The Art of John 21

The Bible is Art

In this video I explore the strange and wonderful art of John 21 and its allusions to Genesis 1-3.
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I love John 21, the last chapter in John’s gospel. And I love it because it’s weird and there’s a lot of things to figure out. So let’s review what John 21 is about. After Jesus’ resurrection seven of his disciples go fishing during the night. They’re unfruitful in the work, not catching any fish, but in the morning, a man calls out to them from the land and gives them instructions how to fish better and then their catch is enormous.
Realizing that the man who gave them the instructions is Jesus, Peter puts on his clothes and jumps into the water to swim to him. The disciples then have a meal with Jesus. After the meal Jesus gives Peter work to do, feeding and ruling over animals, sheep. The final episode in the scene is on a path, following Jesus. So that’s John 21.
And there are many things that are puzzling about this story. First, the existence of the story itself is puzzling. This is because it seemed like the book of John should have ended at the end of the previous scene. I mean, listen to the last verses of John 20:
Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.
That sounds like a grand conclusion. But John adds a whole nother scene, why?
Another thing that’s puzzling is why this long section about fishing? Or why does Peter put on his clothes to jump in the water, why seven disciples, why don’t they recognize Jesus, why is there 153 fish, and so on. Much like chapter 32 in Moby Dick, where Ishmael catalogs whale species to the boredom of readers throughout history, it’s there for a reason, the author means for it to feel out of place because that encourages the readers to engage with the story more deeply.
Now most of the time when you don’t understand something in the Bible, it is because you haven’t understood something that has come before. And to understand what John is doing with this last scene, we have to review some of the story of John’s gospel.
John opens his Gospel with the strongest allusion to the first chapter of the Bible, “In the beginning…” And this is because in John’s Gospel, Jesus is bringing in a new creation. There are allusions to Genesis 1-3 all throughout John. For instance, John opens his gospel with seven days.
And much like John’s other book, Revelation, where you have seven seals that give way to seven bowls, seven following or opening up to seven more, these first seven days climax with the first of seven signs or miracles in John’s gospel.
And these seven signs allude to the seven days of the creation week, by these acts Jesus is making a new creation.
But if you remember back to the beginning of the Bible, Adam and Eve were kicked out of the garden and an angel with a firey sword was set outside to protect the garden from intruders. So in order to get back into the garden to be with God and to start over, someone needs to go through that firey sword.
And that’s what Jesus does. He dies, and...