Who Is Jesus in the Gospel of John?

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I've just completed a week-long retreat on the Gospel of St. John packed with insights about this "maverick" account of the life of Jesus. I thought I'd share some of what I gleaned from the conferences. As background, the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke were composed rather early. John's Gospel took shape much later after the Church had time to reflect on Jesus (with the help of the Holy Spirit) and when Christians were not regarded as a Jewish sect that still worshiped in the Temple but as a new and highly suspect religion in the eyes of Jewish leaders. That being said, here are ten insights.
  1. The poetic prologue (which we used to pray after Mass when I was a little girl) immediately identifies Jesus as God. The opening verses, "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. . . . All things came to be through him" echo Genesis, whose first words are "In the beginning" and which goes on to tell how merely by words ("Let there be ...") God created the universe.
  2. The prologue introduces the themes that are woven through this Gospel:  Jesus brings life. He is light in our darkness. Some reject him, while others accept him and enter into the intimacy that he has with the father: 
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