Thunder Happened

An Unusual Holy Week Meditation on John 12:29

Holy week was forever changed for my family two years ago. During March, 2022 we suspected—rightfully—that my wife Kristen, the Director of Women’s and Children’s Ministries, would be fired in the near future. I attended Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday that year by myself, while Kristen took some leave to try and recover from all that was going wrong and the wrong being done to her.

I have written about that story before, but there is a related event I have only shared publicly in short form, for fear that others would judge or misunderstand. Reading the account of Palm Sunday in John 12 last week inspired me to look at that event again in light of Scripture. Aware of the dangers of eisegesis, I poured over the Scriptures and was struck by what I saw. Pun totally intended, as the event I’m referring to occurred on July 4, 2022 when God struck that toxic church with thunder and lightning.

Surfside Presbyterian Church on July 4, 2022, photo from ABC15 News.

I grew up in a cessationist / noncharismatic church and have always been ambivalent about signs and wonders. However, when a “sign” is personal it’s hard to see it as anything other than from God. That lightning bolt quickly brought a quote from John Owen to mind that helped me make sense at the time:

Especial providential warnings call for thoughts of God’s omnipresence and omniscience…for all the works of God, especially those that are rare and strange, have a voice whereby he speaks unto us. The first thing suggested unto a spiritual mind in such seasons will be, “God is in this place,” — “He is present that liveth and seeth,” as Hagar confessed on the like occasion (Gen 16:13-14)”.¹

All the works of God have a voice. And the written Word testifies to God speaking through “accidental”, “rare and strange” events of providence.

When we read in John 12:28-29 that God spoke from heaven and the crowd heard thunder, John is bringing together this very confluence of divine speech and the speech of nature. Here is John 12:27-29:

“[27] Now my soul is troubled. What should I say—Father, save me from this hour? But that is why I came to this hour. [28] Father, glorify your name.” Then a voice came from heaven: “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.” [29] The crowd standing there heard it and said it was thunder. Others said, “An angel has spoken to him.”

I like how

Scot McKnight

translated v.29a: “Thunder happened”. But what is the meaning of that?

Thunder and Lightning Then

When reading this narrative, we miss what John is doing if we only see and hear on the surface. It is natural to imagine people hearing thunder when God speaks from heaven. John explains, on the basis of Isaiah, that unbelief kept them from perceiving Jesus for who he really is (12:37-50). Unbelief blinds the eyes and deafens the ears. But that quotation (from Isaiah 6:10), as well as another explicit quotation from Isaiah 53:1 in John 12:38, shows there is much more at work under the surface of the narrative.

This is typical with John. As Richard Hays explains, John’s OT allusions are often “verbally faint (echoing just a word or two from the scriptural source) but symbolically potent, evoking a rich theological matrix within which the Fourth Gospel’s presentation of Jesus is to be understood.”²

The clearest of these allusions in John 12 is when Jesus speaks about glorifying and being lifted up, which echo the Greek Septuagint from Isaiah 33:10 and Isaiah 52:13. But the reader/hearer has to know the Hebrew Scriptures really, really well, and “for readers who know these [OT] stories by heart, these brief allusions leap of the page.”³

With these “low-volume Scriptural allusions”⁴, it’s like John pulls separate spices from his pantry of Scriptures, sprinkles them into a pot, and stirs them together. Once you taste the soup, you can still isolate the individual spices (if you have trained taste, at least), but the combined mixture is more than any one of them on its own.

I believe John is doing something similar with the mention of thunder in 12:29. The word for thunder, brontē, is relatively rare in Scripture: five times in the LXX and twelve times in the NT (eleven of which are Johannine, one in John and ten in Revelation). Of the five OT uses, one is in Isaiah 29:6, and given the recurring Isaianic allusions in John 12, that makes it a possible echo for 12:29. But let’s take a look and see. I’m using the New English Translation of the Septuagint (NETS):

“But the wealth of the impious shall be like dust from a wheel and like flying chaff. And it shall be like an instant, suddenly, from the Lord Sabaoth, for there shall be a visitation with thunder and earthquake and a great voice, a rushing storm and a devouring flame of fire.” (Isaiah 29:5-6)

One of the ways John’s OT allusions function is to invite hearers/readers to go back to the context of the alluded word or phrase and ponder how that broader context sheds light on the Gospel text. So even if Isaiah 29:6 doesn’t immediately sound connected to John 12:29, we need to linger rather than quickly dismiss the possible allusion.

