To understand the meaning of John 3:16, we must reject the popular image of a docetic Jesus.
When Jesus clears out the Temple in John 2, he presents a vision for the reformation of God’s house. As questions about guns in churches are raised once again in America, this vision is one to which we must attend.
God is calling us to life in God’s world together. We are to live as those who recognize our Shepherd, who heed and follow Christ’s call.
Real faith knows and embraces doubt and questioning. Rather than locking ourselves in, as the disciples first did, we should learn from the curiosity of Thomas. The opposite of faith is not doubt but fear, and it is time to shed our fears.
In the healing of the blind man in John 9 and the response of the religious leaders and teachers that follows, the power of scapegoating is revealed, as is the assurance that Jesus will overcome it.
John the Baptist presents Jesus as the Lamb of God, an identification continued in the book of Revelation. Looking to the Lamb, rather than to the great and powerful Beasts, should inform our politics as Christians.
God who became one of us so inconspicuously is still walking among us, very quietly, making our lives special.
The question of the status and authority of the church after Jesus’ bodily departure looms large over the Farewell Discourse, manifesting both the concerns of the disciples and concerns of a later Johannine community. On account of the Spirit’s presence, the church is empowered to speak with a fresh yet authoritative voice to new challenges.
In Jesus’ teaching concerning the Good Shepherd in John and the healing of Tabitha in Acts we see the importance of hearing and of the forms of response that hearing makes possible, whether for serving and following God or for our serving of each other.
The disciples’ failure to find their desired results when they returned to fishing following the resurrection of Christ resonates with the experience of many who are drawn back to old patterns of life after a personal encounter with Christ. Their struggle to recognize the risen Jesus challenges us to form communities within which Christ’s presence will be apparent to people in a similar state of uncertainty.
That Thomas’ absence when Jesus first appeared to the Twelve after his resurrection was due to his withdrawing from the other disciples following Christ’s crucifixion is an intriguing exegetical possibility. It also frames the events that follow in a manner that may be instructive for the Church in its witness to those who are doubting and agnostic.