Views on some sections of the gospel of John

Last updated on 25th April 2014

This post uses the gospel of John from http://www.rc.net/wcc/readings/john.htm. For the scripture sections that are referred the associated link is provided. Ideally the reader should read the specified sections in the associated link and then the comment prefixed with my name, Ravi.

Scripture: John 2:1-11, http://www.rc.net/wcc/readings/john2v1.htm

[Ravi: The above scripture sections seems to me to be a simple and straight forward account of perhaps the first well-publicized miracle of Jesus. Jesus was born and raised among simple Jewish peasant folk of Galilee and his followers seem to come mainly from simple peasant folk. They saw these miracles and were inspired to give up their professions and follow Jesus Christ, and then spoke about these miracles and finally wrote them down for posterity. Having had direct experience of some of the paranormal powers of Sri Sathya Sai Baba I find the above account (and later accounts of miracles) to be believable - there may be some inaccuracies in details but I think the essence of these miracle accounts in the gospel are truthful. But yes, some people may demand evidence and believe only if they have evidence - that is their view and their right. However, those who claim that such gospel accounts are an elaborate fraud or simply a piece of fiction, I think, are unable to have a broad view of human experience which includes the possibility of some very, very rare humans transcending ordinary human limitations and having paranormal/divine powers.]

Scripture: John 2:13-20, http://www.rc.net/wcc/readings/john213.htm

[Ravi: My reading of this, as of now, is that Jesus gets appalled by the commercialization of the main centre of Jewish worship, the Jerusalem temple. His actions though of freeing the animals (who, I understand, were used for animal sacrifice in the temple) and overturning the money-changers tables would have been a serious challenge to the powerful temple establishment. Their demand of a sign from Jesus seems to be quite normal for those times and perhaps for today's times as well. Jesus' response seems to me to be too much for even human believers to accept literally. Perhaps powerful mystics sometimes say things that are very hard to understand from a literal point of view, and so hard to act upon.]

Scripture: John 3:1-7, http://www.rc.net/wcc/readings/john3v1.htm

[Ravi: I find the above extract to be fascinating. The idea of a second spiritual birth (born-again) makes sense to me, having gone through some thing similar in my life. Further, even the Hindu holy thread-ceremony is supposed to be a (spiritual) re-birth. However I think that aspect of the Hindu holy thread ceremony seems to have got rather lost among many of today's Hindus. It is more of a traditional ritual which one goes through rather than a life-changing event where one re-orients one's life making spirituality/religion the primary part of one's life.

As I have been studying powerful contemporary preachers of various religions I find that many of the really powerful speakers have a born-again (spiritually) experience which transforms them and eventually leads them to become preachers or evangelists sharing their experiences and view of the spiritual/religious life with others.]

Scripture: John 3:16-21, http://www.rc.net/wcc/readings/john316.htm

[Ravi: This is where the exclusivity of the gospel comes in. Believe in God's only son and you will be saved; Else you will be condemned. All I can say is that I do not accept this exclusivity of the gospel. There are other (prophet/avatar) sons (and daughters) of God who walked the earth besides Jesus Christ.]

Scripture: John 4:5-19, http://www.rc.net/wcc/readings/john4v1.htm

[Ravi: The Samaritans were considered to be "below" the Jews. But Jesus, in this case, shows that he is above such petty racism/groupism/casteism. He demonstrates his paranormal knowledge about the woman's 'husbands' and convinces the woman about his divinity. Simple, yet very powerful, demonstration of paranormal knowledge that is very convincing for the peasants.]

Scripture: John 4:23-26, http://www.rc.net/wcc/readings/john4v1.htm

[Ravi: "God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth." - I think this would be in sync. with teachings of all the major religions of the world today, including Hinduism. The above extract also has Jesus declaring that he is the Messiah (Christ) (that has been mentioned in Jewish scripture - Old Testament, I understand).]

