What is That to Us

There is a certain strange irony to much of the thematic analysis of John's gospel.  That is, there are many interpretations that note prominently the echoes in John of the themes of Genesis, yet there are few interpretations of John that will question the gospel as a springboard to the development of the standard Christian theology.

And yet we must ask (as would seem only reasonable): Can it be assumed that a gospel that echoes Genesis is meant chiefly to usher in new developments, and not to provide, rather, a conclusion of a story-arc?  It seems to me that Genesis is spoken of by the interpreters when the introduction to John ("In the beginning was the Word....") is dealt with, and then later in John when the parallels between the two gardens can be drawn, but Genesis is forgotten by the time Peter is being interrogated at the Sea of Tiberias.

Can we be so sure that the story of John is not a deconstruction of the history of humanity, as littered as that history is with elements--some time-honored and understandably cherished by Jesus' contemporaries--that Jesus is intent on discarding?  If there is Genesis in John, might we not see it temporally reversed?  Should we not at least try to read John backwards, as it were?

And so we might think of poor Peter by the Sea of Tiberias, which is the last episode of John.  I have written before of a conceptualization of Adam as a flawed being from the first, unsatisfied with mere communion with God.  Neither was Adam satisfied with the care of the garden, nor even--later--with lordship over the animal world.  Adam was not satisfied until another human being was created for him, although that act of creation would not alter the substance of Adam's necessary communion with God.

And then there is the episode of the forbidden fruit, brought first--presumably--to Adam's attention when Eve, who has already partaken, offers him some.  A pair of reasonable conjectures might be made about what God would have said if Adam had been prudent enough to seek God's advice at that moment.  First, God would have probably told Adam that Adam would be all the more responsible in future for Eve's welfare (regardless of whether or not she deserved it), and second, well, if Eve were to have enjoyed some special--illicit--experience and--apparently--escaped punishment for it, what was that to Adam?  Adam was to follow God's directives.

So we have Jesus, at the end of John's gospel, saying to Peter, "Feed my lambs, Feed my sheep, Feed my sheep."  And then a few moments later, "Peter seeing him [the disciple whom Jesus loved] saith to Jesus, Lord, and what shall this man do?  Jesus saith unto him, If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? follow thou me" (21:21-22, KJV).

John's gospel ends where Genesis begins, and John's gospel flips the Genesis narrative.  Peter, the latter-day Adam, is to correct his ancestor's faults.  The master--as ever and always--must be the servant of all.  No matter how asymmetric it might seem, we--on the one hand--are to be one with humanity (flesh of flesh and bone of bone) in humanity's weaknesses, and we--on the other hand--are to stand alone before the God who can expect us to empty ourselves of ourselves before the blast of his judgment.