent for some 60 years at the time of John’s composition, maybe more.  And yet, Jesus was not locked into the past.  The Jesus of the historical past continued to speak in John’s present.  This does not end with the last Gospel.  Jesus continues to speak to us today through the still-speaking Word of God. 

The Bible still speaks to us today not when we lock its message into antiquity as if God spoke then and nevermore.  The Bible shares with us unique inspiration.  For Christians, that unique biblical inspiration is derived from a close connection with the historical Jesus.  The New Testament books emerge in the second half of the first century.  They include actual remembrances of historical events and saying from the life of Jesus.  They share the faith of the earliest believers.  And those inspired words that are included in the New Testament continue to speak to us 2,000 years later as we read them, pray with them, study them and apply them to our world – just like John did.  May Lent help us to hear anew the still-speaking Word of God in the Bible, the Word that adapts to speak to us today in a living way.
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If you’d like, here is the link to the Southern New England Conference’s daily reading schedule:  www.sneucc.org/lectionary.