Signs and Wonders in the Gospel of John

Objectives:

Session One: How do we respond to miracles?
Preliminary Discussion Questions: Why is it difficult to believe in miracles these days? What role do miracles play in our faith?

Have the class read John 9:1-12 -- the story of healing of the man born blind -- either silently or aloud.
Part One: What does Jesus tell us about the purpose of this healing? Guide the youth to the realization that Jesus is not proving that God exists or that one should believe in God. Those are givens for the disciples and the blind man. Jesus is revealing something about the nature of God's work.
Activity: working alone or in pairs, in one minute write down every thing you know about God.
Have one group write their list on a blackboard, while the other groups cross off whatever is repeated on their list. Then have each group add to the list.

Then ask the youth how they know these things about God? Read a statement about God from your denominations creeds or confessions. Here is an excerpt from the statement about God from Article 1, Confession of Faith in a Mennonite Perspective: "We believe that God exists and is pleased with all who draw near by faith.... God's awesome glory and enduring compassion are perfect in holy love. God's sovereign power and unending mercy are perfect in almightily love. God's knowledge of all things and care for creation are perfect in preserving love."

Ask the youth how we know this about God. Which things are revealed by God's actions either in Bible stories, in stories about family or church, or through their own experiences?

Conclusions: Miracles show us the nature of God rather than simply proving that Jesus is God. Jesus, by his actions as God's son, reveals the true nature of God. The youth will have generated their own language for describing this nature. If they have enough time, perhaps with some prompts, their list should cover the following qualities among others: creative rather than destructive, loving and compassionate, life affirming.

Part Two: Is belief the only appropriate response to God's intervention in our lives?

Have half the students look at the rest of chapter 9 and the other half look at the story of the lame man 5:1-18. Have each group describe each man's response to being healed.
Response: When you encounter God or Christ in your life, do you respond as the lame man or the blind man?

Session Two: The Wedding at Cana: Not Just a Cheap Party Trick

Have youth read the Wedding at Cana 2:1-12 silently and then read it again aloud to them.

Ask them who knows the "truth" about what has happened? Who knows that water has been turned into wine?

Discussion: Are God's miracles always scientifically verifiable and public?

Discuss what is visible about the way that God works in the world.What is wondrous about creation. Go around circle and share the things about the world in which you are truly in awe.

Is this the limit of God's work in the world? What makes our private experience of God's work visible to others? What sorts of things do we do to manifest our belief in God? Is sharing our belief by talking about it very compelling?
When do we see God at work in people? Invite the youth to share stories. Try to come prepared with one of your own. If you have many quiet members in your group. Have them break into pairs and tell one story each about a person they know who did something that made God visible to them.

Should we call these things miracles? Do miracles have to defy physics or natural laws or can they also defy self interest?

In the Gospel of John, the narrator says that Jesus reveals God's glory through the signs that he performs. What is God’s Glory? Is it just raw power? Wrap up the discussion by looking at the love commandment (John 13:31-35).

Session Three: Healing the Wounds of the World

Break into Small Groups
1. What is the direction of God’s work according to stories that appear in John?
Look at the story of the Samaritan woman (4:1-26). Find out what the students know about the tension between Jews and Samaritans. If you do not know much yourself, see the notes below.
Discussion: What causes division or animosity or enmity in our world?
What is the cause of division in our schools, in our local community, in the Global community.

2. Chart out the miracles: (this can be dropped if time does not permit)
Cana 2:1-12
Centurion Son 4:46-54
Healing of Lame Man 5:1-18
Feeding of 5,000 6:1-15
Walking on Water6:16-21
Healing of Blind Man 9:1-12
Raising of Lazarus 11:1-44
Seven symbolic of completion/creation
What sort of miracle isn't’t in John? See Gadarene Demoniacs Matt 8:28-34. Not a conquest of evil.

3. Print out the following litany of Jesus’ sayings and have students take turns reading verses or give each student a chapter and verse number and have them read it from their Bibles:
1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
1:14 And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.
3:16 For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.
6:35 I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.
7:37-38 Let any one who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink.
8:12 I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life.
8:31-32 If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; and you will known the truth, and the truth will make you free.
9:10-11 I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.
11:25-26 I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.
13:34 I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.
21: 17 He said to him [Simon Peter] the third time, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” Peter felt hurt because he said to him the third time, “Do you love me?” And he said to him, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him “Feed my sheep.”

Discussion Question: What are the concrete actions named in these passages through which Jesus shows his love? Does this surprise you? Have you placed too much emphasis on love as an emotion or a state of mind? Have we missed the point by over spiritualizing this language and divorcing it from the concrete acts of feeding and healing? In the African church, these passages are read as real promises of food and water. What does it mean to feed God's sheep? A: Have the youth discuss the various communities in their lives where there is conflict or trouble. Pick one or two and discuss what it would mean to feed Jesus' sheep in these particular stories. Or B: This is an occasion when it would also work well to bring in a news item from the paper.

