This structure arises out of many times of reading what we know as John's Gospel, many meditations around it, and many hours of thinking about it. Therefore I hope that, in spite of the fact that it is not the definitive structure-by-the-author, this does reflect the content and significance of this story. You will have to judge for yourself.
The thing that I use as a basis for my take on the structure is the following:
There are seven events which John refers to directly as "signs". I take these as central to John's purpose; he is trying to tell us who Jesus is, and he uses these signs as the key to demonstrating his point. He does this because that is the function they performed in the life of the crowds and the disciples who were with Jesus.
- about 600 litres of water into wine at a wedding (chapter 2)
- a child healed at a distance (chapter 4)
- a person healed after 38 years of being ill (chapter 5)
- food multiplied to feed 5000 (chapter 6)
- a person born blind given sight (chapter 9)
- a dead person brought back to life (chapter 11)
Incidentally,notice how nicely symmetrical it is: wine and food miracles each followed by two healing miracles. Also notice how John has chosen particularly "difficult" miracles; healing from far away, after many years, a congenital condition, and the final barrier of death after the normal processes of decomposition would have begun; the two 'nature' miracles involve huge quantities where slight-of-hand is not a viable explanation.
Typical of people who make their living out of arguing about the bible, everyone agrees that there must be seven (because it is a sort of magic bible-number) but nobody can agree what number seven is!
The six things listed above as signs are each referred to by John as such. This is very straightforward with the first and second, where he states this almost immediately: "... the first of the signs through wich he revealed his glory ..." and "the second sign Jesus performed ..." After that one has to look carefully for the reference, but they are clearly there. I will try to mention them in the relevant blogs.
So other than 'the six', is there another mention of some action of Jesus as a "sign"? The only one is in John 20 where, immediately after the records of Jesus appearing to his disciples risen from the dead and alive, John says: "Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples ..." Of course the reference is to all the signs John has recorded for us, but it seems to me that because of the position of the statement it is also (perhaps even primarily) a reference to his resurrection as the last sign.
A second thing can be said about all seven of these events. In all of them, there is a direct reference to people believing in Jesus as a result of the sign. Thus, my thesis is that the seventh sign is
- Jesus' death and resurrection (chapter 19&20)
Enough for this page.
In another page I will look at the various elements that collect around each sign, and deal with some of the complexities of structure which result. The last comment here is merely to note that in typical mystical convolution John has inclusions, a 'bridge', and an interlude in addition to the prologue, introduction and conclusion!
