As Christians enter the most solemn stretch of the liturgical year, theologian David Ford — who spent over twenty years writing his commentary on the Gospel of John — makes the case that no other Gospel prepares you for the cross the way John does. "The right question is not so much what happened on the cross, as who happened on the cross. All through the gospel, every chapter, John is saying — who Jesus is is the most important thing." In this episode with Macie Bridge, Ford reflects on why John's Gospel resists rushing past darkness to get to Easter. Together they discuss what the foot washing reveals about power and humble service; how John's prologue frames the entire passion through the mystery of incarnation; Jesus before Pilate and the priority of truth over empire; the horrific interpretive legacy of antisemitism in Luther, Augustine, and centuries of Christian reading; how the Gospel universalizes identity by rooting it in God rather than lineage; the scene at the cross as the seed of the church; and what Ford calls the sheer superabundance of grace — loving "utterly, intimately, vulnerably, mutually." --- Episode Highlights "The one thing one mustn't do with these days is see the resurrection as just coming down off the cross a few days later. That trivializes the cross." "Jesus is portrayed as being utterly one with God and utterly one with us. He's mortal. He's flesh. He can weep. He suffers." "The right question is not so much what happened on the cross, as who happened on the cross." "We are invited into this extraordinary intensity of the divine glory — but it's a glory that is utterly, utterly realistic about darkness, sin, death, suffering, and evil." "The whole gospel, I think, is an education of desire." --- About David Ford David F. Ford, OBE, is Regius Professor of Divinity Emeritus at the University of Cambridge, where he held the chair from 1991 to 2014, and a Fellow of Selwyn College. He is the founding director of the Cambridge Inter-Faith Programme and a co-founder of the practice of Scriptural Reasoning. He has served as theological adviser to three Archbishops of Canterbury. His books include The Gospel of John: A Theological Commentary (Christianity Today 2023 Book Award Finalist), Theology: A Very Short Introduction, The Shape of Living, and most recently Meeting God in John. His commentary on John's Gospel took over twenty years to write and has been translated into Korean. He was awarded an OBE for services to theological scholarship and inter-faith relations in 2013. (Sources: University of Cambridge Faculty of Divinity page; Center of Theological Inquiry profile, Feb. 2026.) Ford does not appear to maintain a personal website or public social media. --- Helpful Links and Resources Meeting God in John: Inspiration and Encouragement from the Fourth Gospel, by David F. Ford https://www.amazon.com/Meeting-God-John-Inspiration-Encouragement/dp/1587437066 The Gospel of John: A Theological Commentary, by David F. Ford https://www.amazon.com/Gospel-John-Theological-Commentary/dp/1540964086 For the Life of the World Episode 224: How to Read the Gospel of John / David Ford https://faith.yale.edu/media/how-to-read-the-gospel-of-john Scriptural Reasoning http://www.scripturalreasoning.org/ Denise Levertov, "On a Theme from Julian's Chapter XX" — discussed at Image Journal https://imagejournal.org/article/denise-levertov-a-memoir-and-appreciation/ --- Show Notes - Why John's Gospel is the "matured gospel" — distilled from years of meditation, eyewitness reports, and rewriting - "From his fullness we've all received grace upon grace" — the theme of superabundance running through John - John wrote for both beginners and the experienced — simple Greek, inexhaustible depth - Ford's biggest hope after 20 years writing his commentary: that readers would become "habitual rereaders" of John - The prologue as the most influential short text in the history of Christianity - "In the beginning was the Word" — the only framework for understanding Jesus is God and the whole of reality - "The Word was made flesh" — utterly one with God, utterly one with us - The farewell discourses of chapters 13–17 as probably the most profound teaching in the New Testament - Chapter 17 as the most profound chapter in the Bible — Jesus' final prayer before the passion - The foot washing: "All things having been given into his hands — and then what the hands do is wash the feet of his disciples" - "Loving utterly, intimately, vulnerably, mutually" — the heading Ford gave to Maundy Thursday; used as the title of the Korean translation of his commentary - "If you want to be great, wash feet" - The "as" in John's Gospel — love as Jesus loved, sent as the Father sent — requiring us to go deep and then endlessly improvise - Jesus washing Judas's feet — the radicality of love extended even to the one who betrays - John omits the Eucharist from the Last Supper — placing eucharistic theology in chapter 6 to keep the focus on who Jesus is - "I think nobody is in favor of the real absence of Jesus" — Ford on disputes over the real presence - The beloved disciple as the model disciple, Peter as "all the rest of us" — the one who tries, fails, and is restored - "The anonymity allows us all to write our names there" — reading ourselves into the beloved disciple and the mother of Jesus - The threefold "Who are you looking for?" and the threefold "I am" at the arrest — echoing Exodus 3:14, the very name of God - Before Pilate, facing the most powerful empire in history, Jesus headlines one thing: truth - The scene at the cross as the seed of the church — Jesus sending his mother and the beloved disciple to each other - "Here is your mother, here is your son" — the Greek verb for "received her" is the same as "whoever receives the one I send, receives me" - "The right question is not so much what happened on the cross, as who happened on the cross" - Nelson Mandela as a distant analogy: "Apartheid happened to Mandela, but Mandela happened to apartheid" — likewise, sin happened to Jesus, but Jesus happened to sin - Denise Levertov's poem on Julian of Norwich: "the oneing with the Godhead opened him utterly to the pain" - "He handed over the spirit" — not "gave up his spirit"; a possible first breathing of the Holy Spirit from the cross - Scriptural Reasoning: its origins with Jewish textual reasoning scholars working out what it means to be Jewish after the Shoah - Peter Ochs and the founding of Scriptural Reasoning at Princeton - Ford on reading John chapter 8 with Peter