This is in the middle of a judgment oracle on Judah/Jerusalem. That theme is shared by other passages from Isaiah mentioned above, especially in chapters 6 and 33. And John 12 also includes a theme of judgment:

[30] Jesus responded, “This voice came, not for me, but for you. [31] Now is the judgment of this world. Now the ruler of this world will be cast out.” (John 12:30-31)

Additionally, the (auditory) image of thunder is accompanied in Isaiah 29:6 by a handful of images that are often linked together in apocalyptic revelations: earthquake, great voice, rushing storm, devouring flame of fire. This is especially evident in Revelation (cf Rev 4:5, 6:1, 8:5, 10:3, 11:19, 12:10, 14:2, 7, 16:8, 19:6), but those images are themselves drawn from the OT. Two other such passages from the OT combine with Isaiah 29:6 to make “thunder” in John 12:29 much more than mistranslated divine speech.

First, another prophetic text, Amos 4:13 (with echoes marked in bold):

“For behold, I am the one who makes the thunder strong and creates a wind and announces his anointed to humans, makes dawn and mist and treads on the heights of the earth—the Lord God the Almighty is his name!”

Aside from the echo with thunder, the Greek for “anointed” is Christos, and the Greek for “announces” is apaggellō, from the same root as “angel” in John 12:29, aggelos. There are other related themes from Amos connected to John 12, but we will have to pass over those. Making thunder and announcing his Christ to humans seems a likely connection to John 12.

The other OT text is Job 26:12-14:

“By force he calmed the sea, and by knowledge he struck down the sea-monster, and heaven’s bars fear him, and by decree he put to death the rebellious dragon. Look, these are parts of his way, and at a droplet of a word we will give ear to him! And the force of his thunder—who knows when it will act?"

At first glance there are only two loose echoes to John 12:29: thunder (brontē) and “give ear,” that is, hear or listen (akouō).⁵

But the LXX of Job 26:13 refers to the killing of a “rebellious dragon”, a striking phrase which could be transliterated apostate drakōn. Hearing that, we can go forward to Revelation 12:9-10. For Revelation is the only NT book that uses the word drakōn, and it is a clear parallel to John 12:31 where Jesus says, “Now is the judgment of this world. Now the ruler of this world will be cast out.”⁶

Revelation 12:9 says “the great dragon was thrown out,” (ballō, 3x in that verse), the same root verb as John 12:31 for “cast out” (ekballō). Additionally, Revelation 12:9 mentions the angels who were also thrown out, and Revelation 12:10 repeats that the accuser was “cast out” (ballō). Finally, Revelation 12:10 begins with “I heard a great voice in heaven”, which echoes 12:28-29 and the voice from heaven which some liken to an angel speaking.

Drawing out this connection to the casting out and defeat of Satan leads us back to Isaiah 29. Just before the mention of thunder in 29:6 we read this:

Then your words shall be brought low to the earth;
to the earth shall your words sink;
your voice shall be like those who utter sounds from the earth,
and your voice shall be weak near the ground. (Isaiah 29:4)

I believe these passages are using and developing the typological image of God’s judgment of the serpent in Genesis 3. Being thrown to the ground, brought low to the earth, it all sounds very similar to Genesis 3:14, “upon your chest and belly you shall go, and earth you shall eat all the days of your life.” This gets developed further in Exodus when the first judgment sign Aaron performs is throwing down a staff which becomes a serpent that swallowed the Egyptian sorcerer’s staffs (Ex 7:8-13⁷).

A Jewish reader/hearer—living in an oral culture with extraordinary memory (by 21st century standards), and learned in the Scriptures since birth—would hear “voice from heaven,” “thunder,” “angel speaking,” and “ruler of this world cast out” and be able to think back to the Scriptural pattern of God judging the serpent and his seed.

If all of these passages are being linked by John, what is the result? How do these intertexts, as scholars call them, help frame the voice from heaven which gets confused for thunder and an angel?

The casting out of the ruler of the world is thematically linked with the repetition of glory in John 12. I agree with scholars who see the ruler as representing the assembly of all the forces working against Jesus. Not just Satan, but Judas; Pharisees and chief priests and Ioudaioi; Pilate and Rome (cf John 18:1-11).⁸ The diabolical heart of those worldly rulers was love of human glory, a love so desperate and demanding that threats to position, fame and power must be cast out (John 12:42-43). As Jesus will be lifted up in humiliation on the cross, so the way of the dragon, the way of worldly pride and power, must be thrown down.

Thunder and Lightning Today

The senior pastor of that toxic church said something along the lines of, “No one would believe that lightning strike was God judging us.” But lightning struck, thunder crashed, and the church caught fire. Out of all the buildings in that city, only a church was struck. Out of all the churches in that city, only that church caught fire. And, if you can believe it, our son prayed that God would burn that church building (without anyone inside) just a few days prior.

