Next week we begin the Gospel of John. I just finished the book of Exodus. And so what I wanted to do by way of transition this week was to introduce you to John – not just the things that he has to say, not just his ideas and his concepts and his theology, as wonderful as that is, but to introduce you to John as a human being, as a person.
My hope would be that he would become for you a friend. And so, what I’m gonna ask you to do tonight is to really use your imagination. As you study John’s works, Gospel of John; I, II, and III John, and the book of Revelation, what you find is that John is a great wordsmith, and he paints pictures with words that sort of get your imagination captive.
And he uses phenomenal imagery like vine and branches and light and darkness. And as you read some of the book of Revelation, you see that he uses a lot of color and shape and hue. And he just births these brilliant pictures in your mind.
And so what I’m gonna ask you to do tonight is just to use your imagination. And as we walk through a number of stories of John’s life, to just kind of place yourself in each of those moments – almost like you’re watching a film of the life of John, and just seeing his relationship with Jesus and his life with Jesus.
Because it’s interesting, what I usually do before I begin studying and preaching for a book of the Bible is I’ll read a great number of commentaries. And there’s probably more commentaries written on John’s Gospel than any other Gospel.
But I think the most important thing before we start to look at all that he believes and all that he says is to see what kind of relationship he had with Christ, and how he knew Jesus, and what that meant to him in a very practical and a very real way.
And their relationship is one of student and teacher. And what I think I want to do is preface our talk so that you understand that their understanding of student and teacher is probably a lot different than we would understand it in our present day.
How many of you, for example, went to college, or something of that nature. You got an education. See, in our world, what you do is you go to a school. You go to the University of Washington, you go to UCLA, you go to a particular place.
In John’s day, whether you were a Christian or a non-Christian, the way that teaching was set up is that you would go to a teacher. And that teacher, then, would instruct you. But there wouldn’t necessarily be a school around that teacher. Some teachers did have schools, but some teachers were like Jesus, just traveling teachers.
And so, their relationship is one of student and teacher. But in that, there’s great affection and love between a student and a teacher, and as they came together in a relationship, it was very common for the teacher and the student to end up with a very loving and intimate friendship. That sometimes they would live together. They would journey together, and they would eat together, and they would share common life experience in such a way that there was really deep affection and then a lifelong commitment between the student and the teacher.
And John had this wonderful experience, this wonderful opportunity as a very young man to become a student of Jesus. Jesus, as he refers to, is his rabbi, his teacher. And so, as we get into John tonight, I want you to come at this recognizing the relationship that they had.
And John was – I don’t know how old John was – it doesn’t tell us specifically. We know he was likely younger than Jesus. He was the youngest of all the disciples – probably early to mid to late 20s, something in there. John was probably right around the age of most of the people that are sitting in this room tonight.
John was pretty young, the youngest of the disciples. And Jesus was just a little bit older than him. We’re told that Jesus was probably right around the age of 30 when he began his public ministry. And so, as you look at Jesus and John, my encouragement to you would be this, to view them in a relationship whereby it’s almost like Jesus is a big brother. And I hope you’ll get that picture of their relationship tonight.
It’s as if Jesus really loves John, and loves John in such a way that he almost seems like a kid brother who’s tagging around with Jesus Christ. And John has this mutual respect and affection for Jesus. And I wonder if that wasn’t the way that John throughout the course of his life in a lot of his writings thought of Jesus. He may have. I’m sure he did love his teaching and love his power and his miracles, and all the things that Jesus did.
But I wonder when he closed his eyes and he reflected back on moments of his life with Christ as he was an old man, if he didn’t think of Jesus with a smile on his face and as a friend, and someone he just simply enjoyed very, very deeply, and really loved?
And I wonder if it wasn’t that that was the foundation of their relationship? And the relationship really began in a very average day, in a very uncommon circumstance. John was a fisherman, and he had a brother named James, and they were together in the fishing business, probably taking over for their father, who was also a fisherman.
And in that world, being a fisherman was actually fairly prestigious. In our world, if you were a fisherman, you’d be considered sort of blue collar and hardworking. Not in that world. If you owned your own fishing company, that meant that you had enough money to get a boat or boats. You had enough money to get nets. You had enough money to have employees, that you had some income, some wealth, some substance to your life.
And so, John is working the family trade with his brother, James, and business partner, likely, with a guy named Peter, who also would become a disciple, and they would work together in serving God.
And James and John are out one day with their dad, mostly likely out on the water, catching fish and harvesting. And then, all of a sudden, along the shore walks Jesus. God comes as a man, and he’s walking along the shore. And he calls out to the boat, to John, and he invites John to leave his nets and to leave his business and to leave his trade and to come and to follow him. And amazingly, John does.
And you gotta understand what John is walking away from. First of all, he’s walking away from his income. He’s giving up his livelihood. He’s giving up the family business. He’s giving up a very secure financial future.
And inasmuch as we can tell, John was probably a single guy. And in following Jesus and leaving his vocation, he’s probably leaving the opportunity of ever becoming married. He would have needed a stable job to be able to pay a dowry, to be able to get a bride, and to be able to do those sorts of things. And now, John leaves all of that, just in a moment’s notice, to go follow this traveling teacher named Jesus.
