I’m just going to press the pause button on the series about Joseph’s mantle to look briefly at Reuben’s.
John’s gospel has the mirror-like symmetry of an epic Hebrew poem. In addition, one of its major themes involves the passing of mantles to various disciples: Elijah’s prophetic mantle, Joseph’s many-coloured mantle, Moses’ providore mantle, David’s royal mantle—all of them carrying bounty and blessing coupled with deep defilement.
Now naturally I began to wonder what mantle the apostle John himself had received. At first I thought David’s; after all, David means beloved and John repeatedly calls himself ‘the disciple Jesus loved.’ But a single correspondence was hardly enough.
Finally, I was startled to realise John’s legacy was Reuben’s mantle: as Reuben was the firstborn amongst Jacob’s twelve sons, so John was the firstborn amongst the twelve apostles. He was the only one of them present at the crucifixion and he witnessed the spirit-blood and water flowing from the pierced side of Jesus. He was there when the promise of new birth that Nicodemus had found such a riddle came to be fulfilled. Only twice in all history was a bride born from the side of a man: once when God took Eve from Adam’s side and once when the Bride of Christ was birthed through the wound in His side. We, the church, are born by faith at that time and place.
But the firstborn were those at the Cross. The legacy of Reuben, with all the repair that mantle needed, went to John. Crumbs of evidence are scattered throughout the final scenes of John’s gospel. Traditionally Reuben is said to mean, ‘Behold, a son!’ Jesus played with that sense when He entrusted John into His mother’s keeping at the Cross, with the words, ‘Behold, your son,’ and His mother into John’s keeping with, ‘Behold, your mother.’
With that, Jesus asked John to mend that part of Reuben’s mantle and legacy that had been despoiled by an inappropriate relationship with his step-mother Bilhah.
Like Reuben hurrying to the pit to release Joseph and finding it empty, so John hurried to the tomb and found it empty.
One of the very last comments by John in his gospel concerns the rumour that spread abroad that Jesus had said he would never die, that he would be like Elijah or Enoch who entered heaven in bodily form without having experienced death. John is at pains to quote Jesus’ words accurately so that this speculation would be curtailed. He is also at pains in the last section to indicate that it was Simon Peter who was given Elijah’s mantle by Jesus, not himself.
Yet that rumour of deathlessness fits not just Elijah but Reuben. Moses had prophesied concerning the tribe of Reuben, in Deuteronomy 33:6, declaring, ‘Reuben will live and not die.’
So it would have been natural for John’s disciples to think this way and believe he would remain until Jesus’ return.
This is Grace Drops; I’m Anne Hamilton. May Jesus the firstborn from the dead bless you today.
Thank you to Lorna Skinner of www.riversofmusic.co.uk for the background music.
Elijah’s mantle is discussed in Dealing with Lilith: Spirit of Dispossession orThe Elijah Tapestry: John 1 and 21: Mystery, Majesty and Mathematics in John’s Gospel #1.
Joseph’s mantle is featured The Summoning of Time: John 2 and 20: Mystery, Majesty and Mathematics in John’s Gospel #2.
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