This has been a series by Michael Godfrey over the Easter Season, read on for the last reflection. The reflections will return after a short break with a focus on daily mass readings.

Saturday of the Seventh Week of Easter

May 30th

READING: John 21:20-25

Peter turned and saw the disciple whom Jesus loved following them; he was the one who had reclined next to Jesus at the supper and had said, ‘Lord, who is it that is going to betray you?’ When Peter saw him, he said to Jesus, ‘Lord, what about him?’ Jesus said to him, ‘If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you? Follow me!’ So the rumour spread in the community that this disciple would not die. Yet Jesus did not say to him that he would not die, but, ‘If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you?’

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.

~~~

New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Catholic Edition, copyright © 1989, 1993, 1995 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

REFLECTION

“Follow me.” They are, as it were, the last “live” words of the visible risen Lord to his followers. John reports earlier words in the following sentence, but “follow me” is the last resounding command of Jesus. Follow me, through ups, down, twists, turns, high days and lows, manic times and ennui times.

In this denouement John turns to his own credentials – credentials in Christ. Paul would do the same in his writings: “Paul, called …”. It’s the only credential that is required. “Paul … called.” “Beloved Disciple, testifying truth.”

Die to self, be translucent Christ-bearers. And that is possible, Jesus told us through John over and again, only as we surrender ourselves to the Spirit who makes Jesus present.

It’s not the last we’ll hear of John. He will write three increasingly astringent epistles, almost but not at all contradicting his call to love. Because to love is not the same as to be a doormat. If John was later somewhat acerbic it’s because his faith community were failing their call to be a beacon of truth and light and love: “Beloved, do not imitate what is evil,” John would write through clenched quill.

There is much in post-canonical[1] Christianity that would have had the beloved disciple reaching for his quill again: beloved, do not imitate the worst charlatanism of the world around you. But the “much more to tell” that John alludes to is quite simple really: bear love, bear light, bear compassion and justice, bear Christ. May the paraclete dwell alongside, within us. Thus equipped we may yet be Christ-bearers in a post-Covid-19 (but in any case a post-holocaust, post-Hiroshima) world.

Love one another.

[I will leave my Easter season reflection here, and return after a short break with reflections based on daily Mass readings … but perhaps not seven times a week! My interpretation of the Creed will return soon, too.]

[1] I haven’t found a better way to say “after the close of the New Testament.”