Annie Dillard once said, “How we spend our days, is of course, how we spend our lives.” The telos we aim for, is in some certain way, connected to the ethos of our lived experience. And so it is when we reflect on our own end, termination and death—the way we die is in some certain way connected to how we have lived. The writers of the canonical gospels seem to entertain this idea as they communicate the significance of Jesus’ life in narrative form. Each account is aimed at the crucifixion and perhaps the implications of this ‘king of Israel’ being crucified. Not only the crucifixion, but the space between Good Friday and Easter have great significance for Christian discipleship as one is invited to sit and breathe this stale air. The gospels seem very interested, as they build and arrange the story of Jesus toward the shadow of the cross, in the life leading up to Jesus’ death and the life that continued afterwards. Each of the gospel writers has their own way in depicting the death of Jesus, which sheds light on how we are to understand the significance of his life.
For a disciple then, Jesus’ life, depending on how we interpret this life, has the potential to shape our lives and therefore even shape how we die. Life and death are very much connected ideas throughout the New Testament and uniquely connected in the gospel tradition. Tom Wright has said it this way, “We find ourselves caught up by the story of Jesus, by the events of his life, his kingdom announcement, his death, and his resurrection, and we find both that he is himself the goal, the fullness of humanity as well as the fullness of divinity, and that he himself is the way, the journey by which we may ourselves come to that goal.”[1] The end goal that shapes our lived experience is Jesus himself. However, I would argue that to understand Jesus, and implicitly how we are to be human—perceiving both life and death, one would do well to investigate deeply what the writers of the gospel are intending us to conclude from the diverse interpretations of Jesus’ crucifixion—how Jesus faced his ending.[2] Moltmann has said that, “Christian identity can be understood only as an act of identification with the crucified Christ.”[3]
Taking this as a directive, I intend to survey the contents the Gospel according to John with close attention to the literary forms employed to communicate the significance of Jesus’ final moments. I will pay close attention to the last words Jesus voices from the cross. Through an inductive process, the diverse interpretations that emerge from within John will allow us to see more fully the ethical implications heard through the ending moments of Jesus’ life. I also intend to see Jesus’ life, as described above, like a microcosm of an eschatological reality that is played out on the stage of human history. To follow the form of ancient biography we do well to understand the significance Jesus’ death, “for how a perspn dies was regarded as a measure of his character.”[4] The character of Jesus, represented in the narrative will aid in the interpretation of Jesus’ death, and in turn, the way by which we may be encouraged to follow him.
[1] N. T. Wright, “Faith , Virtue, Justification, and the Journey to Freedom,” The Word Leaps the Gap: Essays on Scripture and Theology in Honor of Richard B. Hays, ed. Ross Wagner, Kavin Rowe, and Katherine Grieb (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2008), 477.
[2] Forgive the use of telos as both ‘ending’ and ‘goal’, this will work its way out in the essay.
[3] Jurgen Moltmann, The Crucified God (New York: Harper & Row, 1974), 19.
[4] Joel B. Green, “The Gospel according to Mark,” The Cambridge Companion to The Gospels, ed. Stephen c. Barton (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 143.