Ochs: facing the "appalling inheritance" of antisemitic interpretation - Adele Reinhartz's reading: John isn't anti-Semitic — John is Semitic; the Gospel relativizes ethnic identity - Dietrich Bonhoeffer on doing justice to incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection — all three, not just one - Receptive Ecumenism — looking at yourself first, asking how we can be better Christians rather than telling others to be like us - "The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness does not overcome it. But it doesn't say the darkness disappeared." - "The whole gospel, I think, is an education of desire" --- #GospelOfJohn #HolyWeek #GoodFriday #DavidFord #Lent #PassionNarrative #TheologyOfTheCross #FootWashing #ScripturalReasoning #ForTheLifeOfTheWorld --- Production Notes - This podcast featured David Ford - Interview by Macie Bridge - Edited and Produced by Evan Rosa - Hosted by Evan Rosa - Production Assistance by Noah Senthil - A Production of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture at Yale Divinity School https://faith.yale.edu/about - Support For the Life of the World podcast by giving to the Yale Center for Faith & Culture: https://faith.yale.edu/give
As Christians enter the most solemn stretch of the liturgical year, theologian David Ford — who spent over twenty years writing his commentary on the Gospel of John — makes the case that no other Gospel prepares you for the cross the way John does. "The right question is not so much what happened on the cross, as who happened on the cross. All through the gospel, every chapter, John is saying — who Jesus is is the most important thing." In this episode with Macie Bridge, Ford reflects on why John's Gospel resists rushing past darkness to get to Easter. Together they discuss what the foot washing reveals about power and humble service; how John's prologue frames the entire passion through the mystery of incarnation; Jesus before Pilate and the priority of truth over empire; the horrific interpretive legacy of antisemitism in Luther, Augustine, and centuries of Christian reading; how the Gospel universalizes identity by rooting it in God rather than lineage; the scene at the cross as the seed of the church; and what Ford calls the sheer superabundance of grace — loving "utterly, intimately, vulnerably, mutually."
Episode Highlights
"The one thing one mustn't do with these days is see the resurrection as just coming down off the cross a few days later. That trivializes the cross."
"Jesus is portrayed as being utterly one with God and utterly one with us. He's mortal. He's flesh. He can weep. He suffers."
"The right question is not so much what happened on the cross, as who happened on the cross."
"We are invited into this extraordinary intensity of the divine glory — but it's a glory that is utterly, utterly realistic about darkness, sin, death, suffering, and evil."
"The whole gospel, I think, is an education of desire."
About David Ford
David F. Ford, OBE, is Regius Professor of Divinity Emeritus at the University of Cambridge, where he held the chair from 1991 to 2014, and a Fellow of Selwyn College. He is the founding director of the Cambridge Inter-Faith Programme and a co-founder of the practice of Scriptural Reasoning. He has served as theological adviser to three Archbishops of Canterbury. His books include The Gospel of John: A Theological Commentary (Christianity Today 2023 Book Award Finalist), Theology: A Very Short Introduction, The Shape of Living, and most recently Meeting God in John. His commentary on John's Gospel took over twenty years to write and has been translated into Korean. He was awarded an OBE for services to theological scholarship and inter-faith relations in 2013. (Sources: University of Cambridge Faculty of Divinity page; Center of Theological Inquiry profile, Feb. 2026.) Ford does not appear to maintain a personal website or public social media.
Helpful Links and Resources
Meeting God in John: Inspiration and Encouragement from the Fourth Gospel, by David F. Ford https://www.amazon.com/Meeting-God-John-Inspiration-Encouragement/dp/1587437066
The Gospel of John: A Theological Commentary, by David F. Ford https://www.amazon.com/Gospel-John-Theological-Commentary/dp/1540964086
For the Life of the World Episode 224: How to Read the Gospel of John / David Ford https://faith.yale.edu/media/how-to-read-the-gospel-of-john
Scriptural Reasoning http://www.scripturalreasoning.org/
Denise Levertov, "On a Theme from Julian's Chapter XX" — discussed at Image Journal https://imagejournal.org/article/denise-levertov-a-memoir-and-appreciation/
Show Notes
#GospelOfJohn #HolyWeek #GoodFriday #DavidFord #Lent #PassionNarrative #TheologyOfTheCross #FootWashing #ScripturalReasoning #ForTheLifeOfTheWorld
Production Notes
This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors.
Evan Rosa: From the Yale Center For Faith and Culture, this is for the life of the world. A podcast about seeking and living a life worthy of our humanity.
David Ford: I mean, one thing, one mustn't do with these days is to see the resurrection as just Jesus coming down off the cross. A few days later, that trivialized the depths of the cross.
Evan Rosa: The very idea of the resurrection is just so good, so great, so glorious. Sometimes it's hard to factor in the God forsaken events leading up to it.
The false praise of Palm Sunday, the absent friends and the garden. The kiss of betrayal, the agony, the brutality of Good Friday. Theologian David Ford wants us to resist the temptation to skip over the darkness of holy Week and just rush toward the sunshine and flowers of Easter morning.
David Ford: John's gospel opens by saying, the light shines in the darkness, but the darkness does not overcome it.
But it doesn't say, the darkness went, the darkness disappeared. Of course, the darkness continues. Look at the news at the moment, you know, and one, when it it, it's. Utterly obvious that we still live in a world where we are. If we are sent, as Jesus was sent, we are sent into darkness.
Evan Rosa: Ford has spent over 20 years inside the gospel of John and he says, no other gospel prepares you for the cross the way John does.
Signs, wonders, encounters teaching, all designed so that by the time you reach the passion, you know exactly who it's, that's about to suffer.
David Ford: And the whole gospel, I think, is an education of desire. So by the time we reach the passion narrative itself in Chap. Which 18 and 19 we've been shaped. We've had our imaginations opened up.
