John's Gospel
I found the assigned reading of John's Gospel this week to be very interesting. The Jesus presented in each of the separate gospels is portrayed in a different manner. Mark demonstrates Jesus as a sufferer; Matthew portrays Jesus as the New Moses for the Jews; Luke believes that Jesus was a social profit. John's portrayal of Jesus is considered extremely different because of the increased divinity of the man within his gospel, Jesus is the "Word of God". He is the product of the word becoming the flesh, the incarnation of God. Jesus reaches full divinity in the gospel, compared to the other three. There are multiple themes that I noticed while reading John (we also discussed a few of them in class), including: good and evil symbolized by light and darkness, glory of God, grace, truth, revelation, belief, and of course judgement.
I found that it was harder to relate to Jesus as a person in John because he no longer possessed the human characteristics that grounded him in Mark, Matthew, and Luke. Upon first reading a passage, I was not able to grasp the ideas presented as thoroughly as I did with the other gospels. In class, we learned that John's gospel was intended to be read, meditated upon, and then re-read, in order to reach full understanding. This is something that I need to continue to work on in regards to my faith, not expecting immediate answers, explanations, or logic. I need to start taking time to think and process scripture.
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