![]() Jo-Ann Brant, in her Paideia commentary, observes: The narrative itself is vivid and compelling, full of arresting detail and emotion. However, the signs are quite clearly depicted as partial revelations which point forward to ultimate reality, and it makes more sense to see each of these seven pointing forward to the eighth, the reality of Jesus’ resurrection, which (if ‘seven’ signifies this age, with its seven days of creation and rest) depict this as the beginning of the new age to come. There is some debate here, because they are not each explicitly identified in the narrative as a ‘sign’, so some readers see the feeding of the 5,000 and the walking on the water as one, combined, sign, making Jesus’ own resurrection the seventh. Healing the man blind from birth in John 9:1-7.Healing the paralytic at Bethesda in John 5:1-15.Healing the royal official’s son in Capernaum in John 4:46-54.Changing water into wine at Cana in John 2:1-11 – “the first of the signs”.(In a previous scholarly generation, these were understood to reflect two different sources behind the final form of the gospel but we don’t need to have this obsessed with sources to note that there is different language, a different emphasis, even a different ‘feel’ in the first half and the second half of the gospel.) The seven signs in the gospel are most commonly understood to be: The gospel is commonly seen as being in two halves, the so-called ‘ Book of Signs‘ running from the prologue until now, and the ‘Book of Glory’ which runs from chapter 12 to the end. This remarkable extended narrative forms a turning point in the Fourth Gospel. Next week, on Palm Sunday, we will return to our gospel of the year, Matthew, in the lead in to Holy Week, Good Friday and Easter Sunday. This Sunday, Lent 5 in Year A, we come to the last of our for explorations of Jesus’ encounters with individuals that formed a catechumate in the early church in her raising of Lazarus in John 11.1–45.
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