Dare to Be Wisdom: Part III
The Gospel of John
Fr. Donald Macdonald, SMM
One of the earliest copies of the Gospel was found in Egypt and is said to be from the second century. It is of the Gospel of St. John and contains a few verses from chapter eighteen. Allowing for the time when it was first copied and then finding its way to Egypt, it is an indication of how quickly the written Gospel spread.
The Gospel did not arrive in hermetically sealed containers delivered by a heavenly messenger. It did not fall from space. Rather, the Gospel came from inside the Community as an expression of the creative Spirit within it. The evangelists would first reflect, and then write against the background of their own times.
Everyone who puts pen to paper is conditioned by his or her own environment. The evangelists are no exception. In St. John’s Gospel particularly, the evangelist was influenced by the Old Testament wisdom tradition in offering his portrait of Christ. A glance at that tradition, as found in the Gospel, may help us respond to the challenge – Dare to Be Wisdom today.
DELIGHT
In the latter part of the Old Testament, Wisdom, was personified in an attempt to show God’s presence in creation, and so giving purpose of the universe and our place in it: “I was there when He (God) made the skies … When He laid the foundations of earth, I was close beside Him, the designer of His works, and His daily delight, forever playing in His presence” (Prov. 8:26-31). This poetry tries to show God present in creation, not simply orchestrating an anonymous, albeit wonderful, collection of atoms, but especially “delighting to be with the children of men.” In St. John’s Gospel, Jesus is really that delight in person not just in poetry: “And the Word became flesh and dwelt amoung us, full of grace and truth; we have seen His glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father” (Jn. 1:14).
In Christ we can see what God is like – His glory. The evangelist is so held by this that he cannot take his eyes from Christ. In sign after sign the Gospel invites us to share this delight in Christ Wisdom. We can see because Jesus Wisdom reflects the light that was his before the creation of the universe: “As long as I am in the world, I am (the) light of world” (Jn: 9:5). The Gospel is a further invitation to become enlightened. “Delight”, of course, follows from being given the light to see.
Jesus Wisdom wants us to share that delight with Him, even on the other side of the grave! Describing us as a gift from His Father – “Those you have given me … ” – He asks the Father in prayer before He dies: “Father, I desire that they also, whom You have given Me, may be with Me where I am, to behold my glory which thou hast given Me in Thy love for Me before the foundation of the world” (Jn. 17:24). Not even death, the ultimate in separation, is to come between us and Christ Wisdom, such is his delight in us!
Painting: Sermon on the Mount: Carl Bloch (1834 -1890)
This is the third in the series: Dare to Be Wisdom. The first article may be found here. The series examines parts of the Bible and reviews a passage in the context of challenging us all to be more Christ like, to Dare to Be Wisdom!
In Christ we can see what God is like – His glory. The evangelist is so held by this that he cannot take his eyes from Christ. In sign after sign the Gospel invites us to share this delight in Christ Wisdom.
INVITATION
Jesus, like the figure of Wisdom, reveals what God is like and invites us to live in His light. The symbols used for instructions are familiar from St. John’s Gospel – bread, water, wine … “I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me shall never thirst” (Jn. 6:35). There is immense power and presence there seen as a call from Christ Wisdom now. Whoever gives himself or herself to Christ shall never want for anything is the claim! The Gospel was written to urge me to really believe it and entrust myself to Christ (Jn. 20:31).
The Eucharist beautifully reinforces that appeal from Christ the bread of life, as St. Louis de Montfort noted: “Eternal Wisdom … could not bear the thought of leaving (us). So … he hides himself under the appearance of a small piece of bread – man’s ordinary nourishment – so that when received, he might enter the heart … and there take his delight” (LEW 71).
HERE AND NOW
The evangelist tries to show how Christ Wisdom might be found. Like the figure of Wisdom, he too goes out to meet people. He does not wait for them to come to him: “Wisdom shouts aloud in the streets, she raises her voice in the marketplace, at street corners she calls out … ” (Prov. 1:20).
The eyes of the woman coming to the well did not deceive her, for example, when she saw Jesus sitting in its shade, “wearied as he was from his journey” (Jn. 4:6). Nor did her ears deceive her in hearing him beg her to give him a drink. Yet, the underlying reality, truly there, to be seen only through the insight of faith towards which Christ Wisdom was hoping she would come, reverses the roles: “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him and he would have given you living water” (Jn. 4:10).
Here is Jesus Wisdom among his people, at the feet of this unhappy women – “You have had five husbands, and he who you now have is not your husband …” – inviting her to come into the light. The theme is a powerful one of “thirst” and how life tries to answer it. Whoever drinks from the well will thirst again, “But whoever drinks of the water that I shall give … will never thirst … ” (Jn. 4:14). Yet again the claim is colossal. If this is true …?
“How many times … could Eternal Wisdom be heard pleading, ‘Come to me … Are you afraid because you are sinners? But they are the very ones I am looking for … If it is because you have strayed from the fold through your own fault, then I am the good shepherd’ ” (LEW 70). This echoes the portrait of Jesus the shepherd in the Gospel: “I am the good shepherd: I know my own and my Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep” (Jn.10:14-15).
Perhaps the familiarity of the image obscures its meaning. Against the Old Testament background, here is God himself acting for his people who have so often been let down. The intimacy of Christ Wisdom with ‘my own’ is almost impossible to express. The analogy offered is that of the love of Father for Son, and we have no categories to take that in! The invitation comes from Jesus who will give his life for those he calls. “Poor people and little children followed him everywhere seeing him as one of their own … felt at ease with him” (LEW 124). Does Christ Wisdom draw me like that too?
ABIDE
“Eternal Wisdom,” says Montfort, “after creating all things, abides in them to contain, maintain, and renew them” (LEW 32). Again, at the level of shared delight, the intimacy open to us in Christ Wisdom is beautifully shown in the invitation to share with him the organic life described as Vine and branches. The evangelist prefers the verb ‘to abide/stay/remain/dwell …’ to the more usual ‘follow’, as if to emphasize no suggestion of a gap between Jesus and ourselves.
“I am the Vine, you are the branches … As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you; abide in my love … I call you friends since I have made known to you all that I have heard from my Father … I choose you … (to) go and hear fruit and that your fruit should abide …” (Jn. 15:9-16). This is the relationship that is ours through baptism. The wise man or woman will try to realize the wonder of it. It is a present reality that we are invited to savour. Loved by God in Christ, in so far as it registers and we respond in kind, we can live to real purpose whatever happens.
St Louis Marie went deeper here than most and writes of what he found: “Eternal Wisdom … is … the source of … joy and consolation for whoever possesses him. He gives a relish for whatever comes from God … enlightens the mind with the brightness of his own light … an incredible joy, sweetness, and peace, even … in harrowing grief …” (LEW 98). Underlying the experience of evangelist or saint, is their awareness that Christ Wisdom rose from the grave to be with them. Like the heartbroken Mary outside of the empty tomb of Jesus, I too should hear my name in wonder from the risen Lord (Jn. 20:16). It all begins from there.
End of Part Three
PRACTICAL EXERCISE
- Water, Bread, Light, Shepherd, Vine, Abide, are a few of the signs pointing to Jesus Wisdom in the Fourth Gospel. Do they attract me?
- Is it possible to know ‘Dare to Be Wisdom Today‘ unless I know Jesus Wisdom?
