Day: December 27, 2023

Sermons

Sermon for the Feast of St. John the Evangelist

“That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you”

The Feast of St. John the Evangelist is part of the mystery of Christmas. It echoes and amplifies the meaning of the great Christmas Gospel from the Prologue both in the reading from his first Epistle and from the last Chapter of his Gospel. They illuminate the deeper teaching and understanding of what we have come to call the Incarnation.

The Epistle reading testifies to the humanity and divinity of Christ: “that which was from the beginning” echoes “in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.” It is the Word, he says, “which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and our hands have handled,” the word which he terms here “the Word of life.” It is a strong affirmation of “the Word made flesh,” an affirmation at once of Christ’s essential divinity and his essential humanity. In that Word, he says is “eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us.”

This captures the meaning of Christmas in terms of our fellowship with one another through our fellowship with God. What is declared unto us by John is for the sake of our fellowship with one another and with God. The Epistle goes one step further and states that “these things write we unto you, that your joy may be full.” God seeks our joy in our fellowship with him and with one another. The reading ends with an echo of the light that shines in the darkness “and the darkness overcame it not.” Here God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. All a kind of commentary on the Christmas mystery and its witness to the true humanity of Jesus united to his true divinity. But it also underscores for us its meaning for us: our fellowship and our joy.

The Gospel reading for this feast is John’s witness to his writing about Christ but with a certain note of humility and caution. He does not pretend to have captured all the things which Jesus did (and said), suggesting that “even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written.” Christ, the Word and Son of the Father, cannot be contained or exhausted in the writings of even the evangelists. What they open out to us are the truths to which they bear witness and the teachings which illuminate our souls in grace. They belong to the fellowship of the Church, which is itself, as John himself indicates elsewhere, the body of Christ in which we participate sacramentally. “Truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ.”

Word and light. Word made flesh. Word as eternal life. These all speak to the true meaning of the Church and our fellowship in the body of Christ; he in us and we in him as we pray in the Prayer of Humble Access.

“That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you”

Fr. David Curry
Feast of St. John the Evangelist
Xmas 2023

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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

Andreas Ritzos, Christ Giving the Benediction to Saint 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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