Images of Christ in the Gospel of John
Homily of May 5, 2021
Seven times in the Gospel of Saint John, Christ speaks to us about Himself. He tells us about it through images. And each of these images is introduced by a “ You’re visiting ". We have now reached the seventh image. To develop all its richness, we would benefit from evoking this itinerary that Jesus proposes to us.
There is first, in chapter 6 of Saint John: “I am the Bread of Life. » Through the image of this bread, through these words: “Whoever comes to me will never go hungry again. Whoever believes in me will never be thirsty again.", Christ tells us something about Himself, essential to our life as food can be to our body. It is a vital relationship with the Lord.
Two chapters later, comes this second image: “I am the Light. » It is no longer just a question of going to Christ, it is now a question of following him: “Whoever walks after me does not walk in darkness but in my light. » Following Christ not only animates us, but also nourishes and enlightens us.
In Chapter 10: "I am the door". Follow him until entering, until penetrating this reality to which he wants to lead us. Not to lock us in, since at the same time it tells us that it allows us to enter and leave. Driven by a double movement, which is a bit like that of blood towards the heart: the blood rises towards the heart and then spreads, from the heart, towards the rest of the body. Basically, this encounter with the Lord nourishes in us a return trip that makes us go towards him and go, from him, towards others.
Fourth picture: “I am the good shepherd”. This image extends the previous one by specifying a little more in what link we are led to enter with him. But before specifying it in the following images, he makes us perceive that what makes the goodness of the shepherd, what makes the truth of the pastor, is that he is able to lay down his life – and to lay it down for his sheep.
This ties in with the fifth image: “I am the Resurrection and the Life”. Around this life something essential is at stake. Not only can Christ give it, but He gives it to us because He receives it. “Whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live. » Something stronger than death is at play in this life, which gives for us and which also promises resurrection for us.
The sixth picture, in chapter 14, is as follows: “I am the Way, the Truth, the Life”. These words are a bit like a synthesis of his relationship with the Father, in which the Lord makes us participate. We will only manage to go to the Father by passing through Him, and that is why He is the Door. This path, to which he leads us, leads to the Father. He is this true door which introduces us to communion with the Father.
While waiting for this definitive encounter, which will be true and vital, comes the last image: “I am the true vine, the true vine. » The importance of the vine shoots to be grafted, to be connected to this vine, without which we could only decline. The Father maintains this relationship that we can have with Christ, as the vine grower maintains the relationship of the vine and the branches.
Through the seven facets of this deep unity that we have to live with Christ, and of what this unity makes us become, the specialists of the Bible bring this "I am" closer to the very word that Moses had heard when he had asked, "Who are you? to the burning bush. And the Lord answered: “Yahweh, I am”. This rapprochement invites us to think that He who revealed himself as "I am and will be with you" reveals, through the person of Jesus, this way that the Lord has of coming with us to reveal himself, and to accompany us in our life. . This "I am" is not pretentious, it is quite simply the revelation of him who dwells in it, the revelation of the Father, manifested in the person of Jesus and which Saint John shows us through these seven images which punctuate his Gospel. Amen.
