Word to the Wise
Saturday, June 11, 2011 - 7th Week of Easter - Sat morning
[Acts 28:16-20, 30-31 and John 21:20-25,928]There are also many other things that Jesus did, but if these were to be described individually, I do not think the whole world would contain the books that would be written.
With these words, the Gospel of John comes to a close - for a second time at the end of Chapter 21! If one reads to the end of Chapter 20, there is another concluding paragraph about the many things that Jesus did that are not written in the book. I'll let the scripture scholars debate the reasons for this. My reflections on the Farewell Discourse have already indicated that the final editor of the gospel was working with a number of sources and did some picking and choosing about what would go in the final copy! Each gospel writer/editor had an "agenda" that colored the way he put together all the resources and stories about Jesus. The "agenda" of the Gospel of John is more or less set out in the "prologue" at the outset.
The reference to the "many other things" should alert us to the necessity of reading the entire New Testament to get as complete a picture as possible of the way in which the early preachers communicated the message about Jesus Christ. This, in turn, should alert us to the necessity of reading the Old Testament, especially the prophets and psalms. At first the community interpreted Jesus in the light of the Old Testament. Gradually this changed to where the Old Testament was interpreted in the light of Jesus! This is the approach that is taken by the church today.
The "many other things" call to us for contemplation and preaching. Our baptismal vocation is, in the words of a Dominican motto, "to share the fruits of our contemplation with others." AMEN