Reflections on the St. John Passion

The invitation to provide some reflections on the St. John Passion instead of a sermon during the complete Good Friday liturgy of its first performance at that time, is a task as honourable as it is ambitious, but at the same time almost hopeless.. Because the best sermon and the best possible reflection on the St. John Passion is the Passion itself: first of all, the story of Jesus’ Passion as told by John the Evangelist, then the complements, additions, interpretations and reflections on it provided by Johann Sebastian Bach’s music.
What more is there to say, explain, perform, hear or understand?

»We’re all bunglers compared to him,« Robert Schumann said of Johann Sebastian Bach. This is why I shall just add a few bungling remarks about the history, misunderstandings and impact of this great musical Passion story, with a brief reflection at the close.

Bach’s first Leipzig Passion was performed at least another three times after Good Friday 1724, each time with minor changes, additions, cuts and rearrangements. Unlike the St. Matthew Passion, there has been no final version. After Bach’s death it was forgotten and its next verifiable performance, in 1832 in Bremen Cathedral, did not come until more than 100 years after its premiere – three years after Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy’s performance of the St. Matthew Passion.

We do not know how impressed the citizens of Leipzig were by the first performance, but quite a few of them complained that it was more like an opera than a sober Passion narrative – full of grand emotions that should have no place in sacred music. They also pointed out the explicit obligation that Bach had already had to sign as part of his employment contract as cantor of St. Thomas’. He pledged that he would  »organise the music in a way that it would not be too long, also that it would be composed not to come over as operatic but would rather incite the listeners to worship«.

Later, the St John Passion, and also the St. Matthew Passion, came under suspicion of being anti-Judaic, of hostility towards the Jews, especially since much later the National Socialists deformed the two Bach Passions into veritable »odes to de-Judaization«. There is no evidence of any anti-Jewish attitude on the part Bach as the composer. Even Felix Mendelssohn, who was a baptised Jew, felt evidently undisturbed by the affect-laden turba choruses of the crowds, roused up against the accused rebel, Jesus of Nazareth. As for the composition, we have to remember that all the phrases and exclamations suspected of expressing hostility towards the Jews are verbatim quotations from the New Testament. The chorales and arias that Bach interpolates into the Evangelist’s narrative which are not part of the plot convey a very different message. They draw the religious audience into events and reflect upon our own involvement in evil, between apathy and incitement:

»Jesus, look upon me also …«
Not: Jesus, look upon the sinners.
»I, I and my sins … they have brought about the affliction that has struck you.«
Not: You, you and your sins, but: I, I and my sins.
Or again, in the congregational hymn:
»If I have done evil, stir my conscience.«
Not: If you have done evil, stir your conscience.

In the St. John Passion, Bach does not pose the question of collective guilt, but individual responsibility.

The polemic against Jews and »Jewish law« is a longstanding, sad tradition in the history of Christianity; up to a few years ago it could still be found in the Catholic liturgy for Good Friday.

Incidentally, on a June 17 when we commemorate quite a different uprising in more recent German history, we might also – must even – remember June 17, 1773. On that day, exactly 250 years ago, half a century after the St. John Passion, Tsarina Catherine II issued an edict of tolerance for all religious confessions in the Russian Empire – but the Jews who had come under her rule with the First Partition of Poland were expressly excluded.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the great Protestant theologian, who was persecuted and killed by the National Socialists also because of his religious tolerance, wrote the following bitter and pithy sentence:

»Only those who cry out for the Jews are entitled to sing Gregorian.«

The truth is that for far too long all too many people have facilely separated the two, as if they had nothing to do with one another.

Bach’s Passions are not operas, not novels, but rather sober reports set to immortal music with considerably less sober, sensitive, stirring, harrowing comments and reflections. There is no acting, no portrayal; they simply report the Passion and death of Jesus Christ. They deal with despair, betrayal, arrest, interrogation, condemnation and execution, with suffering and death and sorrow – affects that Johann Sebastian Bach expresses musically in ways unheard of until then, but which remain valid and unsurpassed to this day.