And so, John does that, and that’s the beginning of their relationship, where Jesus calls John out into this relationship of student and of teacher. And then what happens is that over time, lots of people start to follow Jesus. And again, all of this is in your notes. I don’t have time to read it all.
My encouragement would be for you this week to take the notes home and just read these sections of the Scriptures, so that you can understand for yourself exactly the relationship that John had with Jesus.
But what started to happen was that other people started following Jesus as well. They loved his teaching, or they loved his miracles, or they heard about the things that he was capable of doing. And so now, there are more than just a handful of people that are following Jesus.
And what would always happen at that point, when a teacher got that popular, he would pare down the class. He would just hand select a few people to be his students. Occasionally, he would teach multitudes and large groups, but for the most part, he would only invest himself in a very small number of people, students that then could carry on his teaching and could do the things and teach the things that he had been doing.
And so, what the Scripture says in Mark 3 is that Jesus went up to a hilltop or a mountainside, and all the people that wanted to be potential students were standing beneath him. And Jesus was going to sort of call out whom was going to be his pupil.
And if you can even imagine that moment, it’s almost like when you’re a kid at recess and they’re getting ready to pick teams, and you’ve got that sinking feeling in your stomach, just hoping that someone chooses you.
John is there with these other people who have listened to Jesus and want him to be their teacher. And John, in all likelihood, may have been the youngest. He may have been the youngest of all, somewhere in his early to mid 20s.
And if you can even imagine it, just put yourself in that moment, where Jesus is standing above you and above a group of other people, and he’s sort of looking every single one of you in the eye.
And you know that in a moment, he’s going to call out and he’s going to select, “Okay, you can be my student, and you can be my student, and you can be my student.” And he’s only going to select 12 people.
And he looks at John, and he calls John’s name, and he invites John to come and to be a student with him – zealous young man who’s given up a lot. Imagine in that moment how excited John would have been. That all of a sudden, the sovereign God of the universe comes down to the earth, and as he’s picking people that he would like to love, and he would like to eat with, and he would like to travel with, and he would like to teach, he looks at you, and then he calls your name, and he invites you to come and to be a student of his.
That’s exactly what John experienced. That was exactly John’s relationship with Jesus. And if you can even – I can just almost see John’s face, just that moment of anticipation, and then that big smile that comes, knowing that now he gets to be with Jesus. Not knowing what all of that would mean, but knowing that he would be with Christ, and Christ would be his teacher.
And James and John are interesting guys. In Mark 10, we’re told an interesting story. They come to Jesus and they make a request. They’ve been disciples a while. They’ve been learning his teaching. They’ve been following him around. And all of a sudden, they decide that they would like to ask one favor of Jesus, and so they come to Jesus.
I don’t know if you remember the story, but they ask him, “Master, can we ask you a favor?” And Jesus says, “Well, what do you want?” And they said, “We would like two seats, one at your right and one at your left. And we would like to sit enthroned and ruling with you.” James and his brother, John, are pretty presumptuous. They’re pretty pretentious. It’s pretty obvious that they’re young, because only a young man would ask something like that.
And some of the other disciples, the Scripture says, they got a little frustrated with this question. It seemed a little unfair. In fact, there were 12 of them, and John’s only worried about 2 seats, his and his brother’s.
But he’s very zealous, and he’s very committed. And he wants power. And he wants change. And he wants things to go the way that Jesus has been teaching. And he figures the best way to do that would be to sit in a place of authority.
And I love what Jesus says. Jesus says, “You know, some people work that way. They take their power and they abuse and lord it over other people. But for you, if you want to be the greatest, here’s how you do it – you serve. And you give of yourself. And you sacrifice, and then you’ll be the greatest.
And then Jesus gives John a nickname. It’s actually a nickname for him and his brother, James. He calls ‘em Boanerges; they were the Sons of Thunder. Any of you have a kid brother that you ever gave a nickname to? That’s pretty much what just happened right there.
And it’s interesting because as I was in college, I had a sociology class, and they said that you know who your closest friends are, because those are the people that you nickname. If you give a nickname to someone, that’s because they have a special identity with you and a special affinity with you. And so, you’ll give them a little nickname, and you’ve got this symbiotic relationship, whereby you love each other and you can sort of identify each other in a particular way.
And Jesus looks at John, this very exuberant, very zealous, very passionate young man, and he calls him a Son of Thunder. I don’t know if Jesus was laughing when he said that, if he was mocking him, or if, in fact, he was just recognizing sort of the courage that he had. I don’t know.
But Jesus gets a nickname and he gives it to John. Imagine being John, going – you’re the kid brother of the incarnate Word of God walking around the universe, and you love him, and you’re excited to be with him, and you want to see all the things that he’s been promising and teaching. And then he looks at you, maybe with a half-cocked smile, and calls you the Son of Thunder, and gives you a little nickname.
And I wonder if the other disciples looked on, if they didn’t think it was kind of funny. Here’s John, the zealous young buck, all fired up, ready to change the world, and Jesus gives him a little nickname with a half-crooked smile.
