PART FOUR: CONCLUSION

6. Evaluation of the Method

We have begun with a theological inquiry about the identity of Christ in the Trial believing that some answers can be found from the Johannine text (as inspired) by creating a hermeneutic space through philologicosemantical analysis. Our focal area is the "text" itself which is blended with history and theology. If the text were devoid of history, then John 's theology would become pure imagination. However if the (written) history were a simple record of an ensemble of happenings one after another, then some important meaning might escape our notice. Frequently the chronological report is misleading, which is why John has placed his priority on theology without, however, discarding history.

Now in the historical paschal event, it is God who gives the meaning which transcends human conditionings. John perceives this and tries to convey it to his readers. However John's perception of the event is not closed in itself (or in a text) but has a permanent appealing force to all men of different times and places, insofar as behind these written words it is God who speaks personally. On a theological level, we may present it in the following scheme:

In each stage God demands of us a faithful listening when he speaks to the contemporaries of Jesus, to the Johannine community and now to the Church. The aim of this essay is precisely to create a hermeneutic space in which the appealing force of the Johannine text may become more "alive" to contemporary readers . Thus our hermeneutic process is not only possible (and in some way necessary) but at the same time perfectible.

Bearing this in mind, I would like to pass two remarks on the limit of our work. First, I have used principally the philologicosemantical method which does not contemplate the sociocultural background of John's Sitz im Leben with all its implications. This is to be integrated by other exegetical methods. Secondly, it is not enough to create a hermeneutic space for its own sake, but a hermeneutic space is needed that points to new possibilities of theological actualization in the modern world. In other words, John has in his own way expressed the Truth of Christus, Rex Glorificatus Glorificansque, and in what way can the same Truth be expressed now? How should the God-man story, once beautifully narrated by John, be re-told toddy? This leaves another step to be completed.

7. Towards The Glory of Man

The underlying motive to quest for Christ's identity is existential: "To me" does it make sense at all? In the hermeneutic space, therefore, I venture to posit some personal reflections which could serve as a route to enter the field of theological actualization.

We have seen how John narrated the Glory of Christ in the absurd humiliation. Two questions may arise:

First, why should Christ be glorified when he has never ceased to be the glorious Son of God?

Second, why should he be glorified in humiliation and not otherwise?

To the first, John did not give an answer in terms of cause and effect, but he did perceive a purpose in Christ'ss glorification (71). Incarnated Logos has never lost his filial union with the Father, He is still God, though at the same time a true man. The glorification is certainly not for his Divine nature but for the human. Furthermore God does not only glorify Jesus of Nazareth (18:5, 7 during the arrest in the garden) but also though him the glory will be spread out to those who believe in him.

"The Glory which thou hast given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one" (The priestly prayer in the Last Supper, 17:22).

Irenaeus picks up the same idea when he writes:

"Gloria enim hominis Deus; operationis vero Dei et omnis sapientiae eius et virtutis receptaculum homo" (Adversus Haereses, III, 20, 2-3)."

(God is man's glory, but it is man who receives the effect of God's activity, who is the recipient of all God 's wisdom and power).

If God and all his work are the outpouring our life will receive a new transcendent meaning from which emerge many dimensions that transform our life in the pattern of the Lord's Passover:

Trinitarian Dimension:

We are to be received into the unity of the Father and the Son through the Holy Spirit.

Christological Dimension:

To do this we need to make a decision of faith to be with Christ, in Christ, for Christ and towards Christ.

Ecclesial Dimension:

Those who believe in Christ will also enter his Sheepfold and form an agapeistic community which continues Christ's Victory over the World where hate, despair, all forms of slavery and suffering are still reigning.

Sacramental Dimension:

As Christ made visible God in him, so the Church has to make visible Christ in her, by becoming the sign and instrument of his salvation which is channelled to men through the chosen signs that the Church inherited from the ministry of Christ for purification strength, nutrition, service, solidarity, partnership and, above all, Love.

Now let us come to tackle the second question behind which there is revealed also the Sitz im Leben of the Johannine community which was under a heavy persecution. John was well aware of the puzzle of the community: how to reconcile the daily sufferings with the salvation) already brought forth by Christ. He encouraged them by presenting the glorification of Christ in relation to the suffering of the Servant. While the synoptic passion accounts unanimously used the verb "suffer" (pascho) to describe Christ Jesus, the Son of Man, in John's Gospel this verb does not appear at all. The Johannine Son of Man has never considered the Cross as suffering but as glory and salvation There is no agony scene in the garden. During the arrest, the soldiers fell to the ground when Jesus stood forward and said, "I am he (Jesus of Nazareth)!" (18:5, 6, 8): The Johannine Christ has lived "royally" this moment of what we would call humiliation.

During his life-time, Jesus gradually cut his figure as the obedient Son-servant of God who revealed the Love of the Father to men. Finally there remained the cross as the ultimate testing ground for what he had preached: Greater love has no man than that a man lay down his life for his friend (15:13). This is the vocation and mission of the Son The Cross thus is the culminating point of Jesus' vocation as the glorified Son of God. In him there is the meeting point between God's giving and man's receiving. In this climax, what was from the human side humiliation and death, was from God's side glory and resurrection. Hence the glorification of the Son did not do away with the fact of suffering, which is an inevitable consequence of sin that man has to bear. However Christ did not only come to bear it together with man as sheer condemnation, but also transformed it into something salvific.

"So you have sorrow now, but I wilL see you again and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you (...) and that your joy may be full" (16:22, 25).

Such a beautiful theme of Glory founded in persecution and suffering fits not only into the Johannine community but also into today's World. The refrain of John, "Where there is love, there is God; where There is the cross, there is glory" still strikes a hopeful tone in the modern world, in the pilgrim Church, in the feeble hearts of those Christians who are still searching for the sense of the Cross. Perhaps suffering today still represents the scandal of the Cross, and thus, constitutes the enigma of our Christian life. The tension between the light and darkness still exists but is to be overcome by love and faith in Christ, the King. Only then, the Glory of man will come true, perhaps not in the way we could expect it but surely with unsurpassed stupendousness, because it is God who is at work for our Glory.

HOMO VIVENS GLORIA DEI!

(71) M_Pamment. The meaning of "doxa" in the Fourth Gospel, in Zeitschrift fur die Neutestamentliche Wissenschaft 74 (1983) 12-16. The word doxa in the Fourth Gospel (after 1:14 and 2:11) has associations not of power but of selfless generosity and love.