The Gospel According to St. John (1-5)

We are now moving into the New Testament, the Gospel According to John. It is interesting to see that even though there is no evident change whatsoever in the actual text’s content, the Old and New Testament differ enough to be divided. The beginning of John, it was interesting to me for it kept making reference to the “Word”, which I immediately assumed was the Bible itself, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” (John 1.1) Especially the last part leaves it clear that the Bible is in fact God, therefore encouraging us to follow it word by word. Further on, and the way I see it, the Bible tries to explain how God created everything there was to be made. However, I couldn’t help but to be brought back to one of the most controversial questions of religion. If God created everything, then how did he come into existence in the first place? Nevertheless, if I have learned something from reading more and more of these complicated texts, it is the fact that we must not take everything literally. In this particular case for example, I should instead think that these passage is making reference to God’s greatness and power over everything.

Confusion arose when the narrator’s voice was changed. I mean, at first I thought this Gospel would be written from John’s point of view, expressing in first person what he himself was experiencing. But I was surprised to see that John was referred to in third person, as if it was someone outside of it all that wrote it. Moving, on we are presented with a narration of Jesus’ many miracles. First off, and one that called my attention for I had heard of it before, was him turning water into wine. Although not in the same context, this is one of the most popular of his miracles I must say, and to me it symbolizes God’s power to turn even the simplest, dullest things into something majestic. In chapter 2, another popular and important scene is mentioned. As Jesus arrives at Jerusalem at one of the temples, he appears to be immensely offended by the presence of merchandisers in this spot. He orders for them to be removed and says “Take these things hence; make not my Father’s house an house of merchandise.” (John 2.16) This is actually a crystal-clear example that we should not use faith, or religion, as a sort of excuse to benefit ourselves. In this case, people were taking advantage of the temple to make some business, obviously throwing away its real purpose.

I would also like to emphasize on some aspects mentioned later on. In chapter 4, Jesus tells us how we must drink the water he provides for us, for it will keep thirst away. “Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again: ¹⁴ But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.” (John 4.13) Once again, do not take things the literal way. In my way of interpreting it, Jesus does not refer to water itself, but rather the belief in God itself. It actually makes sense, if we feed our faith upon Jesus, we will end up living a joyful, everlasting life. Otherwise, problems and doubts are sure to arise in our way.