“What sign are you going to give us then, so that we may see it and believe you?” The Gospel of John, or the Fourth Gospel, as many scholars call it, is a Gospel of Signs. In this gospel, the story of Jesus is structured around seven “signs,” miracles that are meant to clarify and concretely reveal Jesus’ identity to everyone who might hear or read this account. In this sixth chapter, which we began hearing last week, we encountered one of those miraculous signs. We watched Jesus’ enabling the feeding of the crowds who were following him. The other signs in the gospel story, most of which we hear about in our three-year lectionary, include the wedding at Cana, where Jesus’ turning water into wine is the first sign, the healing of the royal official’s son in Capernaum, the healing of a paralytic at the pool of Bethzatha, Jesus’ walking on water, which we also heard about last week, the healing of the man born blind, and the raising of Lazarus.
In the gospel, these seven signs reveal Jesus’ power over disease, sickness, and death. They show that Jesus brings wholeness to what is broken, that he is master of the created world, and that he rules over a realm that is greater than any earthly realm. What is more important, these miracles are powerful symbols. They show us something about God through elements of our lives with which we are already familiar, through healing, and through water, food, and wine. For those with eyes to see, these signs reveal God’s glory and deepen trust in the Word made flesh, God’s self-revelation in Jesus.
Is it surprising then that the miracles in the Fourth Gospel did not often lead the people who witnessed them to deeper faith in Jesus? More often than not, the signs caused confusion, division, and even hostility among those who witnessed them, including Jesus’ very own disciples. Lest we become judgmental or think ourselves superior to the people who interacted with Jesus in the flesh, remember that the people who misunderstood Jesus’ signs were not stupid, hard-hearted, or evil. Rather, those who witnessed Jesus’ signs missed their meaning, because what they were seeing in Jesus was completely beyond anything they had encountered before. Scripture and the traditions that ordered their lives were also no help in explaining what they were seeing.
The community for whom John was writing in the late 90’s AD may also have been confused as to Jesus’ true identity. We believe that the people for whom this gospel was written were mostly Jewish followers of Jesus who now found themselves in conflict with the wider Jewish community and its leaders. They were struggling to understand the Jesus to whom they had committed themselves and to define themselves as a community. The miraculous signs of this gospel were meant to fill out their understanding of Jesus, bolster their faith in him, and reassure them that they had made the right choice in responding to Jesus’ call. At the end of chapter 20, the writer reminds the hearers that, “Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.”
Are we also confused by the signs in the Fourth Gospel? If we’re honest, we might admit that we too find it hard to comprehend Jesus’ true identity. Week by week, we say, in the words of the Nicene Creed, “[T]rue God from true God, begotten, not made, of one Being with the Father…. By the power of the Holy Spirit, he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary and was made man.” What are we saying when we say that? More to the point, is our faith only in a past event? Do we also seek signs? Can we see signs of God at work in the world around us now? Where might we look for signs that will clarify Jesus’ identity and reveal God’s glory for us? Ultimately, we must learn from our own experience Who Jesus is. Even so, I’d like to suggest that the experiences of two people might help open our eyes to see the signs of God at work more clearly.
The first person is Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Society of Jesus, or Jesuits, who lived from 1491 to 1556. Born into a Basque family, Iñigo, as he was known, began his adult life as a soldier. However, he was seriously wounded in the Battle of Pamplona in 1521. While he was recovering, he underwent a spiritual conversion and resolved to join a Benedictine order. In 1534, in the wake of the stirring of the Protestant Reformation, he resolved to found his own order, the Jesuits, which would be dedicated to evangelism, education, and prayer. During his earlier convalescence, Ignatius had read De Vita Christi, by Ludolph of Saxony, a commentary on the life of Jesus that encourages us to place ourselves in the scene of the Gospel story. From this method of “simple contemplation,” Ignatius developed his Spiritual Exercises, a set of meditations, prayers, and other mental exercises on the life of Jesus, designed to be carried out over a period of 28–30 days.
Among the most influential prayer practices in the history of the church, the Spiritual Exercises are regularly used by those who wish to deepen their relationship with Jesus. Right here in Ohio, at the Jesuit Spiritual Center in Milford, you can undertake weekend, week long, or even thirty day Ignatian retreats. What is more important, as those of you who have experienced even brief Ignatian prayer can testify, immersing yourself into a gospel scene, experiencing the sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and touches of the scene, seeing Jesus at work, looking into his eyes, and conversing with him, enable us to open our hearts to him, to know him in our hearts, and not just in our heads, and to experience him as friend and brother. Dare I say that we may even come to love Jesus more deeply and to discern the love he has for us? If nothing else, when the “eyes of our hearts” are opened, we may also be able to begin sharing with others the love that we experience in Jesus’ presence.
Jeanne Bishop also came to see more clearly the signs of Jesus’ presence in her life. In time, she even was moved to act on what she saw. The day before Palm Sunday in 1990, Bishop’s twenty-five year old sister, Nancy, Nancy’s husband Richard, and their unborn child were shot to death by sixteen-year old David Biro, who had broken into their home in a Chicago suburb. David was convicted and sentenced to life without the possibility of parole. Bishop later said, “When he got that sentence, I was glad. It meant I never had to think about the murderer again. I could leave him behind, go forward in my life thinking only of Nancy and Richard and how to honor their lives with my own.” Bishop forgave her sister’s murderer, but, for more than a decade, refused to have any contact with him. Even though she was a lawyer and a public defender, she argued vigorously for life sentences without the possibility of parole even for juveniles.
But God would not let Bishop alone. “God changed my heart,” she said, “made me turn and look back, go back to reach out to the killer, to tell him that God loved him, that I forgave him, that he is not alone.” In her moving book, Change of Heart, Bishop describes how she came to the point of being able to visit Biro. She wrote to him and received a surprisingly penitent letter in return. She began visiting him, and little by little, she was able to accept him as a human being in need of and deserving of God’s love. She has since also become an outspoken opponent of the death penalty. Although her family does not agree with her, she also now opposes mandatory life sentences without parole for juveniles. Where are the signs of Jesus’ presence? In the healing and reconciliation that Jeanne Bishop has both experienced and helped to bring about.
Signs of Jesus’ presence, signs that signal who Jesus is, are all around us, if we could but open our eyes to see them. Whenever we turn to God in prayer, and especially when we bring ourselves more directly into Jesus’ presence through practices like Ignatian prayer, we see Jesus more clearly. We experience his love more deeply. More important, when we do the works of mercy, when we become instruments of God’s grace for others, then not only do we ourselves see Jesus, but we also enable others to perceive his presence and to understand his work.
Gracious God, open our eyes to see you and the signs of your presence everywhere we look. Let us be instruments of your peace, and of your grace and mercy.
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