The Symbolism of Darkness in the Resurrection (John 20)
In John 20, the resurrection narrative unfolds in lingering darkness until Jesus stands, embodying the true light of the new creation.
The Gospel of John: The Literary Art of the 7 Signs
John structures Jesus's seven signs into a deliberate chiasm that places the sacramental feast—and the mystery of where God abides—at the very center of the Gospel.
Jesus performed many miracles, and you can read all about them across the Gospels in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. You probably remember that famous phrase at the very end of John’s Gospel, where the author writes that if he wrote down everything Jesus did, the world itself could not contain the books.
So it is immediately striking that when we read John’s Gospel, he records only seven.
Now, it is not exactly seven in the simplest sense, but I will show you what I mean in a moment. What John does is not merely limit his selection to these seven deeds; he calls them something entirely different as well.
Mighty Deeds Versus Signs
The primary Greek word that the other Gospel writers—Matthew, Mark, and Luke—use for the wonders Jesus works is dunamis: mighty deeds, mighty acts, powerful actions that demonstrate what Jesus is doing.
John, however, decides to call them signs.
He does that because he wants to make it abundantly clear to his readers that what Jesus is doing is far more than just displaying supernatural power. These acts carry symbolic significance. Jesus has carefully selected the specific deeds he performs because they reveal something profound about his personal identity and about what his kingdom is truly like.
I was reading a book called Divine Symmetries by Victor Wilson, where he points out something extraordinary about how these seven signs are arranged.
The Chiastic Structure of the Seven Signs
The seven signs in John are organized in a chiasm. If that literary term is new to you, the basic concept is straightforward: the first section or scene corresponds to the last one; the second scene connects to the second-to-last one; and the pattern continues inward until you arrive at a central scene.
What that literary design does is draw your attention straight to the center. That central scene might function as a dramatic turning point, it might provide thematic emphasis, or it might reveal something foundational about the entire narrative sequence. It works somewhat differently in every story, but let us look at how it operates right here.
The Outer Frame: Transformation and the Third Day
The first and the last sign—the transformation of the water into wine at Cana, and Jesus’s resurrection—are both fundamental transformations. We have the transformation of ordinary water into rich wine, and the ultimate transformation of death into resurrection life.
Interestingly, our narrator tells us explicitly that both of these events occur on the third day.
The Second Layer: Images of Resurrection
When you move one step inward, you find the healing of the official’s son, who is critically sick, paired with the raising of Lazarus after he has died.
Both of these episodes are presented as resurrections, or kinds of resurrections. Strictly speaking, neither of these is an ultimate resurrection. With Lazarus, you might immediately think, Well, that is clearly a resurrection. But Lazarus is going to die again; it is technically a resuscitation, serving as a sign and image of true resurrection.
Similarly, consider how our narrator describes the official’s son: he notes that the boy was at the point of death. John intentionally wants us to contemplate this illness in the same conceptual space as death itself, treating it as a kind of symbolic death and restoration.
The Third Layer: Healings by the Water
Moving one step further inward, you encounter two distinct healings: the healing of the lame man and the healing of the blind man. Both of these miraculous healings take place around pools of water.
The Center: The Sacramental Meal
Finally, in the central section of the chiasm, we arrive at the feeding of the five thousand: a sacramental meal.
Why do I call it a sacramental meal? Because Jesus multiplies the loaves and feeds the five thousand people, but then he delivers an extended discourse to explain what has just happened. Throughout John’s Gospel, Jesus is constantly doing or discussing normal, mundane things, only to explain that they possess a deeper symbolic significance. That is precisely what happens here.
Why does John place this event at the very heart of the sequence? To understand that, we have to look back to the very beginning of the Gospel.
Where Do You Abide?
In this discourse following the multiplication of the loaves, Jesus utters those famous declarations: “I am the bread of life,” and “Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has life.”
At the center of this Gospel stands a great feast where we are invited to feast on God himself.
Why is this placed at the center? It unfolds something central to what Jesus is doing in this Gospel. Near the very opening of John, right after the first disciples begin following Jesus, one of them asks him, “Teacher, where do you abide?” Where do you live? Where are you staying?
We might easily assume that this is just a mundane logistical question: I am following this new teacher now, so I need to know where he is lodging. But in John, nothing is merely mundane. Everything carries symbolic weight and deep, profound meaning.
The question serves as an invitation to the reader to keep reading. When Jesus replies, “Come and see,” he is telling the reader: If you want to see where I abide, you must read on, and you will discover it.
The signs reveal many facets of his identity, but at the central sign we discover where Jesus truly abides: he abides in you. Anyone who believes, who drinks his blood and eats his flesh, receives the very life of God abiding within them.
Returning to the Garden
There is even more to this imagery. At the beginning of the Bible, in Genesis, humanity falls through a sin of eating. It should come as no surprise, then, that when we reach the story’s resolution and redemption, it is likewise connected to eating.
We ate from the tree in rebellion and were expelled from the garden. When Jesus redeems us and brings us back into the garden, we are invited to return to the tree and eat. Yet that tree has been transformed: what we now feed upon is the very life of the God-man himself.
This is why, later in the Gospel, Jesus says, “I am the vine, and you are the branches.” He is alluding directly back to that Genesis narrative: Jesus is the tree into whom we are grafted, and upon whose life we feast.
In our worship, Jesus does not merely offer an abstract philosophy. He brings us a feast where we believe, receive his life, and have God’s life abiding within us. John placed this sacramental meal at the center of his Gospel because it captures the heart of his message: Jesus lives, dies, and rises so that we might feast on him and have his life abide in us.
Once again, we can see why the Bible—and the Gospel of John in particular—is literary art.