201227 Sermon for St. John Apostle and Evangelist

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December 27^th is the day that has been set aside to commemorate St. John, the apostle and evangelist. Setting aside a day to commemorate a saint can sound rather Roman Catholic, and therefore not quite kosher for us protestants. However, I will not be recommending St. John to you as someone who can give you grace. Nor will I be encouraging you to pray to him so that he can pray for you. The reason why I won’t be doing these things is because God has never commanded us to do this, nor has he promised to bless us if we do.

Instead, we will make use of this day to consider God’s working in this man and through this man. Knowing more about St. John helps us understand the Bible better, and we can apply the things we learn about him also to ourselves and our own circumstances. For God still exists. He still works in the lives of his saints, just like he did in the lives of the saints that are recorded in the Bible.

Let’s begin today be understanding who John is. Sometimes people get a little confused about John, because there are two important men named John in the New Testament. There is John the Baptist and John the apostle. During the season of advent that just came to a close with Christmas we have heard quite a bit about John the Baptist. He was the forerunner of the Christ, prophesied by the Old Testament prophets like Isaiah and Malachi. He is the preacher and baptizer of repentance. The apostle John, on the other hand, is one of the twelve disciples whom Jesus called to follow him in an especially close way.

There’s actually quite a lot that we know about the apostle John. Before Jesus called him to be one of the twelve he was a fisherman on the Sea of Galilee. He worked together with his brother James, as well as Simon Peter and Andrew—all of whom were also called to be disciples by Jesus. According to Church tradition he was Jesus’s cousin. Mary, Jesus’s mother, was his aunt. Also according to Church tradition, John was the youngest of the twelve.

I appears that John was a very zealous man. One time he came across somebody casting out demons using Jesus’s name. Since this fellow was not formally part of the group, John told him to stop. But Jesus told John, “Whoever is not against us is for us.” On another occasion he asked Jesus whether fire should be called down from heaven against a Samaritan town who did not warmly welcome Jesus. We are told of a nickname for John and his brother James. They were called “sons of thunder.” That leads me to believe that John was fiery and bold.

This is a little surprising when you consider the books that he wrote that are included in our New Testament. John has a style that is all his own. It is free and almost whimsical. It is quite simple. Every New Testament Greek student cuts their teeth by reading his Gospel. His Greek is the simplest and easiest to master. In his epistle, 1 John, he is always encouraging love. “Beloved, let us love one another,” he says many times. So it can be hard to picture him as fiery and bold.

On the other hand, John by no means shied away from recording in his Gospel the intense and acrimonious exchanges that took place between Jesus and the Jewish officials who hated Jesus. This is one of the unique contributions of John’s Gospel. The other Gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, do not describe these exchanges with nearly the same depth. So although John writes with a very gentle style, he obviously is not some hand-wringing clergyperson who just wanted everyone to like him. He wasn’t afraid of a fight.

Among the twelve apostles John was special. Although the twelve were all equal and loved by the Lord Jesus, there appears to have been a circle within the circle of twelve. Peter, James, and John are mentioned several times as being in places that the rest of the twelve were not. Peter, James, and John were with Jesus when he raised Jairus’s daughter from the dead. They were with him on the mount of transfiguration. They were closer to Jesus than the others when he was praying in the Garden of Gethsemane.

John also seems to have stuck it out at the end of Jesus’s life when the other disciples fled for safety. When Jesus was arrested and brought to the chief priests’ house in the middle of the night for their kangaroo court, Peter and John followed at a distance. John went into the courtyard, but Peter stood outside. This is when Peter denied that he knew Jesus three times, and presumably took to the hills like the rest of Jesus’s disciples. John, though, did not. It appears that he was the only one of the twelve who was at the cross. While Jesus hung dying he indicated John and said to his mother, “Woman, behold your son.” To John he said, “Behold, your mother.”

On Easter morning John was the first of the twelve to make it to the empty tomb, because he outran Peter. Perhaps this was because he was younger. John was in the upper room, on the evening of Easter, when the disciples were gathered together. Jesus appeared to them, though the doors were locked, and said, “Peace be with you! Just as the Father has sent me, I am also sending you.” Then he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. Whenever you forgive people’s sins, they are forgiven. Whenever you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.”

The Gospel reading that was chosen for today are the very last words of John’s Gospel. The whole last chapter of John’s Gospel is a little mysterious. It is almost like an appendix to the book. There is a fine summary statement at the end of chapter 20. Then chapter 21 speaks about something that happened after Easter, but before Jesus ascended. Peter, James, John, Thomas, Nathanael, and two others were back in Galilee. Peter said, “I’m going fishing,” which, if you remember, was his old profession before he was called to be an apostle. The others all agreed to go with him.

While they were in the boat Jesus appeared on the shore, but they did not recognize him. He yelled out to them, “Don’t you have any fish?” They said, “No.” Jesus said, “Cast your net on the right side of the boat, and you will find some.” When they did, the nets became so full that they couldn’t haul them all in.