And I think that was the kind of relationship that they had. It’s beautiful to me that in that moment Jesus didn’t rebuke John and yell at him. Jesus took that zealous passion and tried to redirect it toward humility and sacrifice and service. He didn’t crush that passion that he had, but he tried to redirect it in some healthy ways.
What then happened is that Jesus had his – well, he had multitudes of people that would see him, up to 20, 25,000 at a time. Large numbers of people would come to hear him teach. Other numbers include hundreds of people that would come around. And he had these disciples, about 12 of them that he had picked, to come and to be with him.
But then out of those 12 disciples, his apostles, he then picked 3 men that he would invest most specifically in. Three men who he would commit himself to, and that was Peter and James and John. And Peter and John probably were beautiful choices by Jesus because they were business partners. They’d worked together for a long time.
Peter was a little older. John was a little younger. But they trusted each other, and they had this deep and abiding friendship. And as you read throughout the book of Acts, even after Jesus has gone, that Peter and John love each other, and they work together very closely. They settle conflicts together, and they’re involved in the work of the ministry together as deep and abiding friends.
And so, Peter, James, and John are brought together as the inner circle, and they are privy to access to Jesus that no one else in the history of the world has had. As Jesus was walking around, they got to see things that no one else got to see. And they got to be present at certain critical transitionary moments in Jesus’ ministry that no one else got to witness.
One of those was the Mount of Transfiguration, whereby Jesus takes Peter, James, and John up to a mountainside. I don’t know if you remember the story, but it says that all of a sudden, Jesus’ glory was shown. Scripture tells us that Jesus, to a certain degree, had veiled, had limited his glory. That Jesus came so much in perfection as God, and was so holy, that if he didn’t veil, if he didn’t cover his glory, that whoever gazed upon it would surely die.
And so, he hid his glory from his people. But then, in this wonderful moment, his glory is revealed, and he’s transfigured. And John sees him in this completely unveiled state. And it’s amazing, because two other people show up, and who is it? Moses and Elijah. This 20-something-year-old zealous punk gets to see not just Jesus transfigured, he gets to meet Moses, who’s been dead for quite some time, and Elijah, who was just taken up into Heaven, and decided to come down for a – I don’t know what – a bit of lunch, or a visitation, or a little time together with Jesus.
And imagine you’re John in that moment, and you’re so, “Oh, I’ve got such a good teacher, and I love him, and he gave me a nickname, and this is so great. Oh, my goodness, that’s Moses and Elijah.” And not only that, someone else shows up, and who’s that? God the Father shows up. And John hears this voice say, “This is my Son. I love him.” And then he tells John and Peter and James how they’re supposed to respond to this great teacher, Jesus, and he says, “Listen to Him.”
John got his job description from God the Father, “Your job is to listen to Jesus.” Unbelievable moment in John’s life. Peter was so excited. Peter’s always the presumptuous one.
Peter says, “Oh, this is wonderful. We could just build some houses, and Moses could live here, and Elijah could live here, and James could live here, and Peter could live here. Or Jesus and I, we could just hang out. We could form just sort of a little hippie commune right here on top of the mountain, and we could just sing songs and ask Moses and Elijah theological questions, because I’m sure they have insight into the law and the prophets.”
That’s beautiful. Peter sees all of this, and his only thing is, “Wow, let’s just stay. Let’s just unpack.” And John’s there for all of this. And I can’t even imagine as they’re coming down the hill, young, zealous John, looking at Peter, just saying, “Well, that was just brilliant. That was just genius right there. Let’s just go habitat for humanity on top of the mountain, put up a few structures and kick it with Moses and Elijah.”
(Laughter)
And I believe that between Peter and John, there probably was this reciprocity where the young guy’s always kind of giving him a hard time, and Jesus is always sort of making little jabs at John, ‘cause he loves him, and putting him in his place, ‘cause he’s such an ambitious and sometimes overzealous young guy.
And John was privy to those kinds of experiences, those intimate moments that no one else got to see, and it was so beautiful that God gave John those opportunities, because then he gets to write about them, and throughout the history of the Church he gets to pass those things on to his servants.
John had another beautiful experience in his life. It was coming up toward the last supper, toward the great Passover feast, right before Jesus was to die, and Jesus told Peter and John, “You go ahead and you set up this room in this particular way to celebrate the Passover, and then me and the other men will join you.”
And so, John and Peter run ahead, and they set up everything for the Passover feast, that great classic painting where Jesus is reclining with his disciples, sitting at the last supper, John set that table. John set that table. How many times have you ever set the table? John set that table.
And I can imagine, they got everything set up, just like Jesus had promised would happen. And I can just see young John so excited. All the guys are coming; they’re gonna have a nice meal. They’re gonna celebrate this wonderful religious ceremony out of the book of Exodus, where God liberated his people. And I wonder if John wasn’t just peering out the window, waiting for Jesus to come, so excited to sit down and have a bite to eat with him, and to celebrate.
See, John was faithful. And when it came to doing very important things, Jesus could appoint John. Even though he was very young, John was faithful. He’d been a good businessman. He’d been a hard worker. And he’d been alone a lot of his life out at sea. I think all those things combined to give him a very brilliant mind, and to give him a very devoted heart, and to give him hands that weren’t afraid to work. That’s the kind of guy John was.
