For the sake of not having a never-ending post, this will be in two parts. I want to look at how John sets up the image of God; next time, I want to see what the image of God looks like and how it is to be played out within our own lives.

History, they say, repeats itself. And so it does.

“In the beginning was the Word…”

John’s gospel opens with a very deliberate echo of the Genesis story. While John waxes eloquently on this word as the power behind creation (and the ironic twist that the creation doesn’t recoginze his creator), we are quite stunned when we come to 1.14 and learn that the creator becomes part of his own creation in the person of Jesus.

For those who have eyes to see and ears to hear, John retells the story of creation, indeed the story of new creation, as he guides us through Jesus’ ministry. While the synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, & Luke) describe Jesus’ awe-inspiring works, as miracles, John takes a different tact and describes them as signs. Signs of what? Signs of who Jesus is. In the synoptics, miracles are performed on behalf of the penitent; a request for healing is met with compassion, and the life of that person is changed. In John, Jesus performs signs for his own benefit; what he does reveals (”apocalypses,” if you will) who he is.

These signs commence in John 2 with the wedding at Cana (Southern Baptists’ least favorite Jesus story). John inform us that this is the first sign; he intends for us to pay attention and count. The second comes with the healing of a nobleman’s son in ch. 4. Third, we have the healing at the pool of Bethesda (ch. 5). Fourth and fifth are the feeding of the five thousand and the healing of the man born blind (ch. 6 and 9. respectively; interestingly enough, John has each of these set within the context of the Passover). Sixth is the raising of Lazarus in ch. 11.

Anyone who knows anything about numbers anxiously awaits the seventh sign. It never seems to come. Why should we expect it, though? From the outset, John has purposefully linked Jesus to creation. His telling of Jesus and his kingdom is set within that context. Just as creation was brought forth over seven days, so will Jesus and his kingdom be revealed through seven signs.

Pilate presents Jesus to the people: “Behold! the man!” (19.5). Hauntingly poetics words, if we take the time to think about it, especially since Jesus, in ch, 18, was twice called “this MAN.” On the sixth day, man, as the ultimate expression of God’s creative power, was created for the purpose of bearing the image of God. We are all too familiar with the story of his (and our) failure to live up the the task.

But now, again on the sixth day (oddly enough), we behold the seventh sign as the man is set before the world: the image of God the king (v. 14). And here is when the image of God is most recognizable: when it wears the crown of thorns, when it willingly takes the shame and sorrow of the world as its own. This is what it means to bear the image of God. Do we recognize it when we see it?

And just as Adam died, so did Jesus. And sure enough, in the darkness of a cave, Jesus rested from all his work on the Sabbath day.

And on the first day of the week, the word of God, Jesus, comes forth from his rest and works the power of his new creation. The old story is made new.