Introduction to the Gospel according to St. John.
The fourth and final Gospel, the Gospel of John, is a powerful argument that the
Creator became a part of His creation.
John begins by saying, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God.
Then he adds, And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.
The rest of this Gospel sets out to demonstrate that Jesus was in fact God in
the flesh by recording what Jesus claimed and listing the miraculous signs that
Jesus performed.
The author of this Gospel is the Apostle John, the disciple whom Jesus loved,
as he often refers to himself in this book.
Sometime around A.D.
85 to 90, according to the traditional view, the aging Apostle wrote his Gospel
to confirm the divine identity of Jesus and to present Him as the only source of
eternal life.
John says that love, God's love, was the motive for the Son of God's
voluntary limiting of Himself to time and space.
Jesus as a man who was also God was susceptible to sorrow and death like any
of us are.
But John wanted us to know what he had seen, and he had seen God in the flesh.
Throughout John's account, Jesus is revealed to be God incarnate.
John chose to record 8 signs or miracles that show Jesus' divine nature.
He turned water into wine.
He healed a nobleman's son.
He healed a man who had been paralyzed for 38 years.
He fed the 5,000 with just a few loaves and fishes.
He walked on water.
He restored sight to a man born blind.
He raised Lazarus from the dead.
And he gave the disciples an enormous catch of fish.
Beyond these miracles, the greatest supernatural sign was Jesus' resurrection
from the dead.
And John provides a moving eyewitness account in which his disciples find the
tomb empty.
Then he presents several incidents of other witnesses who saw Jesus after His
resurrection.
Notice how these signs confirm Jesus' own words when he says, I am the bread of
life, the light of the world, the door, the good shepherd, the resurrection and
the life, the vine, as well as the way, the truth, and the life.
Now as you listen, note John's evangelistic purpose for telling us about
Jesus.
As he concludes his gospel, John states the purpose of his writing.