And it’s amazing, because at the last supper, if you remember the story, it says that Jesus goes off and starts this odd conversation about betrayal. He says, “Oh, one of you who is sitting here is gonna betray me. Somebody’s gonna do something terrible.” And the mood and the tone changes in the room.
And everybody wants to know, “Well, who is it? Who’s gonna betray Jesus? Who’s gonna blow it? Who’s gonna destroy our teacher?” And Peter looks over at John, and tells John, “Go ask Jesus. Ask Jesus who’s going to betray him.”
The question is, “Well, why would Peter, the head of the disciples, name always listed first, the elder statesman – why in the world would he tell young buck John?” I think it’s because Jesus loved John so much, that Peter knew if anybody had a shot, you send the kind of the weird little kid brother, who’s beloved the most, and you ask him, “You go figure it out. Go see if he’ll let you know.”
And I love the picture that we get. If there’s one picture in my mind, that as I close my eyes and I see, that to me just best summarizes John, it’s that moment where Jesus is talking about betrayal at the last supper. And what it says is that John was sitting at his side in the seat of friendship. When they sat down in that pivotal moment, Jesus wanted John to sit next to him as his friend.
And it says that then John leaned his head onto Jesus chest, and he looked at Jesus. And I can’t even imagine what the look was in his eye. I’m guessing the look in John’s eye was one of concern. I wonder if John was worried that maybe he would be the one to betray his Lord?
And he asked Jesus, “Who will betray you?” And I believe John is asking not just out of a curiosity, but because John loves Jesus so much, that he can’t bear to think that maybe he would be the one to betray Christ.
And just that picture of John, the kid brother, sitting next to the incarnate Word of God, with his head leaning against his breast at the last supper, celebrating the Passover, looking Jesus in the eye, wanting to make sure that it wasn’t going to be him. That’s John’s life. John was right there.
How many people got to put their head on the chest of Jesus Christ as a beloved friend? John did. John did. And that betrayal came true. Jesus was right. It wasn’t John; it was Judas Iscariot. See, John and Judas had completely different relationships, I believe, with Jesus. John came to Jesus loving Jesus because Jesus loved him.
And I don’t know if John had any tremendous agenda for Jesus, other than he was just happy to have Jesus love him. Judas was different. Judas came to Jesus, I believe, with an agenda. I believe that Judas Iscariot may have been a zealot. A zealot was someone who believed that the Kingdom of God and the authority of God would come by military might and political power, and by crushing the Roman enemies of God’s people.
And so, the zealots were always ready to take up arms and go to war, and to bring in God’s will through force and the sword and bloodshed. And I wonder if Judas Iscariot wasn’t one of those guys. And when he realized that Jesus was never going to take up the sword and slaughter the millions for the cause of the nation, I wonder if he just recognized that Jesus was meek and humble, and Jesus was far more simple than he was willing to accept, and that Jesus would just as soon die as he would take a life?
And in seeing that, I wonder if Judas Iscariot got angry and killed Jesus Christ, because he felt that Jesus was not doing a good job of fulfilling his agenda. But John wasn’t like that with Jesus. John didn’t have any agenda for Jesus. John just wanted to be loved and to love. That was his only agenda.
And so, Judas does betray Jesus for 30 pieces of silver, to fulfill the prophecy made in Zachariah that he would. And how did Judas Iscariot betray Jesus Christ? With a kiss. It looked like friendship, but it wasn’t. Judas was no friend, not like John.
And before he was betrayed, and before he was handed over, if you remember how the story goes, Jesus goes into the Garden of Gethsemane, where he will pray. It’s the night before he’s to be betrayed. It’s the middle of the night. The disciples are exhausted. And Jesus tells his disciples, he says, “You guys, sit here and pray. But wait, Peter, James, and John, you come with me.”
And he goes into this garden, and there Jesus throws himself on the ground, and begins to cry out to God the Father in prayer. And the Scripture tells us that he was so distressed, that he was so distraught over his crucifixion that was impending, that he was literally shedding drops of blood. The same breast that Jesus had John lay upon was now the same breast that was having drops of blood smatter upon it, simply out of distress, that much anxiety.
And John was there. And John kept falling asleep. And Jesus needed him to pray. Jesus wanted him to pray. You see very, very, very infrequently in Jesus’ life does he ask anybody to do anything. But in this crucial moment, he asks his friends to pray. And he asks John to come with him and to be near him and to see him and to pray with him.
And John falls asleep. I wonder if that didn’t haunt John for the rest of his life? John may have anticipated this was just another long night in yet another prayer meeting. But this would have been Jesus’ last opportunity to pray with his friends before his death. And John fell asleep.
What happened then is that they came and they arrested Jesus, and in the middle of the night, under the cover of darkness, they ran him through multiple trumped up trials with false charges. There was no justice brought. They did it under the cover of darkness so that no one would be aware. As people slept, they were convicting Jesus.
False witnesses, no real defense. And it says that there were two disciples that followed Jesus. They went from trial to trial, under the cloak of darkness, just waiting to see what the outcome would be and how things would go, and that was Peter and John.
