The Book of Unknowing. David S. Herrstrom
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was a man sent from God, whose name was John” (1:6).
What a contrast to the cosmic opening—this single declarative. The rhythmic waves of John’s voice crash on the shore and run all the way up the beach of our world, the last bit of foam falling, finally spent at the feet of this man (and us).
The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light,
that all men through him might believe.
He was not that Light,
but was sent to bear witness of that Light (1:7–8)
The disclaimer is perfect. The logician’s voice resumes—O that syllogistic rag. John’s eating his cosmic cake and having it too. You can tell, John’s a debater. “That was the true Light, which lights every man that comes into the world” (1:9).
Back to the chant on “light,” we’re completely taken by John’s ability to be lyrical and ratiocinative at the same time.
He was in the world,
and the world was made by him,
and the world knew him not (1:10).
Entranced by repetition, John loves the emotional build of this chant. Rooted in the formal rhythm of ritual, it is intensified by John’s limiting himself in vocabulary. His characteristic style, taken from and given to Jesus, isolates a word and then names it out loud, varying the context but pronouncing it again and again. He’s obsessed with certain words (not unlike most poets) as if they’re talismans possessing magical power.
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As the essence of life itself, the voice has magical power against death. It is the “loud voice” (11:43) of Jesus, not his touch or gesture, that brings Lazarus back from the dead. John heightens the dramatic effect of this act of speech by having Jesus pause, just before calling out to Lazarus, and interrupt the proceedings to direct words to his Father (11:41–42). John is well aware of his artful move, establishing permission for the use of dramatic technique by pointing out Jesus’ own admission that he himself used the scene to achieve a specific effect (11:42). Add suspense to magic, and the word, which we remember exists from the beginning of time, takes on immense power for life. The word is merely uttered and nature responds.
Power to triumph over death is in this voice alone. It is not in the seeing with one’s own eyes or in the doing, but in the hearing that truth is apprehended. Jesus asserts that in the voice the future collapses into the present. The ear is the arena of an eternal present tense, where voices of the past and future are one in the present, and hence “The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and they that hear shall live” (5:25). No action is necessary. The voice is all.
Naming in itself has an uncanny power. Lazarus comes forth at the loud utterance of his name; Mary comes into awareness at the calm enunciation of hers.
We are drawn by the one who names. Because naming out loud invokes the essential interior life, our real being is awakened. The flip side of this drawing out, however, is its pressing down. This explains why Jesus is fond of “sheep” as a metaphor for his followers, who respond when he calls them by “name” (10:3) just as sheep know the shepherd’s voice. The one who names has the power. The one who names determines how we speak about the world and thus what has value and what does not, in short, reality itself.
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Jesus’ dramatic pause to speak to his Father before raising Lazarus reveals what we’ve known all along, that Jesus hears voices in his head continually. Like his disciples, he too is a listener. He responds to the Father who speaks to him. At one point the people also hear this voice, interpreting it as either “thunder” or an angel’s voice (12:29). Apparently a different angel than the one Mary conversed with.
The voice in Jesus’ head becomes audible to those who accept his new vocabulary. As he states unequivocally to Pilate, “Every one that is of the truth hears my voice” (18:37). Hearing this voice of his “truth” is to embrace a new vision of real life, which values things differently—the law (woman taken in adultery), as well as social (Samaritan woman) and gender divisions (Mary boldly anointing Jesus with perfume), the political order itself.
John gives us many of the voices that Jesus hears. They are various, lucid simplicity as well as sublime nonsense, at times teasing or sermonizing, abrupt or tender, but always arresting.
Jesus often begins in the most disarmingly simple way: “I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman” (15:1), for example, then shifts to the preacher’s voice. Jesus launches into a repetitious (with his numbing chant on “father”), less than joyous sermon, which irony we smile at because he’s just said he won’t be talking much any more (14:30). As his monologue spirals heavenward it becomes increasingly convoluted:
I am the vine, you are the branches: He that abides in me, and I in him, the same brings forth much fruit: for without me you can do nothing. If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned. If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, you shall ask what you will, and it shall be done unto you. Herein is my Father glorified, that you bear much fruit; so shall you be my disciples (15:5–8).
At the same time, its centrifugal force whirls him away from the incipient parable into another analogy. “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you: continue you in my love. If you keep my commandments, you shall abide in my love; just as I have kept my Father’s commandments, and abide in his love. These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full. This is my commandment, That you love one another, as I have loved you” (15:9–12). What a contrast in context to the earlier admonition to “love one another” (13:34). Here it’s a belaboring, almost hectoring atmosphere. Jesus’ primer-like, patronizing method of proceeding exacerbates this. In the earlier context the admonition flows naturally from the warmth of his speech.
As a result, Jesus’ conclusion here that he speaks so their “joy might be full,” sounds somewhat hollow. Perhaps Jesus is getting impatient as his determination to give himself up to martyrdom becomes certain. He has, after all, just displayed a rather frayed frame of mind in losing patience with Philip (14:9).
Yet responding directly to the continual voice in his head, Jesus “lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, ‘Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee’” (17:1). Its energy in check, he modulates his voice into exquisite tenderness.
This direct address of his Father is also intended to be overheard by the disciples. With this comes a shift to a more subdued tone, a mix of humility and tenderness.
And now, O Father, . . . I have manifested your name unto the men which you gave me out of the world: yours they were, and you gave them me; and they have kept your word. Now they have known that all things whatsoever you have given me are of you. For I have given unto them the words which you gave me; and they have received them, and have known surely that I came out from you, and they have believed that you did send me. I pray for them: I pray not for the world, but for those who you have given me; for they are yours. . . . (17:5–9)
John has his readers listen along with the disciples to Jesus’ comforting supplication with its lulling, cycling rhythms and repeated words on their behalf that they might have “joy fulfilled” and, building to a climax, truth and finally glory.
The disciples must have thrilled to hear Jesus’ supplication, an incantation in their honor wishing for them the radiance of Jesus himself (and John’s readers wishing right along with them). Undoubtedly they failed as usual to understand what Jesus was saying, but they certainly understood the import of Jesus’ gesture of speech on their behalf. They know a wish fulfillment when they hear one.
And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to you. Holy Father, keep through your own name those whom you have given me, that they may be one, as we are. While I was with them in the world, I kept them in your name: those that you gave me I have kept, and none of them is lost. . . . And now come I