Feast
of St. John 2015
Exodus 33:18-23;
Psalm 92; 1 John 1:1-9; John 21:19b-24
Father Adam Trambley
December 27, 2015 St.
John’s Sharon
Today is a special day for our parish. December 27th is the Feast of St.
John the Evangelist, the patron saint of our church. Usually we don’t make too big a deal about
it, because how many people want to get together two days after Christmas and
have a big church dinner or a dramatic reenactment of the life of St.
John? But I do think there are some
particular gifts that Saint John has provided that we can to live into as St.
John’s Church. After a brief summary of
what we know about Saint John’s life, I want to talk about the areas of love, worship,
and witness.
Like most of the early saints, what we can conclusively say
about Saint John is very little. Saint
John the evangelist is the name given to the Beloved Disciple who shows up towards
the end of the fourth gospel and who writes that he is the witness to the
things it contains. We know that Jesus
loved him and he loved Jesus. We are
told that from the cross, Jesus sees his mother Mary and this beloved disciple
John. Jesus tells John that Mary is now
his mother and he tells Mary that John is now her son. This gospel writer is also traditionally
understood to be the author of the first, second and third letters of John in
the Bible. He has also often been taken
as the author of the book of Revelation, although that John talks about the
twelve apostles of the lamb as if he is not one, so scholars today mostly
believe that Revelation was written by someone else who was part of a church
founded by Saint John the Evangelist.
From very early, this beloved disciple has been believed to be John the
Son of Zebedee mentioned in the other gospels, and although more modern
scholars occasionally dispute that attribution, no better one has been found.
Later traditions tell us that while the other apostles were
martyred, John lived to a ripe old age and was the last of the apostles to die.
We hear that in the conversation with Jesus and Peter in today’s gospel. John probably lived for a time in Ephesus and
started churches in that area. His
symbol is the eagle because of the soaring majesty of his gospel. You can see the eagle symbol holding up the
lectern, as well as in other places in the church. Now I want to turn to what we can learn from
St. John, especially about love, witness and worship.
Love. John’s writings
focus on love in a way that most of the other New Testament writers do
not. Besides John, only Paul has
extended sections on love. John’s first
letter proclaims most clearly that, “God is love.” John also puts God’s love for us front and
center in his understanding of God’s identity.
Most people know verse 3:16 from John’s gospel: “That God so loved the
world that he gave his only Son.” John’s
first letter also reminds us to: “See what love the Father has given us, that
we should be called children of God; and that is what we are.” The beautiful writings of Saint John overflow
with the love that God has for the people he has made, and they contain the
invitation to all of us to come back home to God through his Son Jesus
Christ.
One of the implications of this great love of God for us is
that we are supposed to love each other.
Only John records Jesus washing his disciples’ feet at the last supper,
with his instruction, “I have set for you an example, that you also should do
as I have done to you.” Then later that
night he tells them, “I give you a new commandment, that you love one
another. Just as I have loved you, you
also should love one another. By this
everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one
another.”
Part of being Saint John’s church is living into this
commandment of Jesus to love one another and wash each other’s feet, at least
metaphorically. Many of our ministries
do a good job with this, but we always have room to grow in order to love like
Jesus loved us. Another way to live into
the love that Saint John writes about is to accept, for real, that we are loved
by God and to let other people know that they are loved by God too. This work is harder for us, but no less
important.
The second area I want to look at is worship. In John’s gospel, after the resurrection,
Thomas makes the highest affirmation of Jesus found anywhere in the
gospels. He calls Jesus, “My Lord and my
God.” John’s gospel also contains the
beautiful prologue that describes how the Word, this second person of the
Trinity that existed with God from the beginning, was made flesh and dwelt
among us. Those of you who came to the
midnight Christmas service heard Ron chant that beautiful poetry recounting
Christmas from an almost heavenly perspective instead of thinking about it only
in terms of Jesus’ birth. The book of
Revelation, coming either from John or those he discipled, describes how the
slaughtered and resurrected Lamb of God is worshipped by the heavenly choirs
for all eternity. John teaches us about
praising Jesus Christ, our Lord and God.
Yet the worship we learn from Saint John is not a cold and
detached worship. John tells us of an
intimate worship with the God who loves us.
Saint John is the disciple Jesus loved.
He was comfortable enough with Jesus to lay his head on Jesus chest and
whisper to him during the last supper.
As he described in our epistle reading today, John saw Jesus with his
own eyes and touched him with his own hands.
The Jesus that John worshipped, and that he instructs us to worship, is
not an abstract concept of God, but a very intimate God that John has a
personal relationship with. This God we
worship is the eternal Word, but he also became like us and can be known by us.
When we worship here at Saint John’s church, we try to take
Saint John’s insights seriously. We want
to worship in a way that gives appropriate thanks and praise in word and deed
to Jesus Christ our Savior and Lord. At
the same time, each and every one of us who joins in this corporate praise is
hopefully finding ways to enter more fully into their own personal relationship
with Jesus, so that he can bring healing and life in whatever particular ways
we need to receive them.
Finally, at the core of Saint John’s work is his witness to
the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
After the passion narrative, John includes an editorial aside, saying,
“He who saw this has testified so that you also may believe. His testimony is true, and he knows that he
tells the truth.” Then the Gospel of
John ends with, “This is the disciple who is testifying to these things and has
written them, and we know that his testimony is true. But there are also many other things that
Jesus did; if every one of them were written down, I suppose that the world
itself could not contain the books that would be written.”
John wrote so that we might believe. This aging disciple of Jesus wanted to make
sure that his witness could be carried on to others after his death, so he
either wrote down his account of Jesus life, death and resurrection or he had
others write down what he told them. He
knows that others who have not seen Jesus with their own eyes will still come
to believe. In John’s Gospel, Jesus relates to Thomas, “Blessed are those who
have not seen, and yet have come to believe.”
We follow Saint John in his witness to Jesus Christ whenever
and however we share the good news with others.
Maybe we share John’s gospel or his other writings. Maybe we share an experience of what God has
done in our lives. Maybe we invite
people to church or to share in a church ministry with us. Just like Saint John took the responsibility
to write down what he knew as a witness to others in future generations who
would not have seen the human Jesus, we have a responsibility to make an effort
to share what we know about Jesus Christ with those around us who have not yet
come to experience his love.
This church is blessed to have been named for such a great saint.
May Saint John’s Episcopal Church in Sharon continue to live into Saint John
the Evangelist’s instructions on love, worship and witness for at least the
next 150 years.
