![\"JG](\"https:\/\/blogs.sjcme.edu\/theology\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2016\/02\/JG-and-MM.jpg\")
<\/a>How can the Word be with <\/em>and be <\/em>at the same time? Are the Word and God, in other words, two or one? We are so accustomed to the grandeur, and the received meaning, of the first verse of the Fourth Gospel (4G) that we no longer hear the inherent riddle.<\/em> Riddles were a popular form of entertainment in the ancient Mediterranean, just as they can be for us today; if we don\u2019t recognize that, we miss a lot of the fun in the 4G.<\/p>\nThe 4G relishes the use of riddles, much as the synoptic gospels use parables (of which there are none in the 4G), to \u201creward\u201d the reader who already \u201cgets it\u201d and to help the readers who don\u2019t see the world around them in a new way. Not only is the wordplay unfortunately and unavoidably often lost in the English translation, the irony is often lost on those who want an either\/or answer: to \u201cget it,\u201d one must often be open to a \u201cboth\/and\u201d solution. The joy is that the riddles themselves, like parables, are designed to help one open us to a new way of seeing the world, often one that is less either\/or than both\/and.<\/p>\n
While most readers pick up on the creation references at the beginning of the 4G, may miss the use of creation symbolism at the end. We begin the end, so to speak, with the creation motif and the final (7th<\/sup>) sign: the resuscitation of Lazarus (11.1-44), again emphasizing the theme of acts of creation, of giving life. Jesus\u2019 resurrection could be counted as an eighth sign, foreshadowed in the seventh and beginning the time of renewed creation. In the 4G, however, the crucifixion and resurrection are one moment, as it were, indicating renewed creation.<\/p>\n That context lies in the background of the 4G\u2019s narration of Jesus\u2019 death on the cross, which is distinct from that of the synoptic gospels. Jesus\u2019 final words here are \u201cIt is finished\u201d (19.30), placed to repeat the narrator\u2019s assertion in v. 28, \u201cwhen Jesus knew that all was now finished\u201d (teleo<\/em>). The Greek word translated \u201cfinished\u201d is best understood not as \u201cended\u201d but as \u201cbrought to completion\u201d or \u201cfulfilled,\u201d and just after Jesus dies, we read immediately that the Sabbath is about to begin (19.31). Jesus\u2019 doing the Father\u2019s work of bringing \u201clife\u201d as he completes stages of that work (see 4.34 and 5.36) and fulfilling it by his voluntary offering of his life \u201cfor his friends\u201d ushers in the Sabbath renewal.<\/p>\n This new creation is underlined again in 20.1 as the resurrection narrative begins: \u201cEarly on the first day of the week [sabbaton<\/em>].\u201d The garden setting of the resurrection appearance to Mary of Magdala, like the \u201cin the beginning\u201d and other symbols that open the 4G, points us back to Genesis. When Mary mistakes Jesus for the gardener, and that\u2019s a both\/and: she is literally wrong but spiritually correct, and that points in itself to a symbolic meaning: the portrayal of Jesus as the new Adam, a motif present in other early Christian literature. Jesus is the Word, fulfilling the creation, and is also the new Adam, ushering in a new human participation in that creation. It\u2019s then a short step to think of the Creator God of the garden, the earth.<\/p>\n Mary\u2019s own awareness comes when she hears the voice of her shepherd speak her name (recalling Jn 10.3). This scene is, without a doubt, one of the most intimate scenes of the Bible that can lead each Christian to ask: by what name does Jesus address me? How do I know Jesus\u2019 voice? And in her great love, Mary does what all of us do: she tries to hold on, to freeze the happy moment in space and time. (\u201cTouch\u201d is a very poor translation.) But Jesus instructs her not to hold on to this experience: she is to be open to the new experience of Jesus not physically present but freed from the\u00a0 bounds of space and time and so always present in eternal life now in the context of the entire creation, permeating the whole cosmos. The encounter between the risen Jesus and Mary is clearly a message to and by the community: do not only look back at the so-called \u201chistorical\u201d Jesus, but be aware of his constant presence now in each other as you live and breathe in the universe. Be aware of the eternal and life-giving presence of the Gardener.<\/p>\n Pamela Hedrick<\/strong> teaches Sacred Scripture for Saint Joseph’s College Online<\/a>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Saying this, she turned round and saw Jesus standing, but she did now know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, \u201cWoman, why are you weeping? Whom do you seek?\u201d Thinking that he was the gardener, she said … Continue reading