Scripture: John 4:39-41, http://www.rc.net/wcc/readings/john4v1.htm

[Ravi: Word of mouth especially from beneficiaries/witnesses of paranormal knowledge/events was the main way the news of the divine personality spread. Today, it is both oral and written devotees' experiences that spreads the good news of contemporary/near-contemporary divine personalities.]

Scripture:  John 4:46-53, http://www.rc.net/wcc/readings/john443.htm

[Ravi: In this gospel this is the first healing miracle of Jesus. Having heard and read about many such healing miracles of both Shirdi Sai Baba and Sathya Sai Baba, I can certainly consider the above account, in essence, to be truthful. And, it is these healing miracles that attract huge numbers of suffering to such divine personalities. Paranormal knowledge about another person's life and thoughts, materialization/material transformation like water to wine are quite amazing but healing miracles are a great wonder and have huge impact on people in general both in terms of the miraculous power of the divine personality and belief in that person as a divine being.]

Scripture:  John 5:2-16, http://www.rc.net/wcc/readings/john5v1.htm

[Ravi: Powerful healing miracle of Jesus. This would have made him hugely famous and thereby earned the envy of the religious establishment.]

Scripture: John 5:19-20, http://www.rc.net/wcc/readings/john517.htm

[Ravi: Verse/section 19 seems to me to be very similar to Shirdi Sai Baba's words except that Baba used to say Fakir instead of Father. I think these great super-powerful mystics have/had a consciousness where they "see" an immense vista of existence far beyond their own body and mind, and are able to work miracles through being in that consciousness. They perhaps use words like Father and Fakir for this universal consciousness that they are able to experience as being themselves, so that ordinary people can understand it more easily.]

Scripture: John 5:30, http://www.rc.net/wcc/readings/john517.htm

[Ravi: This can be viewed as the "being just an instrument of the Lord" attitude/approach.]

Scripture: John 6:5-14, http://www.rc.net/wcc/readings/john6v1.htm

[Ravi: This is the famous miracle of multiplication of five loaves and two fish to many times that to feed the five thousand. Healing and feeding miracles are the easiest for common people to understand and get awed by. Then they are ready to believe that the miracle-maker is a divine personality whose words should be heard and followed, if possible/feasible for them.]

Scripture: John 6:16-21, http://www.rc.net/wcc/readings/john616.htm

[Ravi: I consider the miracles of Jesus walking on water and "immediately" 'transferring' the boat from the sea to the land they were going to, as possibly real events. For powerful divine personalities like Shirdi and Sathya Sai Babas such extraordinary feats were not unusual at all, and so I consider that these miracles of Jesus may be real.]

Scripture: John 6:26-29, http://www.rc.net/wcc/readings/john622.htm

[Ravi: The great mystics view their miracles as relatively unimportant as compared to their teachings of the path to eternal life/deathlessness/self-realization. But without the miracles their teachings will not be given much value by the people! So the great mystics, prophets and avatars have to have both miraculous power and spiritual teachings, for them to be accepted by the people at large.]

Scripture: John 6:30-35, http://www.rc.net/wcc/readings/john630.htm

[Ravi: The religious establishment of the day will staunchly oppose words like in sentence/verse 35. But then, in my view, these super-powerful mystics speak the truth - they have the capacity to take care of their devotees both materially and spiritually. That does not mean that their devotees do not suffer at all. Both Shirdi Sai Baba and Sathya Sai Baba used similar words - You look at me, I will look at you; Why fear when I am here. To the faithful these words are true, some times based on first-hand positive experiences from such faith and many times based on second-hand positive experiences from such faith. To those without faith these words don't make sense. I think that's the bottom line in such religious matters. It is not a rational thing at all; it is just a matter of faith.]

Scripture: John 6:41-42, http://www.rc.net/wcc/readings/john641.htm

[Ravi: I think this is the toughest part of appreciating divine personalities. They take birth as humans and sometimes look and behave like a human but sometimes perform divine/paranormal acts and impart divine teachings. For (most of) the Galileans who had known Jesus' parents and perhaps had known Jesus as a boy, it was too much for them to accept Jesus as divine! I think it was somewhat similar for the young Sathya Sai Baba among his villagers who had seen him grow up in Puttaparthi.]