And so, at a distance, out of love, they follow Jesus to see what would happen, how this would all transpire. What would the end result be? And I wonder if in that moment, John wasn’t just absolutely devastated? Because he could have been awake. He could have knelt with Jesus. He could have prayed over him. He could have loved him. He could have taken some of the shepherding that Jesus had given to him and given back, but he’d been asleep. He kept dozing off.
And so, he’s following Jesus, and he wants to see his trials. You know how the story goes. The story goes, then, that Jesus ultimately was stripped naked. And he was beaten. And he was abused. And he was mocked. And I can imagine just the anger in John. Your big brother, your God, your dearest friend has been wrongly accused, has not done anything.
And not only do they convict him, they convict him to death. Not just death, but a bloody, gory, tasteless death. You know how the story goes. They strip him. They mock him. And they whip his back, is what Scripture says. Roman guards would have a handle with leather straps off of it, and they would throw it across the back of a prisoner.
And on the end of it would be shards of metal or clay, pottery, or something of that nature, and then it would – basically, those hooks then would sink into the human flesh, and then the soldier would then rip the flesh right off of the human back, and do it repeatedly, so that not just the flesh was removed, but also all the way down to the muscles would be ripped off of the human body.
Excruciating pain – some prisoners died right there, didn’t even make it to their crucifixion. There was a saying that if you were flogged 40 times, that you would die. Paul came close. I believe so did Jesus. And then to mock him as a king. They took a crown of thorns – thorns maybe two, three inches deep, and pressed them into Jesus’ head. And they plucked the beard out of his face. And they spat upon him.
And they mocked him. And they made him then carry a crossbar, an enormous and heavy wooden crossbar, that would have been very rugged with shards of wood protruding out of it, put right on the flesh that was bare, and the muscle that had been ripped, right in the midst of all the blood.
And to publically humiliate him, they told him to carry that crossbar through town, so that everyone could spit upon him and mock him. And John saw that. John saw that. No one had ever loved John as much as Jesus had. And I don’t think John had ever loved anybody as much as he loved Jesus.
And in that moment, this wasn’t just a theological issue for John. They were taking his dearest friend and his God. And the story goes that Jesus carried his crossbar, with some help, to his place of crucifixion. And there, they hung him between two thieves, where he would die for your sin and for mine, as a substitute.
And it says that they mocked him, and they put a sign over his cross saying King of the Jews. They thought it was funny. They didn’t know that he was ruling and reigning from his cross over all the earth. They thought that he was on trial. They were on trial. He was found guilty; he was innocent. They were found guilty.
And what they would do, they would take railroad spikes, and they would drive them into the wrists of the prisoners. And they would nail them into the crossbar, and then they would take their ankles, and they would drive spikes through their ankles, their heels, and they would then lift these prisoners up on their crossbar.
And what would happen is that the prisoners, then, in this excruciatingly, humiliating public way would die a very slow and painful and agonizing death, because what would happen is they would suffocate to death. As their bodies fell, they couldn’t get air into their lungs.
And so, what they would do then, is they would press themselves up upon the spikes driven through their feet, so they could get just enough breath into their lungs to live for just a few more moments. And people would stand by and they would mock. I wonder if some just placed bets to see who would last the longest.
And oftentimes, they would break the legs of the prisoners so they could no longer push themselves up. It says with Jesus, they didn’t have to. By the time they hung him, he was so completely devastated that there was very little energy left.
And then people would gather around the cross, and they would see the crucifixion, and they would see this great tragedy. And they would mock Jesus, and they would spit upon him, and they would curse at him. And the whole time, John was there.
It says in the Gospels that John was there. We don’t know that any other apostle was there. We have no proof, according to the Bible that any apostle was there, except for John. We know that John was there. He was there with the women. He was there with Mary, Jesus’ mother.
And what kind of pastor is John? Well, as her son is dying, John stands there at the foot of the cross and watches this transpire with Jesus’ mother. I believe John may have been there with an arm around her, comforting her as she just wept bitterly and was just a complete emotional wreck.
And it’s amazing. I didn’t even catch this until I was studying this week. I’d never seen it. Jesus looks down off the cross. And pretend for a moment that you’re John, and he looks at you, and Jesus is going to speak to you in that moment. Everyone’s question is, “Well, what did Jesus say to John?”
I mean John, I’m guessing, is just weeping bitterly, is just devastated. He’s probably haunted by the fact that he had fallen asleep when Jesus has asked him to pray. And he’s standing there next to Jesus’ mother, seeking to do whatever he can to be an encouragement, possibly all the other disciples are gone, and it is just him. The whole world is down to Jesus looking in the eyes of John as he hangs from his cross.
And I wonder if in that moment, Jesus didn’t get some encouragement from John’s presence, knowing that he wasn’t just dying for sin, but that he was dying for John? That John was not a perfect man, that John had transgressed God’s laws, that John was a sinner and needed salvation and forgiveness.
And I just wish I could see the picture of Jesus’ face. I wish I knew what his expression was as he looked at John. My guess is it was loving affection and it was forgiveness and it was encouragement. And I wonder if Jesus wasn’t serving and leading John as a good teacher right to the bitter end?
