Reflection - John

By Steve Hall

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/010723.cfm
I John 5:14-21
John 2:1-11

John was the youngest of the twelve. In all probability, he was in his mid teens when he took off from fishing to follow Jesus. He was one of the two brothers that Jesus would call ‘sons of thunder.’ He was one of three that Jesus chose to be special witnesses to certain events (e.g. the transfiguration, the final prayer at Gethsemane) From what we read, John was the only Apostle who stood as witness to the crucifixion. It was there, from the cross, that Jesus entrusted his mother to the care of John. And it was John who, along with Peter, ran to find the empty tomb.

John did not die a martyr’s death as the other eleven did. He died in exile on the island of Patmos; he was probably in his nineties when he died.

In this period after Christmas we are given the writings of John for our own reflection. It seems appropriate.

Whenever I think of John, I find it easy to imagine this exuberant youth suddenly caught up in the most mysterious, the most amazing event in all of history. For somewhere between two and three years he walked this earth in the company of our incarnate God. For the rest of his life he would, like Mary, keep all these things, pondering them in his heart. And through those decades following the Ascension he would look for the divine meaning in what had transpired and what he, himself, had been a part of. Like Paul, having been schooled in the Scriptures, he probably found it easy to accept that this was the time and place in which God chose to fulfill his ancient promises.

“While we were yet helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.”
(Romans 5:6)

“But when the time had fully come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law . . . “
(Galatians 4:4)

“For he has made known to us in all wisdom and insight the mystery of his will, according to his purpose which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fulness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.”
(Ephesians 1:9-10)

It falls to those of us in later years to puzzle the events of the past.

“Now why'd you choose such a backward time
And such a strange land?
If you'd come today
You could have reached a whole nation
Israel in 4 BC
Had no mass communication.”
(Jesus Christ Superstar)

My image of John includes no such questioning. Rather, I see him as very personally overwhelmed, still bewildered while simultaneously awestruck by what had occurred. But he did not question or wonder at the decisions or actions of God; he sought to understand them. His spiritual search would lead to some amazing conclusions.

“We know that we belong to God,and the whole world is under the power of the Evil One. We also know that the Son of God has comeand has given us discernment to know the one who is true. And we are in the one who is true, in his Son Jesus Christ.”

Statements like these are not derived from philosophical speculation. Neither do they come from wishful thinking. Only in the depths of one’s heart can such truth be found, and that only in pondering the ramifications of John’s most central teaching: “We love, because he first loved us.” (1 John 4:19)

We may occasionally wish that we might have been one of the twelve. We might dream of being privileged to physically walk in the company of our Savior. We might even assert, as I did before knowing my own weakness, that we would never abandon Him. But knowing myself now, as I did not in my earlier years, I am thankful for a man like John whose writings connect me with an experience beyond my grasp.