Lection and Liturgy

The Revelation to John, also known as the Apocalypse, contains seven letters, which make up the second and third chapters. However, it is not itself a letter, but the only New Testament book which as a whole is in the literary genre of apocalyptic. This is a type of literary description of visions that claim to unveil the meaning of history for those in the know. 1 They often contain the metaphor of a journey through heavenly or spiritual realms with a guide. The vision at the heart of the Apocalypse is that the soft power of the Lamb’s self-sacrifice will be triumphant over the hard power of the mighty Roman empire. While readings from this book are used on a number of feast days, 1 Revelation also provides the second reading for the Sundays of Easter in Year C. Its celebration of Christ’s triumph draws out a key aspect of the Easter gospel. Readers are somewhat prone to introducing readings from this book wrongly. It is the Book of Revelation in the singular, not R...

Although there are three letters which bear John’s name, the second and third are very short, and perhaps show something of how the teaching of the longer letter is put into action in some specific relationships. Only the first letter is used in the lectionary. This letter in particular shares some significant thinking and vocabulary with the Fourth Gospel. Whether this means they come from the same person or simply the same theological circles is impossible to say. None of them give their author a name. Tradition has associated them with John the Apostle, but there is no way of knowing exactly what relationship, if any, he had with the circles from which these writings came. Detail from a portrait of John the Apostle by Alonso Cano. John is sometimes portrayed blessing a poisoned chalice. For more on this story, see the page for this picture at the Louvre. Apart from the festivals of John the Apostle and All Saints’ Day, readings from 1 John provide the second reading ...

In the first of these two posts on John’s gospel, I looked at some of the ways he differed from the other gospels. We saw how much he organised his writing around Jewish festivals in Jerusalem, and also took a look at the problems his language created for Christian attitudes to the Jewish people. Today I want to go on to explore, especially, two key themes that are have a significant impact in the life of the church and are well reflected in the lectionary’s choices. John the Evangelist as represented by François-André Vincent. Via Wikimedia Commons One is the way John deploys the language of the courtroom. This begins in the prologue, with the description of John as a witness. Normally, a witness, when giving evidence, confesses what they did do or who they are, and denies what they didn’t do, or who they aren’t. The evangelist turns this on its head for emphasis: This is the testimony given by John when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, “Who...

I expect this to be the first of two posts on John’s gospel. But anyone coming to this version of the story after reading the other three immediately sees significant differences in both style and content. Short pithy sayings are out, and long meditations are in. There are no exorcism stories from Jesus’s ministry, but the cross is portrayed as a casting out of Satan, described as “the ruler of this world” (John 12:31). Disciples who occur as significant characters in the synoptic gospels, like James and John the sons of Zebedee, don’t get a mention, while others like Philip and Thomas, who only appear as names in the first three gospels, get speaking parts in John. St John: one of four paintings of the evangelists in Venice’s San Sebastiano church by Paolo Veronese. Via Wikimedia Commons . Tradition has identified John the son of Zebedee with the beloved disciple and the author of the gospel. Most scholars feel there are various problems with that, not least that the ch...

The order of the biblical books is is not accidental but deliberate. The Old Testament ends with prophecy. The New Testament begins with the gospel that puts the greatest stress on Jesus as the fulfilment of prophecy. This is Matthew’s version of the story of Jesus. The canonical order is almost certainly not the order in which the gospels were written. In a rare instance of near universal academic agreement, biblical scholars think that this sub-genre of ancient biography was invented by Mark: the first person to write a gospel. The four evangelists, gospel book cover. Photo © Philip Barrington There is also universal agreement that the gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke are in some way interrelated. After that scholars begin to part company. The majority think that one key relationship between the gospels is that Matthew and Luke both adapt Mark in different ways. They tidy up his story (and his grammar!) and supplement it with a range of additional stories they val...