What the Scripture says is that he looked at John. I’m guessing then maybe he looked at Mary, his mother, and then he looked back at John. And knowing that he was going to die, he told John to care for his mother.
He told Mary, “This is your son now.” And he told John, “And that is your mother.” I mean, what kind of relationship does John have with Jesus, where when Jesus is hanging on a cross, dying for our sin, he looks at John and appoints him to care for his mother. That was John.
Church history tells us that John did that very faithfully. That John cared for her; he loved her; he served her. Very interestingly, as you know the story, three days later, some women go to the tomb.
It’s a very odd story. We don’t know what they’re doing. They’re bringing spices and such, but the body’s wrapped in a hundred pounds of linen and spices behind a couple-ton rock that is covering the entrance to Joseph of Arimathea’s grave, that he’s given as a gift to Jesus.
And it’s guarded by Roman guards, who will kill anyone. And it is stamped and sealed with the Roman sealing. Anyone who breaks that will be killed. I’m not sure exactly what these women were going to do. They’re bringing spices. I’m not sure why. Maybe the women had more faith than the disciples – I don’t know.
And it says, “When they got there, the guards were gone, and the stone was rolled away, and the linens were there, but there was no Jesus. And so, they came back to tell the disciples, and it says that two disciples made a headlong sprint to the tomb, and they wanted to see what was happening. And it was Peter and John. And it says that John got there first. Peter’s the fat old man, and it took him a while. John was young, he made it first.
John got there first. John was the first apostle to see the empty tomb of Jesus Christ. The stone rolled away, no Roman guards, peeks his head in, just linen and burial coverings, but no body, no Jesus. John was there.
Uncertain of what had happened – maybe he rose from the dead. It’s interesting what John does and what James does and what Peter does is they go back to their old job. Isn’t that interesting? When you don’t know what God’s doing, you go back to where you began, and God calls you again from the same place that he found you the first time. That’s what he does.
They go back to fishing, casting their nets, bringing in fish. And it says that all of a sudden, Jesus came walking along the shore as they’re out on their boat. And everybody looks out, and they’re wondering who that is. And who’s the first person to recognize that that’s the risen Jesus Christ? It’s John.
I love that. John looks, he says, “Oh, that’s Jesus. I knew it. There he is.” And Peter’s so presumptuous, probably feels bad ‘cause he denied Christ three times, Peter jumps in the water and makes a swim for it, and John’s left to get the boat into the shore and get the fish on the boat and get the nets in the boat. Peter’s not a big help. He’s excited, just wants to go see Jesus.
But John is the first apostle to see the empty tomb. John is the one – I mean, I love this, John is there at the last supper. John sees the trials. John sees the crucifixion. John sees the empty tomb, and then John sees Jesus standing upon the shore, and John goes to greet him.
Can you imagine that moment where John comes and he gets to see Christ again? I just wish I could see the look on his face. I don’t know if he was overwhelmed, if he was crying, if he was so excited that he was shouting. I wonder if he ran up and just jumped into Jesus’ arms and gave him a kiss on the neck. I don’t know.
It says then throughout Scripture that Jesus would appear to crowds of up to 500 people at one time, just giving evidence to the fact that he had risen from the dead, and had conquered our enemies of sin and death.
Then Jesus comes one last time, early in the book of Acts, and he says, “Don’t go out and tell the story just yet.” Probably everything John wanted to do was go tell the good news of what had happened. That God had come as a man, sinless, and conquered sin and death, to give life and forgiveness.
But he says, “You gotta wait, because the Holy Spirit’s gonna come, and then he’s gonna take you out to Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and all the way out to Seattle and the ends of the earth, and you’re gonna go forward and you’re gonna tell this story to all the peoples. But you gotta wait for the Holy Spirit.”
And as Jesus was completing his talk, what happened to him? He ascended into Heaven. I mean, can you even imagine John standing there like – I could just see John shrugging his shoulders like, “What now? We haven’t been through enough? It hasn’t been complicated enough? Now you’re going home? I mean, we still have things to do.”
And at that moment, the teacher leaves, and John becomes the teacher. It’s now John’s responsibility to teach like Jesus taught, and to live like Jesus lived. Because in that world, your teacher wasn’t someone that would just give you information. That teacher was someone who would seek your transformation.
You didn’t come to your teacher to learn information. You came to your teacher to learn how to live. It wasn’t just that you would read the classics, it’s that you would become a classic. And Jesus was done with his teaching of John. He had instructed him for three years, and now it was John’s responsibility, along with the others, to go out and to be teachers by the power of the Holy Spirit.
And John was there, watching Jesus go up into Heaven. And I don’t know how long he was standing there. I wonder if John was like this for five or six hours? Just like, “What now? This is crazy.”
And all of a sudden, he’s told, “Why are you looking up? Jesus is coming back just the way he left. Get to work.” “Okay.”
And so John does. John becomes just a rock-solid part of the early Church. John is a teacher and a preacher and a pastor. And in the first century, he became the great teacher that taught all the other teachers.
And so, John trained men. He taught them. He did the same thing as Jesus did. He just mimicked his teacher. That’s all he did. And the Church spread, and it was – I mean, it had to be so painful. Because John saw all of the other disciples die – he saw Judas Iscariot kill himself, commit suicide. That had to be so sad for John.
