Day: December 27, 2013

Sermons

Sermon for the Feast of St. John the Evangelist

“This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you,
That God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.”

We have had already in the pageant of Advent the witness or record of John the Baptist, “the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord.” Now we have the witness of another John, John the Evangelist, who seems to speak directly to us about what he has heard and seen and touched concerning the Word of Life, and who claims his intimate discipleship with Christ and the truth of his witness, “this is the disciple which beareth witness of these things, and wrote these things, and we know his witness is true.” There is, I think, a wonderful firmness to the rather understated quality of such remarks. It compels us by its quiet insistence upon what is being proclaimed. The power lies in the idea made real, the idea of the Incarnation. We can, after all, only think it.

For that is the burden of the witness of this John. We see in no small measure through the eyes of John in the witness of his Gospel and his Epistles, both of which testify to the idea of “the Word made flesh.” Within the festival of Christmas, the Feast of St. John the Evangelist illumines the wonder and the glory of one simple but profound truth, the reality of Christ as God’s Word and Son and Light incarnate in our world. These are the three great and essential images that govern entirely the nature of Christian doctrine and devotion. Through the eyes of John the light of God enlightens us.

It is the burden of the Collect, gathering up the rich themes and images of the Epistle and the Gospel, to point this out. We pray the merciful Lord “to cast thy bright beams of light upon thy Church,” the Light of God for the understanding and direction of God’s Church. A light to enlighten but how? “By the doctrine of thy blessed Apostle and Evangelist, Saint John.” To what purpose? That the Church “may so walk in the light of thy truth, that it may at length attain to the light of everlasting life.” It is a pretty complete prayer that points to the role and place of John, Apostle and Evangelist, whose intimate association with Christ is married to his theological insight into the Incarnation.

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Prayers and liturgy

Saint John the Evangelist

The collect for today, the Feast of St. John the Evangelist, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

MERCIFUL Lord, we beseech thee to cast thy bright beams of light upon thy Church, that it being enlightened by the doctrine of thy blessed Apostle and Evangelist Saint John may so walk in the light of thy truth, that it may at length attain to the light of everlasting life; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: 1 St. John 1:1-5
The Gospel: St. John 21:19-25

Strobl, St. John the EvangelistJohn and his brother James (St. James the Greater) were Galilean fishermen and sons of Zebedee. Jesus called the two brothers Boanerges (“sons of thunder”), apparently because of their zealous character; for example, they wanted to call down fire from heaven on the inhospitable Samaritans. John and James, together with Peter, belonged to the inner group of the apostles who witnessed the Transfiguration and the agony in Gethsemane. It was John and Peter whom Jesus sent to prepare the final Passover meal.

In the lists of disciples, John always appears among the first four, but usually after his brother, which may indicate that John was the younger of the two.

According to ancient church tradition, St. John the Evangelist was the author of the New Testament documents that bear his name: the fourth gospel, the three epistles of John, and Revelation. John’s name is not mentioned in the fourth gospel (but 21:2 refers to “the sons of Zebedee”), but he is usually if not always identified as the beloved disciple. It is also generally believed that John was the “other disciple” who, with Peter, followed Jesus after his arrest. John was the only disciple at the foot of the cross and was entrusted by Christ with the care of his mother Mary.

After Christ’s resurrection and ascension, John, together with Peter, took a leading role in the formation and guidance of the early church. John was present when Peter healed the lame beggar, following which both apostles were arrested. After reports reached Jerusalem that Samaria was receiving the word of God, the apostles sent Peter and John to visit the new Samaritan converts. Presumably, John was at the Jerusalem Council (Acts 15). He is not mentioned later in the Acts of the Apostles, so he appears to have left Palestine.

Christian writers of the second and third centuries say that St. John lived in Asia Minor in the last decades of the first century, acting as a kind of patriarch to the churches there. Both Justin Martyr (c. 100-165) and Irenaeus of Lyons (c. 130-200) say that John lived in Ephesus and wrote his gospel there. It is believed that he died a natural death at a very old age around the end of the first century. That would make St. John the only apostle who did not die a martyr.

With the discovery in Egypt of the papyrus fragment known as P52, it is highly probable that the fourth gospel was in writing by the early part of the second century. P52 is generally considered the earliest known copy of New Testament writing and, given that John’s Gospel is believed to be one of the last New Testament writings completed, is enormously significant in supporting the authenticity of the New Testament.

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