You have to know our son. His giant smile and his big brown eyes, his empathic heart and curious questions. Judah has never met a stranger and loves everyone. We were driving in the van and Judah was crying and upset. He was angry at the loss of his friends, young and old, he was crying out for help, and his mama was crying with him. “Tell him, Judah, your feelings aren’t too big for God.” Judah yelled, “I want God to burn it to the ground!”

Recounting that desperate plea for justice, a passage from Matthew’s account of Palm Sunday comes to mind:

[15] When the chief priests and the scribes saw the wonders that he did and the children shouting in the temple, “Hosanna to the Son of David!” they were indignant [16] and said to him, “Do you hear what these children are saying?” Jesus replied, “Yes, have you never read: You have prepared praise from the mouths of infants and nursing babies?” (Matthew 21:15-16)

That church protected the glory (ie name and reputation) of an alleged sexual predator, claiming they were afraid of harming his children by publicly announcing his deposition from office as an elder. They silently deposed him, and sat on that decision in silence for 8 months. Then when they fired my wife they couldn’t keep it quiet any longer due to the confusion it caused among the congregation.

Kristen had pressed them for 8 months to announce the allegations publicly in case of potential additional victims. But they had no issue publicly announcing Kristen’s termination in a church-wide email. Not only did they fail to notify Kristen beforehand that they were sending that email, appallingly, they hadn’t even told Kristen she was fired. That church-wide email was her first notification.

But then, six weeks later, thunder happened.

In a public news interview later that day, the senior pastor made a statement that has more than a little irony after studying John 12:

“It’s a mess. What used to be up is now down; on the floor,” he said. “Water has created damage up and down the hallways, so we’re trying to preserve whatever we can from those offices. The sanctuary seems to be in relatively good shape compared to the rest of the building.”

What used to be up is now down. But what wasn’t cast down was the love of human praise. The glory of man ruled and remained standing. The presbytery investigated that pastor and found no cause for charging him with sin. This, despite the fact that the pastor admitted he was wrong and “apologized” to the church for not announcing the sexual abuse allegations, and still fired Kristen because their “disagreement” over that decision—remember, he was wrong, not just a neutral disagreement—made their work relationship “untenable”.

She was right, but she still had to be cast out.

While the glory of man remained standing, the glory of woman was cast out, thrown to the floor, trampled in the mud, and then neatly wiped off from their shoes never to be seen again. And the show went on, as reported by ABC:

“Peterson said they’re not letting this stop the church from moving forward…He also said they’re still planning to have their normal services this weekend. ‘The fire did knock out the power as I understand it, but it’ll be back and restored, and we’ll gather. We’ll have church on Sunday, it’s not going to stop us,’ said Peterson.”

Can I say for certain what God said through that thunder and lightning? No. But in the quaint words of another quote from John Owen, “God never casts “bruta fulmina” [senseless lightning⁹]; all his works are vocal. They speak, or rather he speaks in them.”¹⁰

Humans may be senseless and only hear thunder, but the thunder itself is never senseless. He who has ears to hear, let him hear.

1. John Owen, The Grace and Duty of Being Spiritually Minded, in Works of John Owen, 7:376-377, emphasis added.

2. Richard Hays, Echoes of Scripture in the Gospels, 285.

3. Hays, Echoes, 292.

4. Hays, Echoes, 293.

5. Aquinas references this verse from Job in his commentary (para 1663): “Those who were slow and carnal only heard it as a sound; so they said that it had thundered. Still, they were not entirely mistaken, for the Lord's voice was thunder, both because it had an extraordinary meaning, and because it contained very great things: ‘How small a whisper do we hear of him! But the thunder of his power who can understand?’ (Job 26:14)”

6. So Craig Keener, The Gospel of John: A Commentary: “Another document [Revelation] probably circulating in the same circle of believers as this Gospel depicts Satan being “cast out” from heaven in strikingly similar language, at the time of Jesus’ exaltation, possibly on the cross: Rev 12:4, 9.”

7. Ex 7:9 LXX sēmeion, cf John 2:11 and the “sign” theme in John, a clear allusion to the exodus.

8. Cf NT Wright, Interpreting Jesus: Essays on the Gospels, 201-220; Warren Carter, John and Empire: Initial Explorations, 290-291. “Ruler of this world” standing for many characters might be similar to how many representative characters embody the way of the dragon in Revelation, cf McKnight and Matchett, Revelation for the Rest of Us, 38.

9. Appears to be from Pliny the Elder’s Natural History: “But all these occurrences are accidental—they cause mere senseless and ineffectual thunder-claps, as their coming obeys no principle of nature—they merely cleave mountains and seas, and all their other blows are ineffectual; but the former are prophetical and sent from on high, they come by fixed causes and from their own stars.”

10. John Owen, Exposition of the Epistle to the Hebrews, 4:77.