I’m sure that John loved Judas. He probably knew Judas was a punk and a thug, but he probably loved him anyways. John seems to have this tremendous pastor’s heart, and as you read his letters and as you read his Gospel, he continually talks about love. Love is the essence of Jesus, and Jesus is love and gives us love. And I’m sure he had love for Judas. And he saw Judas kill himself and commit suicide.
And he saw all the other disciples die brutal martyrs’ deaths. According to history, we’re told that they went to crucify Peter. And Peter didn’t feel he was worthy to be killed like Jesus, so he was hung upside down.
And John was the youngest, and John was the strongest, and he and Peter were definitely the boldest. And one by one, John saw all his other classmates die. And he saw Paul come to Christ, and he met Paul.
And throughout the book of Acts, he works with Peter to untangle Church issues and theological difficulties, and help guide the children of God. And he writes the book of I John later in life as a very old man. And he writes to the young Christians, and he says, “My little born again ones, my dear little children.”
John now has become the grandfather. He’s not the strong, young man any more. He’s the feeble, weak, old man. And he takes the teaching that he’s been giving, and he writes letters and he writes a Gospel, and he tries to summarize what he knows of Jesus. And he says, “What our ears have heard and what our hands have touched, this we proclaim to you concerning the Word of Life.”
John says, “I was there. I heard him teach. I saw him. I saw him feed 25,000 people with a few fishes and loaves. I saw him call Lazarus out of the grave. I saw him walk on water. I saw him die. I saw him rise from the dead. I saw him ascend into Heaven.”
And John spoke with tremendous authority because he was there. And so second and third generations would come to faith in Jesus and want to be Christians, and they would hinge so much of their credibility on the story, on John’s eye-witness account.
And I’m sure John is discouraged and lonely. He’d lived a lot of years now with Jesus. He’s an old man. His friends are all dead. He’s seen so many new Christians get slaughtered and brutalized.
History tells us that they tried to kill him, so they put him in a vat of boiling water or oil, and they try to boil him alive. It says that John didn’t die. My guess is that he was scarred beyond belief, in tremendous agony and pain.
Because, you see, what they wanted to do for John is they wanted to get him to be like Judas. They wanted him to deny Christ. They wanted him to be a betrayer. Because if you could get John to deny Christ, you could unravel the authority of Christianity. All the other witnesses were dead, “Now, if we can just get John to change teams, we can absolutely crush this new movement.”
And John would not deny Christ. John was unrelenting, to the point of having his own flesh likely seared and burned, and just smelling the stench of himself cooking. John would not relent. I believe in those moments John likely just closed his eyes and remembered the face of Jesus as he told a joke, as he gave a wink, and he remembered how much Jesus loved him. And he refused to betray his closest friend.
So they sent John off to an island called Patmos, where he was in exile. It was off the present-day coast of Turkey. And there he was, just in a barren place, all by himself, lonely, removed from his Church, removed from the people that he loved.
And in the first chapter of Revelation, the great book that he wrote, he says, “It was the Lord’s day.” It was resurrection Sunday, and John’s sitting there, probably thinking about, “My body is being devastated. I can’t wait for my own resurrection. I can’t wait ‘til I get out of my grave, and I’m not a feeble, destroyed, broken old man.”
It says, “It was the Lord’s day, and I was in the Spirit.” I believe he was praying and just thinking about Jesus and Jesus’ resurrection. And then who shows up? Jesus shows up and speaks to John, his friend, his God. After all those years, Jesus shows up to talk to John in his moment of greatest brokenness and deepest pain.
See, John had failed Jesus when Jesus needed him in that moment of tremendous loneliness, John had fallen asleep. But now John finds himself in a similar moment, and Jesus comes as that faithful, loving friend. And he speaks to John. And he gives him the vision of the entire book of Revelation.
And he tells him about the end of the age, about judgment for sin, about the destruction of the enemies of God, about the destruction of the entire earth, and the new heavens and the new earth and the new Jerusalem, and what he would look like as King of the Universe, seated on this magnificent throne, with colors exploding from it.
And all nations of the earth coming down to worship him. And John got to see all of that and wrote it down. And I believe it gave John this just tremendous rest, that yes, there would be a day of justice where Jesus would rule and reign – not just from a bloodied cross, but from a glorified throne.
And that Jesus promised John that he would resurrect from the dead, and that he, too, would see that glorious moment. And John was there. Eventually, John got out of exile. He got off of the island of Patmos, and he continued to teach. He continued to lead. He probably lived at least maybe up to 100 A.D., 50, 60, 70 years, possibly, after Jesus had died, John is still alive.
And it’s beautiful what history tells us is that John got to the point where he was so old and so debilitated and so weak and so feeble, that he couldn’t preach any more. He wasn’t young. He couldn’t travel any more. He couldn’t do much of anything. And so on Sunday, resurrection Sunday, the Christian brothers would go to his house, and they would literally pick up this just decayed, bent, falling apart, shell of an old man, and they would physically, literally, carry him to Church, and they would set him up front.
And very feebly, everyone would have to lean forward and listen, because his voice was trembling and weak, and John would just say one thing over and over and over, all the time he would just say, “Dear children, love one another. Dear children, love one another.” That’s all he had to say.
