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March 21, 2014
Air Jesus
A
reminder (from January 8, "Four definitions, two poems"): Preachers do it, those you see in churches and those
you see on television; scholars do it, too. Here’s how to read Scripture, definitions of terms:
exegesis – getting the sense out
of
something (usually Scripture)
eisegesis – putting your own sense
back in
exorcism – getting the demons out
of something,
anything at all
eisorcism – putting your own back
in
Perform
these actions in the right combination and you’ll have the Bible you wanted all
along.
Desipientiae: Vol. 2, Art.108.
Could Jesus
die, if he never really lived? It seems unlikely, even if with God
everything
is possible, if everything is possible with God.
The
bulletin from the church I don’t go
to arrives in my email today. The sermon
is on John 4, surely one of the more disturbing passages in all of the
gospels. Question: What does Jesus do
with the drink of water he asks for? He
doesn’t eat the bread his disciples bring him.
So,
what does he live on, this messiah of John’s? It must be air. It isn’t food or
drink. And it isn’t human contact,
because he touches no one. At least, he hasn’t yet. Look at it.
(I am working out of the zippered King James Version my esteemed parents
gave me when I was twelve, to lead me in the paths of righteousness.)
Summary of the Gospel
According to St. John (according to me, chs. 1-4)
Chapter One ▪ The Word becomes flesh - but not my flesh, the glorious
flesh that befits the Light, the Lamb
of God on whom John the Baptist sees the Spirit descending. John does not
baptize this Jesus, however. Nor does this Jesus himself baptize − only his
disciples do.
Chapter Two ▪
The water is changed into wine according to Jesus’ instructions. But he doesn’t so much change the water into wine as he says the water
into wine. He does drive the
money-changers out of the temple but with a scourge he makes for that purpose;
at whip’s-length then he drives them out. Even to those who believe,
“Jesus did not commit himself to them,” because he knows what is in them – that
is, the dirt, my rotting human flesh.
Chapter Three ▪ The conversation with Nicodemus, in which Jesus reaffirms
the necessity of being born of the Spirit (See 1:13; to hell with the flesh
really.[1])
and confirms that it is Light
that has come into the world, from
above! And John (not the Baptist but the Gospeleer) testifies:
“He that is of the earth is earthly . . . ; he that cometh from above is above
all” − above everything, every thing of this earth (3:31[2]).
Chapter
Four ▪ Jesus talks
with the woman at the well, and with
his disciples, and later with the Samaritans, who come to believe he is “the
saviour of the world”. But
though he asks for a drink, he drinks nothing, and he refuses the
bread his disciples bring from town, because he has “living water” and
“meat [we] know not of.” And it looks to me as if
he lives on air, as his followers ought to, for God is Air, and so should we
be − at least, in our worship (v.
24[3]). Later, when he arrives in Galilee he says his second miracle or “sign,” the healing of the nobleman’s son − but at
a distance far greater than to the jugs of water standing nearby in chapter 2.
So,
mothers tell your children, and preachers tell your congregations . . . I don’t
know what. But if you want to know what
the ebionites in your flock are thinking about John and about the docetists in
your midst, see above.
a
[1] 12 But
as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to
them that believe on his name: 13 which were born,
not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
[2] 31 He that cometh from above is
above all: he that is of the earth is earthly, and speaketh of the earth: he
that cometh from heaven is above all.
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