Throughout Holy Week, the Lectionary readings for this Year C focus on the Gospel of John, and the Servant Songs of Isaiah. All Christendom knows the orthodox meaning of these readings. As John’s Jesus draws closer to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover, the writer of John’s Gospel intensifies his proof that Jesus is the Christ, the Anointed One, the eternal Logos, the Word of God, known from the beginning of time, and the light of the world. The Elves that constructed the Common Lectionary contribute to the orthodox view that Jesus is God’s Son, the Anointed One, known and ordained by God from the beginning of time to suffer and die for the sins of humanity, as foretold by the Prophet Isaiah.
If, as John Shelby Spong argues, Christianity is to have any relevance at all to post-modern spirituality, changes in focus and metaphor must be made. This essay and the series of essays for Lent, calling for a change in paradigm, point toward a beginning.