We've had our minds stretched. We have already been prepared in a diverse number of profound ways. We've been prepared by being led into full. Jesus is, you know, every chapter is about who Jesus is. Really.
Evan Rosa: You need to remember that desire is eros, the erotic, the love that wants to have an education of our longing, not just for how, but for whom.
It's that person, fully divine, fully human. Who walks into the passion,
David Ford: and then right center is the word was made flesh. In other words, Jesus is portrayed as being utterly one with God and utterly one with us. The full self-expression and self-giving of God, and at the same time, absolutely at one with us.
He's mortal, he's flesh. He can weak He, he, he's. Sufferers,
Evan Rosa: the whole gospel David Ford says, has been training you to ask one question once you get to the foot of the cross.
David Ford: The right question is not so much what happened on the cross as who happened on the cross, all through the gospel. Every chapter John is saying, who Jesus says.
It's the most important thing.
Evan Rosa: When we begin to understand this, the darkness of Good Friday becomes something else entirely.
David Ford: We are invited into this extraordinary intensity of the divine glory, but it's a glory that is utterly, utterly real. About darkness, sin, death, suffering, evil, all that goes terribly wrong, but is absolutely care that the darkness doesn't overcome the light.
And the first word and the last word is Jesus Christ, that the word made flesh.
Evan Rosa: David Ford is Regis professor Emeritus of Divinity at the University of Cambridge, an author of the Gospel of John, a Theological commentary, as well as his new book. Meeting God and John in this conversation with Macie Bridge, David Ford reflects on why John's Gospel resists that rush toward Easter, the theological meaning of foot washing Jesus before Pontius Pilate and the politics of truth, the horrific interpretive legacy of antisemitism found in Luther and Augustine, how the gospel.
Universalizes identity, rooting it in God rather than blood lineage. The sheer super abundance of grace made available and what it means to love, quote utterly, intimately, vulnerably, and mutually. Thanks for listening today,
Macie Bridge: David. Thank you so much for joining me on the podcast today.
David Ford: Well, it's really good to be here, Macy.
Macie Bridge: I am really thrilled to be discussing with you your new book, meeting, God in John, a Companion for Lent Holy Week, Easter and Beyond. Really a delightful guide that you've put together. It's so clear reading it.
How thoroughly steeped you are in the Gospel of John. So I'm excited to be bringing this conversation to our listeners as they are experiencing Holy Week. I am thinking to kick us off today, the broadest of broad questions. Would you orient us to, what are we finding in John that the other three gospels aren't so much drawing us into?
David Ford: Oh my goodness, me, my goodness, me. Well, first of all, I think John. Has that sense of being the matured gospel. You know, that's been distilled outta years of meditation. Of course, as of eyewitness reports, written reports and so forth. But somehow you feel that John's Gospel has, you know, that the, these things have been upon probably repeated and rewritten and rewritten.
I think we have a gospel that is both for beginners and for the more experienced. It's extraordinarily well crafted, and it's a very simple Greek. And John himself says at the end that this in his first, is only addressed to readers that it's written so that you might come to believe that Jesus says the Messiah, the Son of God, and also that you might have life in His name.
You know that you may go on and on in this. Mm-hmm. I think he manages somehow in this. Gospel, which I think one of the marks of it is his sheer super abundance that, you know, from his fullness we've all received it says grace upon grace and that all the symbols of super abundance, all the wine at Cana, the feeding of the 5,000, the fish, the wind, the know water, and so forth.
And I think put he's trying to do is to give us something that's got immediate impact but also. You can feed on year after year after year. I think I came outta writing my commentary on John, which took me over 20 years to write that, that my biggest hope was that people would want to become habitual rereads of John because it's always fruitful.
Macie Bridge: Beautiful. So would you center us in, as we're thinking about Holy Week, where has John led us when we get to the start of the passion narrative in this gospel?
David Ford: Well, well, it's part of the wonderful crafting at John's Gospel that mm-hmm. What he leads us into all the three climactic events of what he calls the hour, the last weekend, and he leads us into those.
Right from the start, you know, we have the crucifixion is signaled there that this in Johns, the Baptists cry. This is the lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world. Right? In the first chapter two, Jesus is the one who baptizes in the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit rests on him as permanency. And then in the beginning of chapter two, the resurrection has begun.
And so, and right the way through, one after the other. Chapters, he prepares us for the death, for the resurrection, and for the Holy Spirit. And so by the time we reach the passion narrative itself, in chapters 18 and 90, we've been shaped. We've had our imaginations opened up, we've had our minds stretched, uh, within that extraordinary framework of the prologue.
And of course. Probably the most profound teaching in the whole New Testament. You know, the farewell discourses of chapters 13 to 17 and oh my goodness, those chapters are just absolutely astonishing. And beginning with the foot washing and climaxing in what for me is the, the most profound chapter of the Bible, the final prayer in chapter 17.
So by the time we begin chapter 18, you know where John Passion begins. We have already. Being prepared in a diverse number of profound ways for this, and of course, not just for the events of crucifixion, resurrection, the giving of the Holy Spirit, but above all, being prepared by being led into who Jesus is, you know?
Mm-hmm. Who it's, who's the central character of this, uh, all those I am saying are just the tip of the iceberg. Every chapter is about who Jesus is. Really.
Macie Bridge: Yes. Would you open that up just a little bit for us of like, who is the Christ? We are looking at the start of the foot washing.
David Ford: Oh my goodness. Well, it begins of course, in the prologue, but explore probably the most enjoy single, be short text in the whole history of Christianity.
And in the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God. So right at the beginning we're told that. The only framework within which to understand this unique person is God and the whole of reality. Because through him all things were made. And then at the end of the prologue, we have the son who is close to the father's heart, who is in the bosom must of father.
