50 pages • 1 hour read
Gospel of John
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Chapters 9-12Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 9 Summary
A single pericope takes up the entire sequence of this chapter, having to do with a healing Jesus performs and the controversy that follows. Jesus’s disciples see a man along the side of the road who has been blind from birth, which prompts them to ask Jesus whether the man is blind because of his own sin or because of his parents’ sin. Jesus answers that neither is the case, but that the man’s blindness will result in God’s glory through healing. Then Jesus places some mud on the man’s eyes and sends him to go and wash in the pool of Siloam, and when the man does this, his sight is restored. News of the healing quickly gets around, and it captures the interest of the Pharisees, who look into the matter and interrogate the healed man. The Pharisees wrestle with whether such miraculous power could come from anyone who did not have God’s blessing, but they are predisposed to regard Jesus antagonistically because of their disagreement over the keeping of the Sabbath.
Some of the religious authorities do not believe the miracle account, so they call in the healed man’s parents. The parents are intimidated and decline to speak on the matter, but the healed man happily relates that although he doesn’t know who Jesus is, he can nonetheless say what happened to him: “One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see” (9:25). The authorities belittle him, but the more they say against Jesus, the more convinced the man becomes that Jesus was sent from God. After they throw him out in disgust, Jesus finds him again and invites him to believe in the Son of Man (a messianic title from the Old Testament; see Daniel 7:13-14). The man inquires as to who this Son of Man is, and Jesus says plainly that he himself is the Son of Man, to which the healed man responds, “Lord, I believe” (9:38).
Chapter 10 Summary
Jesus again gives a long discourse relating to his identity and his relation to God the Father. Here, he takes up the imagery of a shepherd and sheep: “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep” (10:11). He describes the relationship between a shepherd and his sheep as one of absolute security, in which no force, enemy, or danger can take the sheep out from under the protective watchful care of the good shepherd. He also uses the shepherd/sheep symbols to explain why some people hear his teachings and put their faith in him, while others do not: Only the sheep who belong to a shepherd respond to that shepherd’s voice, and only those who have received the gift of faith from God will truly hear Jesus’s words. Jesus further suggests, to the astonishment of the crowd, that his flock will ultimately include sheep from other folds (i.e., not just Jews, but Gentiles too). Again, the crowd does not know what to do with Jesus and his words; some try to write him off as possessed by a demon, while others insist that his miraculous works prove his divinity.
The discourse continues when Jesus returns to the temple courts for the Feast of Dedication (Hanukkah). He continues to use the shepherd/sheep imagery, but now his rhetoric about his relationship with God the Father reaches new heights of clarity: “I and the Father are one” (10:30). Again, some try to stone him or arrest him, but Jesus evades their attempts, and many others put their faith in him.
Chapter 11 Summary
Jesus now performs his most spectacular miraculous sign: the raising of his dead friend, Lazarus. Lazarus, together with two sisters, Martha and Mary, lives in Bethany, not far from Jerusalem. Martha and Mary send word that Lazarus is very ill, encouraging Jesus to come quickly. Jesus, however, lingers where he is, and when he finally arrives in Bethany, he is told that Lazarus has been dead for four days. He speaks with Martha and Mary, who express their grief at their brother’s loss but also their continued belief in Jesus. Jesus tells them, “I am the resurrection and the life” (11:25). Despite his knowledge of his own power to save Lazarus, Jesus shares the sisters’ sorrow and grieves for his dead friend, poignantly expressed in the shortest verse of the Bible: “Jesus wept” (11:35).
Jesus goes to Lazarus’s tomb and asks for the stone covering the entrance to be moved away. After a brief prayer, Jesus commands Lazarus to come out of the tomb. Lazarus immediately rises from the dead and walks out of the tomb in his graveclothes. The onlookers are astonished by this miracle, and word quickly reaches the Pharisees and the priestly classes in Jerusalem. Now extremely wary of Jesus’s rising influence, they decide that the best course is to have Jesus put to death, and they begin making plans to that end.
Chapter 12 Summary
A quick string of pericopes fills this chapter. As Jesus prepares to enter Jerusalem for the Passover feast, his friend Mary anoints his feet with costly perfume. The disciple Judas objects to the wastefulness of the act, but Jesus commends Mary and interprets the anointing as a preparation for his burial. Jesus then enters Jerusalem, riding a donkey down the slope of the Mount of Olives from Bethany to the city walls. All along the way, crowds line the path, waving palm branches and hailing him in the traditional greeting for a Davidic king: “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel!” (12:13). This sparks even more resentment against him on the part of the Pharisees and priests.
While in Jerusalem, the disciple Philip is approached by some Greeks who are interested in Jesus and his teachings. When Jesus is told of this, it leads to another teaching discourse, in which he uses several different images to explain how his coming death will result in many people believing in him: “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself” (12:32). Even as more and more people are expressing interest in him, however, many others are being hardened in their resistance. Jesus addresses the situation by quoting the Old Testament prophets who predicted that people wouldn’t recognize the one whom God was sending to them. He closes his discourse with one final assertion of his identity and his relation to God the Father.
Chapters 9-12 Analysis
This set of chapters continues the mood of rising tension, which reaches its highest peak at the story of Lazarus’s raising and Jesus’s triumphal entry in Chapters 11 and 12. These events convince the Pharisees and priests of the danger Jesus poses through his blasphemous teachings (as they interpret them) and his rising popularity, setting the wheels in motion for Jesus’s execution in Jerusalem.
Whereas in earlier chapters Jesus dodged attention (as in the aftermath of the feeding of the 5,000 or in his brothers’ admonition to go minister openly in Judea), in these chapters Jesus finally embraces the public exposure of his ministry, riding into Jerusalem while accepting the crowd’s acclamations of his identity as the messianic king. The rising tension, together with Jesus’s growing willingness to directly confront it, points to a coming climax.
These chapters continue John’s pattern of interweaving Jesus’s “I Am” statements and dramatic miraculous signs (most prominently, the raising of Lazarus) to establish his identity—the good shepherd, the door for the sheep, the resurrection and the life. This section—Chapter 10 in particular—offers the longest reflection on the symbols of The Shepherd and His Sheep in the entire gospel, as Jesus presents himself in the role of the shepherd and his followers as a chosen and beloved flock, rhetoric that alludes to Old Testament descriptions of the Israelites as God’s chosen people.
As in previous chapters, however, these claims about The Identity of Jesus Christ result in split opinions among the crowd. Many people are said to believe that he is the Messiah and the Son of God, but many others are clearly bewildered by his claims, and some are outwardly hostile. These chapters also tie the theme of Jesus’s identity to the theme of his relation to God the Father, as Jesus provides what is perhaps the clearest statement in that regard: “I and the Father are one” (10:30). Reflections on his relation to the Holy Spirit, however, are less prominent in these chapters than in other sections of the book.
These chapters, like the preceding ones, also offer many active demonstrations of Love as the Foundational Christian Ethic, even though Jesus will not explicitly teach on that theme until later in the gospel. Jesus’s actions toward the man who was born blind, as well as those toward his friends Mary, Martha, and Lazarus, illustrate the love and compassion he gives to those around him.
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