the cross

In the dialogue of Jesus to Nicodemus Jesus speaks about being lifted up just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert so that all who looked at the bronze serpent were healed. By now we should be more and more attuned to the perspective of the gospel of John for this is the same gospel the church will turn to when it meditates more profoundly on the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus in the coming weeks.
For the other gospels, the resurrection and even the ascension of Jesus are the events where Jesus was exalted and glorified. For John it is different. For him the exaltation and glorification of Christ is not in his resurrection or ascension but on his death on the cross. His humiliation was his exaltation. His death was his glorification. Thus it would be referred to in the fourth gospel as the lifting up - Jesus would be lifted up on the cross, not just literally, but the cross would be his exaltation and his glorification.


John as a gospel writer offers us fresh perspectives, and he does this by looking at things differently from the rest. Precisely it is his gospel that is read during Good Friday because John does not present it as something dreary or sorrow laden. He presents it not as sorrowful mystery but as glorious mystery, an exaltation, a glorification.
Today John is inviting us to look at things differently. To look at things not from the normal perspective, not from the human perspective, not from the perspective of our age and culture but from the perspective of God. It is a different perspective, a perspective which invites us to leave behind the usual.
The world would have us believe that suffering is to be avoided at all cost. The world would have us believe that old age is to be shunned or at the very least disguised.
The world would have us believe that retirement is the doorway to oblivion and meaninglessness. The world would have us believe that death is an entry into nothingness.
Today however we are presented with a world from the perspective of John, and things are different. There is meaning to our pain. There is a purpose to our sickness. There is a reason why we grow old and why our bodies and even our senses are no longer that dependable. There is a reason why we have to go through the age of forgetfulness, to a time when our memories will fail us. There is a purpose for retirement and why we have to go through the fear of being forgotten and becoming insignificant. And finally there is a reason why we are to get excited with death.
Our Lent would be incomplete if we do not consider the paradoxes of the gospel of John, if we do not consider the contradictions in the life of Jesus most especially the contradictions proffered by his passion and death.