Gathered at the Cross: St. John, The Disciple Jesus Loved
This is part of our Lenten midweek sermon series that will examine those who were present at the crucifixion of Jesus.
Text: John 1:35-39; 13:21-30; 19:25-27, 31-37
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Some people in Scripture just seem to embody certain characteristics. Jacob, whose name means “he grasps the foot” (think of it in our own lingo as “pulling your leg”) is a trickster, continually fooling people into doing what he wants them to do through deceptive, if clever, means. Moses describes himself as humble, the most humble man on the face of the earth. The Apostle Peter is brash and much more likely to speak or act before he thinks, repeating this pattern again and again, to the point one might think it’s all he’s capable of. These figures, sometimes like us, can become caricatures, exaggerated versions of some personality trait or attribute.
But when we gather around the cross of Jesus and see the people there, we’re met with a different type of figure in the Apostle John. John’s description is different. “When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, ‘Woman, behold your son!’ Then he said to the disciple, ‘Behold, your mother!’” The others are described by characteristics that they themselves possess, as part of their innate personalities, from their own natures. John’s description is different because it is something that comes from outside of him. He is the disciple Jesus loved.
It’s the love of Jesus that will define John and his relationship with the Lord. John never identifies himself by name in his own gospel. He’s the one who sits next to Jesus and reclines against Him at the Last Supper. He’s the one to whom Jesus reveals the identity of His betrayer at that supper, hours before He’s handed over to the Sanhedrin in the Garden of Gethsemane. John will become the one who writes to the churches later in his life, telling them what it means to be loved by God and to love one another in truth and deed. And here, at the cross, John is the only one of the twelve Apostles left after the rest have scattered and fled out of fear.
But Jesus doesn’t love John because of John’s courage, or his grace in speech, or his acts of service done in love. Jesus doesn’t love him because anything that John is, or has done, or will do. The love of Jesus is not given to any mortal because the recipient of His love is so lovable or has something that’s worthy of divine, self-sacrificing love. John doesn’t really hold up any of his own characteristics in his description of himself. He doesn’t even give us his name in his gospel. When he’s called by Jesus, he’s just called one of the two disciples who was following John the Baptizer, but then started following Jesus when the Baptizer pointed him out as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. In fact, the only thing personal that John shares about himself is that he’s a faster runner than Peter—and even then it’s just to talk about what he saw in Jesus’ empty tomb that first Easter.
Instead, it’s the other way around. The love of Jesus, which He freely gives because He wants to, is what then makes people loveable. The love of Jesus transforms us so that we are changed. We are loved so perfectly from Jesus that it touches our very being and turns us into creatures that can love those around us. Jesus’ love remakes us into those who can see Him in faith and can begin to love in the way that He has shown to us. Or, as John will say it years after he witnessed Jesus’ death on the cross: We love because God has first loved us.
John, as the disciple Jesus loved, was indeed transformed. Jesus’ love caused John to become the faithful disciple who stayed at the cross. He gave his eyewitness testimony to that moment that the entire history of the universe is balanced on. He saw the water and the blood as witnesses that Jesus, God Himself, had really and truly died for the sins of mankind, to win us back, to redeem us, to cause us to be born again of water and Word, drawn out of the side of Christ to be His Church, His bride, just as Eve was drawn from the side of Adam. John, because he was changed by Jesus’ love, was made into an Apostle, going into all the world. He would go on to become bishop of the growing Church in Ephesus, where much of the very early life of the Church would take place. John, renewed in Jesus’ love in the water and the blood, would go on to write one of the gospels, and three letters, and record one of the most vivid books of Scripture, Revelation. He would even be given to care for Jesus’ own mother in her life after Jesus’ death, resurrection, and ascension. As we so often pray on Sunday morning, John was refreshed in the sacrificial love of Jesus so that he was strengthened in faith toward his Lord and in fervent love toward those around him.
And you, as the disciples Jesus loves, are being similarly transformed. That’s the beauty of the way John intentionally leaves out his name. By just referring to himself as the disciple Jesus loved, John allows you to see yourself in this title and role. For as much as John was loved by Jesus, as much as John had a unique place among those Twelve that were closest with the Lord, as much as John was a pillar for the early Church, it’s not as if Jesus only loved John. We know, from John’s letter, that God is love. Because Jesus is God, that means that our Savior Jesus is Love. He loves you. You are the disciple Jesus loves. So you too are transformed by Jesus’ love to become His faithful disciple. You stand at the foot of the cross, beholding what your Lord has done for you and the world. You are given Jesus’ loved ones to take care of, just as surely as John was given to care for Jesus’ beloved mother. You are called to be an eyewitness, to speak about the cross of Jesus and what it has accomplished; to know that your testimony is true and that you are telling the truth about your Redeemer. You are transformed by Jesus’ love to become a channel through which the love of God is shared with the world. In the name of Jesus, the Crucified One. Amen.