Scripture John 7:1-9, http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+7%3A1-30&version=NLT [I am using this site instead of http://www.rc.net/wcc/readings/john7v1.htm as the latter omits some of the sentences/verses of this section.]

[Ravi: Super-powerful mystics like Jesus and the Sai Babas spoke the truth and did wonderful miracles. But that upset a lot of people. Truth-tellers have to be critical of the faults in society and that upsets the powerful and influential in society. They turn against the truth-tellers. Miraculous power and associated fame & following rouses the envy of the established priestly and religious elite as their followers may start deserting them and going to the miracle-maker. This anger and envy of some of the establishment even turns into murderous hatred as the above gospel sentences/verses tell us. Jesus himself is saying that (most of) the world hates him because of him faulting it for its evils.]

Scripture John 7:10-13, http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+7%3A1-30&version=NLT

[Ravi: I find it utterly fascinating that the gospel itself records that some said Jesus was a good man but others said that he is a fraud who deceives people. Amazingly for me, it has been the same with the Sai Babas. People who do not have the imaginative capacity and/or vision to appreciate the miraculous powers of the Sai Babas chose to ignore the testimony of so many reliable witnesses about the miraculous powers of the Sai Babas, and decided that since the miraculous powers were not scientifically validated they must be fraud!!! (It would be fine if they said that since the miracles have not been scientifically validated they do not know for sure. But some people, including some leading scientists, do not stop there and 'declare' that all the reported miracles are fraud.) Hmm. Two millenniums after Jesus, human nature does not seem to have changed much when it comes to appreciation of miraculous power of super-powerful mystics.]

Scripture John 7:14-19, http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+7%3A1-30&version=NLT

[Ravi: Fascinating section for me. I was drawn to Sri Sathya Sai Baba by his extraordinarily wise and knowledgeable interpretation of religious teachings in general, and some key Hindu scripture like Upanishads and Bhagavad Gita, in particular. I was astounded to know that Sri Sathya Sai Baba had no formal training in Hindu scripture. Then how could he expound so wisely and brilliantly on the core teachings of Hindu scripture? That led me to accept the view that this knowledge was known to him prior to his birth as Sri Sathya Sai Baba. Fascinatingly, with Jesus it seems to have been somewhat similar. Jesus was not trained as a holy teacher. He was a peasant - I think I had read somewhere that he was illiterate, but I am not sure. Anyway, the key point is that he had not studied/was not trained in Jewish scripture. So how was he able to expound on Jewish scripture? Natural question among the knowledge about Jewish scripture people in the temple of Jerusalem. And what a seemingly simple but rock-solid answer, "My message is not my own; it comes from God who sent me"! That differentiates the prophet/avatar from the scriptural expert, IMHO.]

Scripture John 7:25-30, http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+7%3A1-30&version=NLT

[Ravi: People are completely baffled when they come to see the knowledge and power of super-powerful mystics like Jesus and the Sai Babas. They turn to scripture to see whether these mystics fit the description of future comings of Avatars/prophets in it. If there are some mismatches between what scripture says of the future comings of God/prophets and these super-powerful mystics they see & experience, they become reluctant to accept the latter as Avatar/prophet. How frustrating it would be to the avatars/prophets to convince people of their divinity! Jesus tries to dispel their doubts regarding scripture saying that the messiah will simply appear and as they know Jesus is from Nazareth so Jesus cannot be the messiah! I find these words of Jesus to be profound even if they seem to be simple, "Yes, you know me, and you know where I come from. But I’m not here on my own. The one who sent me is true, and you don’t know him. But I know him because I come from him, and he sent me to you.". That's why these avatars/prophets are regarded as saviours. They come to a community, and draw people to them, to help them and save them (Hindu view: save them from leading adharmic/sinful lives which will cause them bad karma and so future suffering, and also provide a way for them to escape out of the bondage of samsara and attain freedom through Bhakti (path of devotion) and/or Jnana (path of spiritual knowledge)).]

--- To be continued ---