We know who Jesus is. He is God’s son, born of a virgin, the incarnation and fullest revelation of God in Heaven and the one who saves us from the power of sin and death. He preached, taught, healed, performed miracles, and prophesied. We know these things because of scripture: the Old Testament prophecies that he fulfilled, the four Gospel accounts of his life, death, and resurrection, and of course, the other New Testament writings that communicate who the early church understood him to be. So we know all about Jesus. We understand him completely. Or do we?
“But there are also many other things that Jesus did; if every one of them were written down, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.” – John 21:25
These parting words in the Gospel of John are often overlooked, perhaps because we’re in such a rush to get to the stories of the early church in Acts. But they are a reminder to us that we don’t know everything. In fact, there is so much to know about Jesus Christ that even the author of John, who presumably was one of Jesus’ disciples, didn’t know the whole story. Maybe he knew more about Jesus’ life than he wrote, but he also demonstrates awareness that God can never completely be grasped: “I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written [about Jesus].”
I have read several biographies of baseball great Roberto Clemente. I know a lot about him: his early years, the on-field accomplishments, the racism he faced as a black Puerto Rican in the overtly racist United States of the 1960’s. I know he was a tremendous humanitarian, and that he died in a plane crash as he was attempting to deliver relief supplies to earthquake victims in Nicaragua. I know a lot of things and have a fair sense of who Roberto Clemente was and what he stood for.
But there are probably a lot of stories I’ll never hear about his life. There’s a lot I’ll never know about him. Having never had so much as a cup of coffee with him, who am I to say I know all there is to know about Roberto Clemente?
We are 2000 years removed from the earthly ministry of Jesus Christ. But because of people like John, we have a sense of who Jesus was and is. Yet, that does not mean we know everything there is to know about Jesus, nor that we will ever know. In fact, God is so much bigger than our human minds can comprehend, and in the person of Jesus is too great to contain in books. So we know Christ, but there is also so much we do not know.
These words that conclude John’s gospel remind us that no matter how much we’ve learned about Jesus from scripture, there is still so much we don’t know. And even if we had a library of books stacked to the heavens, there is still so much we wouldn’t know.
This is why the continued search for understanding is at the heart of the Christian faith. To be a follower of Christ is to admit that we have a limited understanding of the one we are following. This is at once humbling and comforting: humbling because we are reminded of our inability to understand, and comforting because we know there is a God out there that far surpasses human understanding, yet still cares about us. I suppose that love is so great that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.