As I was reading about John this week, I go, “Man, I wish I was like John.” Right? I wish I loved Jesus like – I wish I was that faithful. I wish I was that zealous. I wish I would give up my life, my career, my future – I would give up all my dreams and desires to not be like Judas, someone who comes to Christ with an agenda and then betrays him, because Jesus has a different agenda.
I wish I was like John. I wish I was young and vigorous and healthy and committed and capable and used. I wish I was like John. And I started praying about it, “Lord, how can we be like John?” And I think that there’s a key to understanding how John became the man that he was. He says it a few times in his Gospel in a very humble way. He refers to himself as the one whom Jesus loved. John knew that Jesus loved him. That’s it. No more complicated than that. It’s just that simple.
John knew that Jesus loved him. That’s all John knew. That was the foundation of his identity. John doesn’t say, “I was a great preacher. I was a great teacher. I was a great leader. I was a faithful man. I was the longest living. I was the most zealous.” He says, “I was the most loved. I was loved deeply and well.”
And that changed John’s identity. That changed John’s heart. And so, in return then, John loved Jesus, like a kid brother who just wants to put his head on his chest and look into his eyes and have a few moments of conversation.
And so, I come to this place with us tonight as a congregation. Before we get into John next week and all of his great Gospel, I want you to come into it knowing this, that God loves you. He does. Scripture says that God is love, and God has given us his love.
It says in Romans that he has given us his love, poured out into our hearts by the Spirit. That God loves you. And if you actually believe that, you will be completely, utterly, fully transformed. You will be different. Scripture says that God demonstrates his love for us in this. How does he show his love?
It says, “While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” God shows us his love in Jesus – not just in Jesus, but in Jesus’ death for our sins. Jesus loves us. Jesus loves you. I can’t overemphasize, overstress the power that is there.
You say, “Oh, I know that. I heard that as a kid, ‘Jesus loves me, this I know.’ I know that.” No, if we knew that, we would look like John. I’m not talking about doing anything. I’m just talking about being loved, fully, totally, completely loved by God as a friend. That Jesus still does that same thing. He desires to be in friendship with us – not because we’re his peers, but because we need him.
And I want us all tonight to just think and meditate on that fact. God loves us in Christ. God loves us the way he loves John. God has called us by name to belong to him and to be in intimacy with him. God has called us to see him active and present in our lives. God has called us in love to be transformed so that we would be more like Jesus than ourselves. It’s beautiful.
This whole week, as I went back and I read John’s Gospel, I just cried almost every page, because I understood, “Ah, this is John. He loves Jesus so much. And he just doesn’t love Jesus, that Jesus loves him so much.”
It’s almost like that, as you read the Gospel, it’s almost like that moment at a wedding where a bride and a groom come and they kiss. You go, “That’s a sacred moment of intimacy and loving affection.” That’s how I view everything that John wrote. Moments whereby Christ kissed his soul, and they loved each other.
And John writes it down to share with us. And we get the opportunity to see that so that we could know that Jesus loves us, too. And so what we always do at this point in our service is we believe that God initiates with us in his love, and then he calls us to respond in love to Christ. And so, we collect an offering to show love. And we take communion to remember.
At that last supper, the table that John set, the bread that he put down, the wine that he poured, the meal that he ate as he sat with Jesus in the seat of friendship, at that meal, Jesus took that loaf of bread that John had gotten, and he held it, and he broke it, and he said, “This is my body, broken for you. When you eat it, remember me.”
John records that. He doesn’t want us to forget Jesus. And at the end of the meal, it says that Jesus took this cup with wine and he held it up. But he said, “This is my blood, shed for you. Drink it and remember me.”
So, John wants us to remember Jesus, that Jesus’ love is best showed for us as he dies for our sin, as he gives his own body and sheds his own blood. So, we always take communion to remember Jesus and to remind ourselves, “Christ loves me. Christ loves me so much that he would come and die for me.”
And then we respond with prayer and with singing, giving of ourselves in love because we’re loved.
And so, God, we come to you tonight, very simple people, thankful, God, that you encounter us like you encounter John – just in the midst of work and life, just regular, average, normal people, trying to make a living and get by. You showed up in our lives and you called us out by name, and you asked us to be your students, and you asked to be our teacher.
God, we thank you for John tonight. Thank you that for the next year or two, or however long we’re in his Gospel, that he will be our teacher, he will teach us. And God, thank you that Jesus was his teacher, and that ultimately when John teaches us, he just teaches us about his teacher.
So, God, it’s our prayer that we would be good students – not because we have to, but because we get to. Not because we must, but because we’re loved. And so, God, we come tonight, asking and praying that you would teach us how much we are loved, how deeply we are held in affection by Jesus.
And that, God, that love would melt our hearts and give us joy and faith and hope and love. God, thank you that John understood that the most important thing for the children of God, with a feeble breath and the few words he could say, that they were supposed to love each other.
And so, God, that’s our prayer, that’s our theme for this book. That’s our theme for this year, that you would teach us to love each other. And so, God, we love you. We pray you would teach us what that means, in Christ’s name, amen.