Samaritans: A Samaritan belonged to a people who emerge in the historical record during the second century B.C.E. Clearly they dwelt in Samaria. They held the Torah to be scripture and worshiped on Mount Gerizim. The Samaritans shared a religious heritage with the Jews and followed the same laws governing Sabbath observance, diet, purity and circumcision, but they worshiped in different temples. The Samaritans claimed common descent from the patriarchs, but Josephus (a first century C.E./A.D. Jewish historian) claims they were foreigners brought in from elsewhere in the Ancient Near east, and that their priests were Jews who left the Jerusalem Temple because of defects or other unsavory reasons.
During the Hasmonean expansion of Judean territory (the Jewish Hasmonean rulers reclaimed all territory held according to tradition by King David), Samaria was annexed and John Hyrcanus ravaged their capital Shechem and destroyed their temple (ca. 107 B.C.E.). The Samaritans hoped for the reconstruction of their temple and the return of a prophet messiah whom many scholars identify as Moses. Jewish animosity towards the Samaritans may have been fueled by the willingness of the Samaritans to let the Seleucids (the Greek rulers 322-164 B.E.C.) hellenize worship of the Israelite God. There are some hints about this in 2 Macc 6:1-2 and we have two letters, one allegedly written by the Samaritans to Antiochus IV, the Seleucid king, and his reply that supports this suggestion. Many scholars doubt their authenticity. The historian Josephus displays his prejudice against them openly and accuses them of acknowledging a common ancestry only when it suits their purposes (Ant. 9.14.3) and of destroying Jewish land and carrying off Jewish salves during the priesthood of Onias (204-180 B.C.E.). He relates a number of episodes in which the Samaritans victimize Jews (Ant. 18.2.2; War 2.12.3-6; Ant 20.6.1-3). According to Josephus, in about 10 C.E./A.D., during the Passover festival some Samaritans secretly entered Jerusalem and during the night scattered human bones throughout the Temple and as a result, the Priests from that time on excluded people from the temple where it had previously been more open to the public. The gospels of Luke and John both confirm Jewish/Samaritan animosity.

Session Four: The Sign of Resurrection
Draw the youths' attention to the fact that there are two resurrections in the Gospel of John:
Summarize the resurrection of Lazarus and the resurrection of Jesus.
Take note of the attention to dead bodies in the Gospel of John and what happens to them.
Discuss our cultures view of death.
Share what we think happens after death.
Briefly describe different views of death and the afterlife and what the biblical view is. See notes below to refresh your memory.
Discuss the effect that belief in resurrection has upon the way that we live our lives? I suggest that you share your own convictions. Among other things, I connect my belief in the resurrection with my own views on nonviolence. If the worst thing that my enemy can do to me is to kill me, then why should I fear of death or resist it by killing another. Why should I refrain from doing what I believe to be right or saying what I believe to be true for fear of someone trying to do me harm? When I share this with students, I also share that I fervently pray the line "lead us not to the time of trial" when I pray the Lord's prayer and that I pray that if my convictions are tested that I will be as courageous as the martyrs.

Participating in the Resurrected Lord

What symbols do we use to point to resurrection?
In the bulb there is a flower
Cocoons and butterflies

In John 3:3, Jesus describes this process as rebirth: "Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above."
Explore how resurrection occurs during life as well as after death. Ask the youth whether they are the same person today that they were several years ago. What has changed? Have the youth write down the ways that they have changed since they were 10 or 12 years old.

In what way(s) can your baptism be called a resurrection?

Explore the symbolism of baptism as resurrection. In Paul's letters, through baptism, we die to our old selves and are resurrected into the new creation, into Christ. We become members of a new family. He describes this as putting on a suit of clothing, often a suit of armor (Eph 6:10-17). When we put on this new suit of clothing we put away dishonesty of any sort and the fruits of anger and put on the "belt of truth" and the "breastplate of righteousness." Now have the youth look at their list of ways that they have changed and have them ask themselves if the changes indicate that they are growing into Christ, if they are participating in the new creation.

Final Question: What does the hope of resurrection do to the need for revenge or recompense? Answer: We need not seek justice in this life. God's justice is final and informed, while ours is often misguided by our own ignorance or pride.

Biblical Teaching on the Afterlife: Most Christians seem to have an understanding of death that is a blend of ancient Greek and biblical thought that ends up looking very different from the sort of future for the dead that Jesus or the Apostle Paul presuppose in what they say and write. In the Bible, heaven is unambiguously the realm in which God and his retinue (angels etc.) dwell.  The depiction of what we call hell has a more complicated history. Our word “hell” comes from the Greek “Gehenna,” the name of a valley near Jerusalem (in Hebrew Hinnom) associated with child sacrifice in the Old Testament, but a garbage dump in the Second Temple period that burned constantly, hence the image of a pit of burning fire. The Old Testament refers to Sheol as the place of the dead, but the meaning is ambiguous. I could simply mean a grave. It refers to the ground under the earth’s surface, a place of dust, darkness, silence and forgetfulness. Sometimes it is associated with judgment and destruction.  In later Jewish literature, it begins to resemble the Greek notion of Hades, the underworld realm of the dead. But Jesus and Paul do not assume that when a person dies, he or she will go to either heaven or hell. Instead, Paul describes a state similar to sleep. For Paul, all Christians who have died are "asleep in the Lord." When Jesus returns again, all those how have died will be resurrected. At that time, the righteous will dwell with God and Christ in eternal life and those who are not will be caste into Hell to a second death. Jesus return will mark the end of a division between Heaven and earth. Earth as we know it will not be destroyed but rather transformed. Resurrection is a physical process, but our resurrected bodies will not be subject to decay. The idea of an immortal soul that will ascend to heaven come from the Greek tradition and became a part of Christian thought during the second and third century. One of the first Church fathers, Tertullian, writing in about 200 C.E./A.D. cites Plato not Jesus or the Bible when explaining the notion of the immortal soul: "For some things are known even by nature: the immortality of the soul, the instance, is held by many ... I may use, therefore, the opinion of Plato, when he declares: 'Every soul is immortal'" (The Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. III). What is important is whether you believe in the afterlife and not how it will come about, but sometimes it is comforting to use particular language or ideas to express your conviction. I once heard a Mennonite biologist says that it helps him feel confident in God's power to resurrect us by imagining that God remembers each individual's DNA. I find it helpful to think of God as an infinite and eternal being who remembers each and every one of us. We may not have children or grandchildren to remember us. We might not produce any books or works of art that will survive us. All evidence that we walked this earth might pass away, but God will always remember us.