This was very reminiscent of the way that Peter was originally called to be an apostle years before. Jesus had said to him then, “You will no longer catch fish, but will be a fisher of men.” So John and Peter and the rest understood that this was Jesus on the sea shore. Peter didn’t wait for the boat to reach land, but jumped in and swam to shore.

There Jesus had prepared a breakfast with fish cooked over a charcoal fire and some bread. After they had eaten Jesus asked Peter three times, “Do you love me?” Peter said, “Yes.” And Jesus said, “Take care of my sheep.”

Then Jesus said something that is important for better understanding our Gospel reading today. Jesus said to Peter, “Amen, Amen, I tell you: When you were young, you dressed yourself and went wherever you wanted. But when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will tie you and carry you where you do not want to go.” With these words Jesus was indicating the death by which Peter would glorify God. At the end of Peter’s life he would be imprisoned and crucified. According to Church tradition he requested that he be crucified upside down, because he did not believe that he was worthy to be crucified in the same way that Jesus was. After Jesus had said this he said to Peter, “Follow me.”

This is where our reading started today. Peter looked over and saw John. He asked Jesus, “Lord, what about him?” It is as though he was asking, “Is he also going to be dressed by someone else and carried someplace that he does not want to go? Is he also going to die a violent death?” Jesus responded, “If I want him to remain until I come, then what is that to you? You follow me.”

Then, in our reading, John explains how some people were interpreting these words from Jesus concerning himself. They thought that those words meant that John would not die before Jesus returned to judge the living and the dead. John wants it understood that these words do not necessarily mean that. Jesus is basically saying to Peter, “What happens to John is none of your business. The important thing is that you follow me.”

Here is an indication that John’s Gospel was the last Gospel that was written when John was an old man. Unlike so many of the other disciples, John had not yet died a violent death when he was writing this Gospel. Since he was getting so much older, perhaps people were starting to wonder whether he wouldn’t die. After all, there was that word that Jesus had spoken to Peter. John wanted people to know that that wasn’t necessarily the case.

There are also other things about John’s Gospel that support this idea that it was the last of the four to be written. John does not spend much time at all speaking about what the other three Gospels say. Instead he records at length things that the others don’t—especially many long dialogues that Jesus had with his opponents and with his disciples. It is almost as if the apostle wrote his Gospel to fill in some of the gaps that were left by the other three. But this can only be done up to a point, because, as he says in our reading, “Jesus also did many other things. If every one of them were written down, I suppose the world itself would not have room for the books that would be written.”

Now let’s finish up by speaking about things we know about John later in his life. Soon after Pentecost, John, together with Peter, was arrested by the Jewish authorities—the first of Jesus’s disciple to have this happen to them. They demanded that they stop speaking about Jesus. John and Peter refused, telling them that they had to obey God rather than men. Soon they and the rest of the apostles were arrested and beaten, but they rejoiced that they were counted worthy to suffer for the name of Jesus.

It appears that John stayed in the area of Jerusalem and Judea for many years after Pentecost, during the early years of the Christian Church. Church tradition says that eventually he moved together with Mary, Jesus’s mother, to the town of Ephesus, which is in the modern day country of Turkey. There were a lot of Christians in that area during that time. He lived and taught there until he was an old man.

No doubt John encountered many troubles, even though his life was spared, for as Paul says, “It is only through many afflictions that we may enter the Kingdom of God.” Among those afflictions, he was once exiled to the island of Patmos, off the coast of Turkey, where he received the vision that is known as the Apocalypse, or Revelation, the last book of the Bible.

Finally, let’s apply these things to ourselves. As you can see, the apostle and evangelist, John, lived a life in close communion with Jesus both before and after Jesus ascended. The circumstances of your life are different. You have not experienced the same outward things that John did. But you do share the same Lord, the same communion, and hopefully to the same extent that John did. There are no part-time Christians. Those who only want to be Christians when it is convenient for them will find that they were only deluding themselves with their own invention of a Christianity instead of the real thing.

If God wants you to live out your days so that you are old, then well and good. Always be prepared to give an answer to anyone who asks you about the hope you have as a Christian. If there is a challenge that comes along, be sure that you follow Jesus—that you confess him and do not deny him. If you are punished by the loss of a friend, or family member, or your reputation, then so be it. Rejoice that you are counted worthy to suffer for the name of Jesus.

Or if your life or your livelihood is cut short, then so be it. Jesus is your shepherd. You might think that other things give you your peace and security, but you’d be mistaken. We must all count the cost and be willing to suffer the loss of all, including death, rather than fall away from Jesus. Anything we lose for Jesus or for the Gospel will be paid back 100 fold, and, at the end, eternal life.

St. John is not someone that we should pray to. He is someone we should learn from for how we can live as faithful Christians.