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 It
is God who calls; human beings answer. The vocation of John and his brother
James is stated very simply in the Gospels, along with that of Peter and his
brother Andrew: Jesus called them; they followed. The absoluteness of their
response is indicated by the account. James and John “were in a boat, with
their father Zebedee, mending their nets. He called them, and immediately
they left their boat and their father and followed him” (Matthew 4:21b-22).
For the three former fishermen—Peter, James and John—that faith was to be
rewarded by a special friendship with Jesus. They alone were privileged to
be present at the Transfiguration, the raising of the daughter of Jairus and
the agony in Gethsemane. But John’s friendship was even more special.
Tradition assigns to him the Fourth Gospel, although most modern Scripture
scholars think it unlikely that the apostle and the evangelist are the same
person.
John’s own Gospel refers to him as “the disciple whom Jesus loved” (see John
13:23; 19:26; 20:2), the one who reclined next to Jesus at the Last Supper,
and the one to whom he gave the exquisite honor, as he stood beneath the
cross, of caring for his mother. “Woman, behold your son....Behold, your
mother” (John 19:26b, 27b).
Because of the depth of his Gospel, John is usually thought of as the eagle
of theology, soaring in high regions that other writers did not enter. But
the ever-frank Gospels reveal some very human traits. Jesus gave James and
John the nickname, “sons of thunder.” While it is difficult to know exactly
what this meant, a clue is given in two incidents.
In the first, as Matthew tells it, they (Mark says their mother) asked that
they might sit in the places of honor in Jesus’ kingdom—one on his right
hand, one on his left. When Jesus asked them if they could drink the cup he
would drink and be baptized with his baptism of pain, they blithely
answered, “We can!” Jesus said that they would indeed share his cup, but
that sitting at his right hand was not his to give. It was for those to whom
it had been reserved by the Father. The other apostles were indignant at the
mistaken ambition of the brothers, and Jesus took the occasion to teach them
the true nature of authority: “...[W]hoever wishes to be first among you
shall be your slave. Just so, the Son of Man did not come to be served but
to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Matthew 20:27-28).
On another occasion the “sons of thunder” asked Jesus if they should not
call down fire from heaven upon the inhospitable Samaritans, who would not
welcome Jesus because he was on his way to Jerusalem. But Jesus “turned and
rebuked them” (see Luke 9:51-55).
On the first Easter, Mary Magdalene “ran and went to Simon Peter and to the
other disciple whom Jesus loved, and told them, ‘They have taken the Lord
from the tomb, and we don’t know where they put him’” (John 20:2). John
recalls, perhaps with a smile, that he and Peter ran side by side, but then
“the other disciple ran faster than Peter and arrived at the tomb first”
(John 20:4b). He did not enter, but waited for Peter and let him go in
first. “Then the other disciple also went in, the one who had arrived at the
tomb first, and he saw and believed” (John 20:8).
John was with Peter when the first great miracle after the Resurrection took
place—the cure of the man crippled from birth—which led to their spending
the night in jail together. The mysterious experience of the Resurrection is
perhaps best contained in the words of Acts: “Observing the boldness of
Peter and John and perceiving them to be uneducated, ordinary men, they [the
questioners] were amazed, and they recognized them as the companions of
Jesus” (Acts 4:13).
The evangelist wrote the great Gospel, the letters and the Book of
Revelation. His Gospel is a very personal account. He sees the glorious and
divine Jesus already in the incidents of his mortal life. At the Last
Supper, John’s Jesus speaks as if he were already in heaven. It is the
Gospel of Jesus’ glory.
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