In other words, the deepest love. So it's the deepest meaning, the deepest love. And then right center is the word was made flesh. In other words, Jesus is portrayed as being. Utterly one with God and utterly one with us. The full self-expression and self-giving of God. And at the same time, absolutely in lie, you know, at one with us.
He's mortal.
Macie Bridge: Yes,
David Ford: he's flesh. He, he, he can weak. He, he, he suffers. And, and that really is the core of the mystery. And then every chapter thereafter. Leads us deeper and deeper into who he is. And of course part of it is through those wonderful conversations he has, but also through the signs he does. He does these signs of abundant life for everyone.
He's the above all in the public ministry. It's about life, I think.
Macie Bridge: Yes, yes. When I think about Jesus' full humanity with that's there. A few moments in the gospel, I think of more than the foot washing. And I'm thinking as our listeners are coming to this episode, many may be familiar with the practices of the church throughout Holy Week that walk us through these gospel moments, but many may not be and and so would you take us.
Into the foot washing, which is typically a practice that many churches will recreate on Monday, Thursday. Bring us into that, as you have studied it. I just loved your unpacking of it in the text.
David Ford: Yes. Well, well, John makes clear that it's absolutely crucial. The heading that I gave in that is. The heading that I have from NDI Thursday, you know, loving, utterly, intimately, vulnerably, mutually
Macie Bridge: wow.
David Ford: You know that it's on the climactic point of the Jewish year. It's a Passover and it opens with love. You know, Jesus having loved his own, he loved them to the end, and then this extraordinary thing that all things have been been given into his house. And then what the hands do. The first thing the hands do in these first 20 verses is they wash the feet of his disciples.
And of course, that was a slave's job. Uh, and it's made absolutely clear how radical this is that I your Lord and master, in other words, the one who is, uh. No, the powerful one, so to speak, it does a slave's job. In other words, it's humble, loving service. But not only that, but it then says that it's an example so that you may do as I have done, and the as I often think as is one of the.
Most profound words in John's gospel because we're told to love one another as Jesus was loved us. We're told I, as the father has sent me, so I send you, and that as I think says that we have to go deep, deep, deep into who Jesus is, what he has done and so forth and into what the meaning of the foot washing he is, but also.
We have to endlessly improvise on it and we have to do it ourselves. You know, he says it's an example for us to do and one mark after another in that story, read it very carefully because every line of it is significant. And of course, the last verse is one of the most surprising of all, because he says that if you receive, whoever I send, you know, you receive me.
And whoever receives me receives the one who sends me. And that has a parallels in the synoptic gospels about receiving children of course. But it's an astonishing thing to think I, I once had a whole afternoon with a community, an intense community here, where that had gathered from all over the world for in Lamb of Palace, actually it was the community of St.
Amsel, and they were about to scatter. And they took that verse and asked, what does it mean that Jesus has sent us to each other? You know that we have received each other like this, and that in receiving each other we receive Jesus. And not only that, we receive His Father, and it's worth asking who has been sent to each one of us?
Who are these people and how do we ever recognize the implications of receiving? People who are in the image of God. I mean, it's, it's an astonishing thought, but that's just the foot washing goes on and on. I think in it, in its significance. And of course I think for our time when concepts like greatness are in the air, this is a radical take on who it is.
Great. If you want to be great wash feed.
Macie Bridge: Amen. You ask the question in this section of the book along with like, how do we identify who Jesus is sending us to receive? Can we exclude anyone we meet? And I think these are questions that like, perhaps we ask like colloquially in the church of like, well, obviously not.
We love every, like Jesus called us to love everyone. That's the love commandment. And then you get to the foot washing, it's like, no. Actually, um, we're going to sit down and wash each other's feet. That is a radical kind of living into,
David Ford: but he was washing the feet of Judas as well, the one who was to betray his love.
Macie Bridge: Yes, radical.
You also unpack in this section the omission of the Eucharist from John's, uh, narrative. And I had noticed this before, of course, but I'd never connected it to what it does for our reading of the foot washing. Would you. Open that up a bit for our listeners.
David Ford: Well, of course, John does his Eucharistic theology in chapter six in the feeding of the 5,000, and I think that's pretty significant actually.
It's in the context of the whole 5,000, you know? Yeah. That it's in relation to that. And, but of course what he does there too is he gives a. Two profound things about the Eucharist or Holy Communion or the Lord's Supper or whatever. One, people ha have all these different names, written the traditions.
But first of all, of course, he makes sure that his take on the. Eucharist is centered on who Jesus is. I am the bread of life. In other words, we never to forget that it's the living Jesus who is right at the center. There's a lot of disputes about the real presence of Jesus and the Eucharist and how one understands that.
It's been a very constitu area, Christian theology that centuries I think nobody. It is in favor of the real absence of Jesus. And the thing that, you know, one comes together on i, I is this focus, and I think John wants to unify Christians. Uh, I mean that's clear in chapter 17, his passion for Christian unity and the disgrace that we don't have it.
And I think his way of doing that in relation to holy communion and the Eucharist is to focus on who Jesus is. In other words, it's not about a community. Where the boundaries are emphasized or a centered set, as the mathematician say, not abounded set. And you know, of course there are some boundaries and so forth, but the crucial thing is focusing on who.
So that's the first thing he does in chapter six. But of course, what is the significance? I think John knew the synoptic gospels at most scholars, I think nowadays do think he knew them, especially Mark's gospel. But, uh, I, I think that in. Putting the foot washing there right at the beginning of the last supper, that what he's doing is he's setting up something to be always thought in dialogue with the, with the Eucharist, with the supper.
That can easily become a sort of ritual that's significant and all sorts of ways, and it's a wonderful, rich, rich thing. But we also have to remember the power dynamics in the church. We have to remember the, ah. Absolute centrality of how we actually act towards each other and, and the mutuality, the vulnerability, the utter love.
