The look of defeat, the triumph of God.

During my senior year at North Park University, I took a class on the gospel of John. The entire class was spent developing a one-sentence thesis of John's gospel. Aside from writing my very first 147-word sentence, this class challenged me to look again at Jesus.

John's portrayal of Jesus is very unique. Every gospel portrays him different (here I will highly recommend Four Gospels, One Jesus? by Burridge). If Luke displays Jesus in accessible and tangible terms, John likes to overturn expectations. He seems to take delight in presenting an idea of Jesus, then expanding it, modifying it, or turning it completely on its head to present an alternative view.

The quick sum of what John seems to set out to do is three-fold to me (though my own synthesis project is more caveated, these are the three main points that I believe are unavoidable and are the thrust of the text):

1. Jesus in John's gospel is all about self-revelation; revelation of the very nature of God, making God known to His followers and to the world
2. God's character in Messiah is most clearly revealed through his repeated I AM statements throughout the gospel that lead to a definitive declaration of His ironic kingship (demonstrated by the crucifixion, which is referred to as the "glorification")
3. Jesus calls His followers to carry on the work of revealing the nature of God; the very work Jesus did, His identity, and His mission have been passed along to us

God's self-revelation through Jesus in John's gospel is even more important than the idea of Jesus dying for sins. Soteriology, salvation, is not shown to be about personal belief in a Jesus that dies for your sin. It is simply to know God and to continue making Him known, the way that Jesus did, by following Him (John 17).

1. Self-revelation: Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. (John 17:3)
2. Identity through the glorification: I have brought you glory on earth by completing the work you gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began. (John 17:4-5)
3. Followers carry on the same mission: I have given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world. My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. For them I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified. (John 17:14-19, note the parallel language).

If the glorification, the crucifixion, is the pinnacle of Jesus' revelation of the character of God, we must know that we bear that mission. We don't seek martyrdom. And bearing our cross doesn't mean dealing with personal demons or a difficult past or a current "thorn in the side". It means following the way of Jesus. Jesus himself didn't seek martyrdom. 

If we truly seek to follow Jesus and to continue God's work of self-revelation "so that the world may believe" (John 17:21), we cannot expect our glorification to look like anything that the word glory would typically imply. John turns that term on its head. Or Jesus. Or John's interpretation of Jesus. 

Whatever the case, in John 14-17, Jesus again and again states our relation to Him, Jesus' relation to the Father and the purpose of His/our work, so that the world may believe Jesus was sent from God, so that they may know God in truth. 

Sometimes it looks like the utmost defeat. But it is triumph in the Kingdom of God. All of this comes from a question I've been mulling over the past week, which I will now close with:

When we follow Jesus, whose glorification according to John's gospel WAS the crucifixion, why do we expect our way of life to look like a conquest of nobility? Are we seeking to pick up our crosses or our crowns?