This is how the St. John Passion itself becomes the sermon, interpreting the Bible text by musical means and inviting the congregation to respond. The much-quoted remark by the notorious vocal critic of religion, Friedrich Nietzsche, about the St. Matthew Passion also applies to the St. John Passion: »Anyone who has completely forgotten Christianity truly hears it like a gospel here«. Among the numerous »proofs of God’s existence« that theologians and philosophers have desperately sought for centuries, Bach’s Passions and his B Minor Mass are perhaps the most plausible. They do not convey the certainty, but nevertheless the firm idea that He exists.

The Passion narratives number without a doubt among the great texts of humanity, even if we are not obliged to regard them as pinnacles of literary history. The Passions of Johann Sebastian Bach are undisputed monumental works in the history of music which illustrate what art in general and music in particular can express, convey and achieve with their respective means. But they also show that works of art – as perfect as they may appear – are not completed once and for all, closed, definitive, but that we always have to seek and find our own approach to the great themes and challenges of humanity. Perhaps this is also why Johann Sebastian Bach hesitated to create a final version of his St. John Passion. For the three or four further performances in Leipzig, he repeatedly changed and added to it experimenting both with certain texts and with the disposition of the orchestra, choirs and soloists and the tonal effect they created.

Professor Maul has drawn my attention to a seemingly trivial change between the first and final performances of the St. John Passion during the tenure of the Thomaskantor. For one of the later performances, Johann Sebastian Bach wrote out a separate set of parts for Peter and Pilate which contains only these roles, whereas for earlier performances – and modern ones too – these vocal roles, as those of all the other characters, have been sung by the choir. I find this not only of interest from a music-historical point of view, but it is also deserves its own consideration in terms of the significance of characters that, after all, play more than a small, seemingly minor role in this great drama. I want to conclude my comments and thoughts on the St. John Passion with my personal perception of the role of the later apostle Peter.

»Then Peter recalled Jesus’ words and went out and wept bitterly.«

There are more exciting remarks in the Bible, and certainly more important ones from the theological point of view, but there is scarcely any other scene which describes the disproportion between the aspirations and reality of human existence so unobtrusively yet so obviously as this sentence, added by the Evangelist almost as an afterthought, and which receives a striking emphasis in Johann Sebastian Bach’s elaborate musical setting .

For me as a politically active Christian it serves as a warning and an encouragement.

The significance of this sentence comes from the context. The end of Jesus’ life is approaching. He has bid farewell to his disciples. He has formulated his legacy. A few hours remain between Gethsemane and Golgotha, characterised by despair, denial, mockery, humiliation. The human and divine in a life are about to culminate in its accomplishment.

None of his closest companions harbour any illusions about the seriousness of the situation. In an act of desperate resistance, Peter takes physical action against the police and state authority. With his sword, as it says in John, he cuts off an ear of one of the henchmen.

On no one expectations are now greater than on Peter. He is not only Jesus’s favourite disciple; he is the one chosen above all others, the representative, the rock on which Christ wants to build his Church. In the courtyard of the high priest Caiaphas, Peter in his prominent role is tested for the first time and he fails. He denies his Lord, disputes his affiliation to the disciples and forfeits his mandate as leader: »I do not know the man.«

Peter leaves. He disappears. He shirks his responsibility. And then the whole tragedy not only of the situation but also his pathetic role becomes clear to him. He is deeply ashamed of himself and is not embarrassed of his tears.

The continuation of this small part of a great story is found in the Acts of the Apostles. Peter comes to accept his role and his responsibility for the young Church. His failure to take up the task is neither the first nor the last word. Peter confirms with his own life possibly the most beautiful words that the Holy Scripture has handed down to us in the Gospel of John about the relationship between men and their Creator: »Lord, you know everything. You know that I love you.« (John 21, 17).

You know everything. Again, that is no proof of God’s existence, but the expression of devout confidence that can move mountains.

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