Macie Bridge: Mm-hmm. What follows this is his acknowledgement of Judas and then, and then there's Foretelling Peter's denial as well. And I'm curious how you think of Peter that foretelling of Peter's denial as like a form of accountability in some sense to, to the authority structure maybe that the foot washing has sort of.
Upended. How do you sit with that?
David Ford: Well, Peter is clearly seen as the leader of the church in the final chapter. Mm-hmm. And so forth, so, so the fact that it is brutally honest about how Peter fails is very connected. But I think actually this, the drama, the disciple you left out, of course the beloved disciple to whom the whole gospel is of course ascribed.
And I think what's happening in this drama is. And I think it's a love center drama that the disciple whom Jesus loves is the model disciple, if you like the model being the one who testifies to, to Jesus too. And he's lying on the bosom of Jesus. The opposite is, so to speak. Judas, the one who betrays him and goes out into the night.
Uh, but then there's Peter. Who is all the rest of us, I think the one who tries to, says great PS and so forth, but is told that he's going to fail. And then eventually, of course, with the ultimate tact of Jesus and the without ever mentioning it in chapter 21, Jesus restores him and restores him to his vocation, to his core vocation.
He's failing Jesus radically. Bitterly bitterly upset by it. And yet, and then Jesus asks, and do you love me? Do you love me? And it's, again, it's the mutual love, the utterly mutual love. The more and more I go on, the more I think you know, the deepest purpose of God is that we have this utterly mutual love with God and with each other.
And of course, love one way can happen without deep trust and understand it. But mutual love can only happen through mutual trust and understanding.
Macie Bridge: That is making me think of in reading the Gospel of John, it's like many of us are familiar with the disciple who Jesus loved is John referring to himself.
And I've, I've heard occasionally ideas of like, oh, John was just overconfident or sort of a, uh, a take that John was maybe a little bit full of himself in some way, but actually it's really quite significant that our narrator. Is referring to himself as the one whom Jesus loved. And this will continue to come up in our conversation.
So I, I'd love to, uh, think about now, like how do you think readers should receive that as we're following John as the narrator, and what do you think that does to our experience of John's perspective in the gospel?
David Ford: Oh my, that's so interesting. Yes. The, I think, well. Just two thoughts. Um, one is that he is portrayed as the ultimate eyewitness.
The witness. Mm-hmm. The giver of testimony, and I love this, A recent piece just published last year, I think, by Richard Bacom on Jesus, on the eyewitness dimension of John's Gospel and how many little touches in the gospel seem to be eyewitness touches and I love that. And, but of course, but then what he does for us who are not eyewitness.
Is at the end of the gospel. He, he says, when Thomas doesn't trust I, the witness of the eyewitnesses of his fellow disciples and says, no, I have to see for myself, then what? What he says, I, I, in response to the risen juice, of course, is my Lord and my God. Which is radical stuff because they were both titles used as Caesar and he was being applied to somebody crucified by the Romans.
But immediately after that, Jesus says, bless other, those who have not seen but have believed and but have come to believe. And, and then he addresses us readers. And of course what's happening here I think is that, uh, Jesus', uh, that John is saying, blessed others who have not seen but who read. And to read this gospel.
Mm-hmm. Of course, because Jesus has just been s called my Lord and my God. Then you are always in the presence of the one you're reading about. So you are reading yourself deeper and deeper into relationship with the living Jesus who's present to you as you are reading this gospel. And I think that's the sort of musical circle, if you like, between the gospel and the presence of the one it's talking about.
It's really important. So the beloved disciple, that goes right up to the very last verse of the gospel. Of course. How important. But the other obvious thing I think, is that the beloved disciple is meant to be all of us. You know, it's anonymous. He's anonymous. Yes. You know, he's never named. I think you know, Richard Boko and others are right in seeing him as the other first disciple of Jesus.
You know, only Andrew is named of the two disciples of John and that the other one is unnamed, and I think. I think those scholars are right. It's quite a few of them who think that that was the beloved disciple. And so therefore, all of us are fundamentally to understand ourselves that the core of our identity as disciples is that we are loved.
And I think no. How it takes in to be loved by God, to be loved like this. Utterly and completely, it's almost impossible to take in adequately. Well, you take a lifetime to do it, I think maybe all eternity.
Macie Bridge: Mm-hmm. That's so important to our, our experience of the text. Okay. Thank you for contextualizing that.
And so, so the beloved disciple has brought us into the witness account of the, of the foot washing. And we're in the upper room. Would you walk us into, walk us into Friday from here?
David Ford: Well, of course the climax of the Last Supper in John is the prayer of Jesus, and that gives Jesus as he goes to his death, is there praying for what the deepest meaning of his death is.
I think you know that this sets up what it is that is about to happen, and of course, what is the. Vision that Jesus, that the deepest desire of Jesus, he says, I desire, he says in verse 24 of 17, and the desire of Jesus for utter unity with. Himself and his father and with each other for the sake of the world God love.
That's the vision. And he said that they may be completely one. And the completely as te hen is the Greek for completely. And it's the same verb that's used. It is finished in the crucifixion as Jesus dies. In other words, anybody who knows Greek and is sensitive to the Greek says that the completely the complete unity.
Is the unity that's created, that's generated by the love of Jesus on the cross. But then we start with the arrest, of course, and John's account of the arrest emphasizes the threefold. You know who, who, who, who are you looking for? Who are you looking for? Who are you looking for? And three times it says, I am.
You know, there's a, a threefold I am. It is a, of course it means in Greek, you know, it's me, you know, I'm I'm, I'm the person. But it also means, of course, the great I ams of John's gospel, which are according to Exodus three 14, the very name of God. And so all through the chapter 18 and chapter 19, read it very slowly and note the way in which, who.
