Day: December 27, 2022

Sermons

Sermon for the Feast of St. John the Evangelist

“These things write we unto you, that your joy may be full.”

The Feast of St. John the Evangelist belongs to the Christmas mystery and deepens our understanding of the Christmas Gospels about the Word made flesh proclaimed by John himself and about Christ’s nativity conveyed to us by Luke and Matthew. The point of emphasis is on his testimony and by extension on the witness of the Scriptures themselves to the Revelation of God in Christ.

Something great and wonderful is revealed to us. “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled of the Word of life”, John states in his 1st Epistle. It is the strongest possible affirmation of the Incarnation and here he signals to us the end or purpose of what is revealed and made known to us: “that your joy may be full”.

And yet, as John himself also reminds us, what is made known of the mystery of God with us in Jesus Christ in no wise captures the fullness of the mystery of God himself. It is an important cautionary note, a recognition that the truth of God is by definition always greater and more than human knowing. We do not possess the truth, the truth possesses us. We are opened out to the inexhaustible mystery of the wonder of God, a mystery which the world cannot contain and possess. “The world itself could not contain the books that should be written”, he says, about the “many other things which Jesus did”.

Yet what has been manifested to us and what he says, “we have seen, and bear witness, and declare unto you” is “that eternal life, which was with the Father”. It belongs to our fellowship with the fellowship of the Trinity, “that ye also may have fellowship with us”. This is the deep joy of the Christmas mystery: our fellowship with one another in fellowship with God.

This is what the Collect means about our “being enlightened by the doctrine”, the teaching of John. His teaching illuminates the wonder and mystery of Christmas, the wonder and mystery of what is revealed in all of the images that belong to the scenes of Christ’s holy birth. There is more to what we see than what meets the eye. We behold in all of the stories of Christmas nothing less than the Word made flesh. We are enfolded in the mystery of God himself. This is our joy and end, the light of everlasting life.

“These things write we unto you, that your joy may be full.”

Fr. David Curry
Feast of St. John the Evangelist, Xmas 2022

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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

Sisto Badalocchio, 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.

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