Which St John? – John the Evangelist
This Sunday (9th June 2019), Pentecost, we will have a poll to see which St John feels like the inspiration for us, St John’s, for the coming years. Which saint’s story resonates with us, calls to us, inspires us, guides us as a community into the future God is calling us into? Each day this week we will revisit one of the five Saints John we have learned about this Easter season.
Option 3
John the Evangelist is the name traditionally given to the person who wrote the fourth canonical gospel, and is usually equated with John the beloved the disciple.
As one of the sons of Zebedee (the so-called “Sons of Thunder”) and brother of James, John is a fisherman turned fisher-of-men. The gospels also reveal to us that John formed the triad of Jesus’ closest disciples along with Peter and his brother James. This triad was present both when Jesus raised Jairus’s daughter and during the Transfiguration. Christian tradition describes John as the “disciple Jesus loved,” which suggests a close relationship with Jesus. John is the one who takes the Jesus’ mother Mary into his care during and after the crucifixion and is among the first disciples to understand the significance of the empty tomb.
John recalls, perhaps with a smile, that he and Peter ran side by side, but then “the other disciple ran faster than Peter and arrived at the tomb first” (John 20:4b). He did not enter, but waited for Peter and let him go in first. “Then the other disciple also went in, the one who had arrived at the tomb first, and he saw and believed” (John 20:8).
After the ascension of Jesus Christ, John is found in several places in the Book of Acts, including healing the lame man outside the beautiful gate, testifying before the Sanhedrin, and conveying the gift of the Holy Spirit to new converts through the laying on of hands.
John is often depicted in art holding a chalice with a serpent in it, which is likely tied to his willingness to drink from the cup Jesus was to drink from. There is also a legend that suggests that at some point during John’s ministry, someone passed him a chalice filled with poisoned wine. As John said a blessing over the cup, the poison rose from the cup in the form of a snake.
Throughout the gospels, John is depicted as both impetuous—asking to sit at Jesus’ side in his glory—and also devoted, staying close to Jesus throughout his life. The gospel attributed to his name gives a cosmic view of Jesus’ life and ministry, beginning with the beautiful words “in the beginning was the word” and ending with “if everything about Jesus were written down, the world could not contain all the books.” For John, Jesus is God’s word made flesh, and that Word is all we need.