Jesus is, is absolutely fundamental all the way through. And how John does that in a way that's quite distinctive in relation to the other gospels. Of course there's all sorts of overlaps, but, but John really does focus like that, and I think it's also very significant that where is in the farewell discourses.
John always teaches in waves and there's wave after wave on love, wave after wave of teaching on all sorts of things to especially the Holy Spirit and wave after wave on prayer. And then, but Love is the keynote. That's the one right in from the first verse of the Farewell Discourses. It's interesting that when he's in public facing.
The most powerful empire that had ever been in history. You know, the Roman Empire and facing the top religious authorities. So the top political, military, economic, and religious authorities. What is it that he headlines in his statements? Its truth. He says that this, for this, I was born when Pilot asks him, are you a king?
He says, that's what you are saying. What I'm saying is that I was born to witness to the truth, and whoever witnesses today, you know, listens to my voice. No. Whoever wants to know the truth, listens to my voice, and I think in our. Public situation today, the issue of truth is so, so fundamental. How does one have truth in the public sphere?
And what Jesus prioritizes in the trial with pilot is his truth. That's what he has come for, to testify to, to the truth. But of course the other great thing that he does is of course, love as well, that he doesn't talk about love so much, but he does it, you know, at the cross, that extraordinary scene that only John, and in a sense, it's an eyewitness touch as Richard Boku says.
That this is an intimate exchange with Jesus on the cross. It's not from the point of view of the people who are standing a far off. This is bright closeup, and again, this is the climax I think of mutual love, that it's the love between Jesus and his mother and the beloved disciple when he says, here is your mother.
Here is your sub and the disciple takes her into his own home and a lovely touch in this that's not obvious unless one knows the Greek really, but the verb for took her into his own home is to receive her. It's the same verb as is said in 1320. Where whoever receives the one I send receives me and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me.
So, so in sending that, the beloved disciple received his mother who Jesus ASC sending to. This is the first sending, if you like. I see it also as the fulfillment of that remarkable statement in chapter 12.
Evan Rosa: Yes.
David Ford: And I, when I am lifted up, will draw. All people to me and some of the manuscripts say all things, the whole of creation.
And so what we have here is the first fulfillment of that, you know, where he is lifted up on the cross. 'cause the one end chapter of says, this is what he was talking about is death. And here on the cross he, he is lifted up and he draws his mother and his beloved disciple. And then he sends them to each other.
Macie Bridge: I was so excited to discuss this passage with you because this has been an important passage to me in the last few years in my developing my own theology of the church, and I think that we lose Mary a lot in Protestant traditions. And so really dwelling with this text and the way that Jesus reorient.
John and Mary to each other as family. I think it's so important for our thinking about the ways the church should be living today. I'm wondering what would you speak more to that of like how on this Holy Friday, on this Good Friday, how do we. Sit with that reorientation because I, I don't think it get quite enough atten, that's just my personal thought.
It doesn't get enough airtime, this passage.
David Ford: I agree that for me, it's also the seed of the church in Jen John's gospel. This is the heart of the church. This is what Jesus came to. And of course, it's extraordinary that it's centered on this humiliated, crucified, suffering, dying. Mm-hmm. Jesus that is absolutely inseparable from mm-hmm.
Him. But also, of course, it's inseparable from the writing of the gospel, the testimony to the often, because you know what's going on in that household, you ask, you know, yes. What are the conversations? You know, you, you call them John and Mary, but of course they're not called John and Mary, and I think that's significant.
The anonymity, I think, allows us all to write our names there. We're all meant to. Read ourselves into being the mother, into being the, the beloved disciple. And I, I think that a church that's, that takes this seriously, both has the word of testimony right at the heart of it, but also as you say, has. The mother of Jesus and friendship, if you think of it, that Jesus says, I'm no longer call you servants, but friends.
And that's astonishing thing of being able to be part of a community that both. Blood Family and Beyond Blood Family. You know, there's, in other words, that that is a community of a friendship and family at the same time, the Society of Friends have it right in that regard.
Macie Bridge: Absolutely. Oh, I'm going to write that down the, and frame it, the anonymity.
Allows us to put ourselves into that, that interaction. I hadn't thought of that before. That's beautiful.
Of course, after Jesus speaks these words and I, I also received them as sending them to grieve together, his mother and the disciple. And then we have his last words from the cross. Uh, I mean, each gospel, uh. Gives us different, slightly different words from of Jesus'. Last words from the cross. Would you orient us to what is going on with the specifics of John's count?
David Ford: Oh my goodness. Well that's ju that's just weird.
Macie Bridge: Please.
David Ford: Yes. After this, when Jesus knew that all was now finished. That's this verb, the completely perfected verb of that, of completely one. Uh, and he said, and of course it, it's the same verb as used right at the beginning of the Farewell discourses and you know, having loved his own, he loved them.
To the end, the tell us. That he had it finished. He said, in order to fulfill the scripture, I am thirsty. A jar full of sour wine was stamping there, so they put a sponge full of the wine on a branch of hiss, held it to his mouth. When Jesus had received the wine, he said, it is finished. Then he bd his head and.
Gave up his spirit. That's not a good translation at the NRSD. It should be handed over the spirit. It doesn't say it's his and the Greek, it's Numa, and he handed over the spirit. I had a long conversation with one of my dear friends, Francis Young, who I feel is the best Patristic scholar in this country.
And she and I was, I remember asking her. Do you think this can be construed as the first breathing of the spirit? This is the spirit that was in Jesus being breathed out, and who is it being breathed out on? It's being breathed out on both the soldier who later pierces him, and also on these women and the beloved disciple.
You know, this can be seen as the ing of the spirit, but I think the really significant thing is Jesus knew. That always now could, the emphasis is on who this person was, and I think that one of the biggest things for me in trying to understand the death of Jesus in John's gospel was to realize that.
The right question is not so much what happened on the cross as who happened on the cross, all through the gospel. Every chapter John is saying who Jesus is is the most important thing. And of course, therefore. The meaning of the crucifixion. You know, there were three people executed on crosses that day, but the important one for us obviously is who was on the Central Cross.
I had a, a fascinating insight into this. Just, I mean, any analogy to this, of course, is inadequate, but when my son was 12, many years ago, I remember. Going to Dublin to my mother and finding that I haven't brought the book. I was reading the Lord of the Rings to him, and I read Nelson Mandela's autobiography, long Walk to Freedom to Him, and he was deeply, deeply moved by it.
He still recalls that he's in his thirties now, but when I came to trying to make sense of who it was on the cross, it was Nelson Mandela, who I thought, it's a distant analogy. Any analogy is. In other words, apartheid happened. To Nelson Mandela, and he spent 28 years in prison. He suffered. He suffered, but it's who he became through that 28 years, you know, a person of the sort of stature that could actually help to bring apartheid to an end without a blood bath, which everyone was predicting would happened that was gonna banned to be a blood and, and so in other words.
Apartheid happened to Mandela, but Mandela happened to apartheid and who he was was the crucial thing in a better ending than it might have had. Now, Jesus, you know, sin, evil, suffering death happened to Jesus, but Jesus happened to sin. Evil suffering death, and they do not have the last word. He overcame them.
This is the Christus bide. You know that Jesus because of who he was. Denise Levita has a glorious pope, uh, based on Mother Julian of Norris actually on her chapter 20 of her revelations of divine love. And in it, in it, she just meditates on why Jesus alone is king of grief. And she quotes too. Sentences from Mother Julian in that, that it's an extraordinary book.
Her revelations of Divine Love, Denise lta, who is my favorite poet of the 20th century, actually, she quotes, first of all that it was the wanting with the Godhead, opened him utterly to the pain. Of these of all people to all the thickness that humanity has undergone and suffers and of course opens him also to dying in a certain way.
So the wanting with the Godhead and secondly. He sorrow, he identified with all of us and sorrowed in kinship. In other words, Jesus on the cross above all is utterly one with God and utterly one with us. And because of who he this unique utters, utterly singular person is who goes through this, then the result is this person alive in any way?
Macie Bridge: Mm. I am, I, I'm taking a moment to take that in.
I, I think this actually is a great moment to think of as we sit with the power of that and in our services during Holy Week. You know, we often leave them in silence and some in darkness as we sit with this moment of like the power of what has. Who has happened on the cross. Maybe this is an opportunity for us as we walk into those services, to reorient to that, not what, but who, and we're sent to leave for a few days with this, the heaviness and the grief of what our witnesses have encountered in these days.
And one of the elements that I've been familiar with in scholarly traditions in John is this, the complexity of the vilification of. The Jews in the story and the ways that this text has then led to some antisemitic interpretations, and I think that's very much counter to the love and the who that we're encountering here.
But I was wondering if you would just as our listeners prepare to encounter this text and take it in wholly, how do you approach for yourself that portion of the text and how do you suggest others sit with it?
David Ford: It's a very important question. Of course, there's a lot of literature about it as well. I mean, when, when I taught, I used to teach John's gospel to final year students and the Cambridge University Divinity schools, and I always set them passages from Luther, from Augustan, from other Christian writers, and they were always deeply shocked by the way in which there are such.
anti-Jewish things in in those, mm-hmm. Antisemitic and the history of the interpretation of John's Gospel and that the whole history of Christianity, of course, has this dark, terrible, terrible, terrible set. When asked to face that for me, you asked me personally, one of the ways that has been most important is that in the early 1990s, I was part of the beginning of the practice of scriptural reasoning, which.
Was began when some of us sat in on a Jewish textual reasoning group as what they call themselves, and it was Jewish text followers, philosophers, and theologians who were really wanting to work out what it was to be Jewish after the Holocaust after the show. And they had this group, which intensively.
About text Al and. Modern philosophical texts because they were, they were deeply concerned about how did all this relate today? And when I, with others, sat in on the edge of this as Christians, I was so moved by it. It was a wonderful, wonderful experience of seeing, of hearing how they engage with these profound topics.
And so one day, one of them, Peter Oaks, who's one of the founders of it. Was walking out with myself and my father-in-law, Dan Hardy, who was also there. And at the center of Theological inquiry, we, we met actually first in, in Princeton. My father-in-law was director of the center. But uh, on walking out, Dan and I were saying how wonderful the session was, and Peter said, yes, but you are not Jewish.
We need something different. In other words, we need something that's not just Christian city on a Jewish group, but a genuine Jewish Christian group. And then soon afterwards, Muslims joined as well. And so we began this practice of scriptural reasoning and of course. To read The New Testament with Jews inevitably raises these deep, deep questions of the terrible record of large portions of Christianity.
Mm-hmm. In, in relation to Jews. And when a chapter eight in John's gospel is, the gospel is a point where. It is most obviously there. The Jews are, well, the, the language is very disturbing and when I came to this by, when I was writing about this, Peter Oaks came to give some lectures in Cambridge, the Husan lectures in, in Cambridge University.
And he was staying with us and. I decided that I was giving some lectures in Oxford on John's gospel at the time, the ton lectures, and I decided to just spend that three weeks that we were doing it as much of it as possible, reading chapter eight together, and that was the basis for the way I wrote the chapter.
In the commentary on John, and I won't try to sum up how it did, but it was a combination of trying to face that appalling inheritance and at the same time do justice to an astonishing. Chapter in the gospel, which has a huge amount, but the way it has been read and the way it is still being read by by some is just awful.
But I, I think if I were looking at what the heart of the matter is, I quote Adele Reinhardt, a great Jewish scholar of John's Gospel in my chapter on that, and I think she has a very judicious summary of it. Some people are extremists on this, so to speak, and I think she has a very sensible understanding.
You know, John isn't anti-Semitic that John is Semitic, you know, he's Jewish. No, but the key thing it seems to me is the thing about ethnic identity, John wants his gospel to be for, for Jews as well as Gentiles. And you know, right there the headline is there in the prologue, you know, where you are born, not of blood, nor of the will of man, nor of the will of the flesh, but of God.
You know, in other words, that what John wants, and I think does actually do it in a very profound way, is offer an understanding of I, of identity, that Relativizes race, that relativizes gender, that relativizes all these other things, you know, to give us. Utterly God-centered identity and therefore, uh, a any sort of Judaism that doesn't recognize that is going to be polemic, there's going to be a deep difference.
Mm-hmm. Now, this fascinating literature on all this, but my, my approach has to be done by going through chapter eight and seeing the way in which I try to work out. And of course, mine isn't one to please everyone either there.
Macie Bridge: Mm-hmm. I am wanting to also acknowledge as we're talking about these Holy Week moments before Easter, we're sitting with these before the celebration of Easter Day, and of course, in the text we're receiving John's account or the Beloved Disciples account of these events as.
He experienced them without knowing what was to come without foreseeing the resurrection. I suppose it could be argued that he's, as he was writing them down, he knew, but he's recording for us what he experienced before the resurrection occurred and, and yet as Christians who then. Lean back into the story for Holy Week.
We are on these, these cycles as a church of, we're looking back, we're walking through these stories in our liturgical patterns, but we also know Easter is coming and we have the assurance of the resurrection to come. And so I'm wondering if part of where you could close us is just how do you, how do you think we should take that in for Holy Week?
How should we think about these moments, these. Parts of the story as Christians today who know Easter is to come, who, who can see the light of the resurrection around the corner?
David Ford: Oh, goodness me. Yes. The one thing one mustn't do with these days is to see the resurrection is just Jesus coming down off the cross a few days later.
That trivialize the cross, you know, the depths of the cross, and I think the only way one does that really is by getting into flu. Jesus is what it meant to him, what it meant to God, what it means to us. And that Joel's gospel opens by saying, the light shines in the darkness, but the darkness does not overcome it.
But it doesn't say the darkness went. The darkness disappeared. Of course, the darkness continues. Look at the news at the moment, you know, and when, when it it, it's utterly obvious that we still live in a world where we are. If we are sent as Jesus was sent, we are sent into dark. And we all have experience of that.
I'm sure you know that in any Christian who takes the world seriously. I mean, we find that we are engaging with jobs in ourselves and in the church as well as in the world. Of course. Uh, and I think Good Friday is a time when we. Absolutely face up to that. And when just thinks of how Jesus addresses Peter at the end, that he, he says, you know, that you'll be taken where you do not wish to go, that you know where your, your desire is not to go there.
And we all know that too. You know that, that we have those. Crucifixion like experiences, and that was Peter who was going to be a martyr and who knows which of us will not be called to be a martyr. It's absolutely, it's the case. Mm-hmm. Many Christians in many parts of the world and the, in our part of the world, it could easily be as well.
And so I think Good Friday is a way of taking seriously that, that, that who Jesus is. Completely. You know, in his incarnation, his death and his resurrection are still all deeply relevant. One of the great theologians on this is Dietrich Bon Harford in his ethics, where he says, look, the danger is that we don't do justice to the incarnation, or we don't do justice to the crucifixion, or we don't do justice to the resurrection, and we have to do justice to all three of those.
That is what we lead. That's the church that we are. The church with wounds and the church with darkness in us as well. And the church that must repent. I mean, one of my things I'm involved with is the whole practice of receptive ecumenism, where in the light of the disgraceful disunity of the church, this terrible disunity deeply, deeply against the desire of Jesus, that how can we come together and of course.
Receptive, ecumenism says em. It's well, well worth learning about that if you don't know that You look at yourself first. You don't say what you have to learn from us or whether you should be like us as other Christians, but how can we be better Christians? How can we repent? Of where we're falling short, we fall short of the glory of God.
And glory is of course the crowning theological concept of John's Gospel, and it's the glory of the cross that's right at the heart of it. And of course, the glory of the resurrection as well, because it's this person who is the one who. Glorified. The only voice in John's gospel. The only voice of God in John's gospel is of course, the voice that says, I have glorified it and will glorify it again.
You know that when the father cuts the glory of Jesus and the mutual glorification and in the chapter 17 and then the prayer of Jesus, it's, it's, he is glorifying the father. The father is glorifying, and we are. Then he says, I have given then the story that later on in that. Prayer. In other words, we are invited into this extraordinary intensity of the divine glory, but it's a glory that is utterly, utterly realistic about darkness, sin, death, suffering.
And evil. All that goes terribly wrong, but is absolutely clear that the darkness doesn't overcome the light. And that the word, that the first word and the last word is Jesus Christ, that the word makes flesh.
Macie Bridge: I kind of can't think of a more beautiful place to close our discussion. Thank you so much for your time today and for bringing us into your.
Incredible study of John and your knowledge and wisdom with it. I have benefited from it this holy week and I hope our listeners will have as well. Oh,
David Ford: thank you very much indeed. You have asked some wonderful questions and of course, questions are right at the heart of John's philosophy. You know, the first question he asks his first disciples is, what are you looking for?
What do you desire? What do we desire? And the whole gospel, I think, is an education of desire.
Macie Bridge: Thank you, David.
David Ford: Thank you.
Evan Rosa: For The Life of the World is a production of the Yale Center For Faith and Culture at Yale Divinity School. This episode featured David Ford, interviewed by Macie Bridge, production Assistance by Noah Senthil. I'm Evan Rosa and I edit and produce the show. For more information, visit us online at faith dot Yale dot edu and life worth living dot Yale dot edu.
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