I’m going to focus on just one particular encounter today. Three of the disciples were at the Transfiguration, three of them were present at the raising of Jairus’s daughter, and three of them were to stay close while Christ prayed in Gethsemane. However, there is one encounter that we only hear about John experiencing, and while all the disciples were present at the Last Supper, John was sitting next to Jesus.
This was a traditional place for the youngest to sit, next to the head of the family, so he could ask questions and ensure he heard all the wisdom being shared, especially for passover. It’s important to understand that they didn’t sit on chairs, but had low tables, and they reclined on one arm to eat.
We are told John leans back against the breast of Christ.
It’s just one line.
But it is, I think, fundamental to the rest of John’s life.
John was always loved by God, he was always held, chosen and guided, but it was here, I think that it became more than a theory, it became his identity.
I don’t think this is the moment it became true but it’s the moment he is ready to receive and accept this identity as the beloved. I wonder if it was this encounter that, like Abram became Abraham, Sarai became Sarah, Jacob became Israel, Saul became Paul….John became the beloved. The other names have a meaning that tell of a story and a journey, I believe this one tells us of Johns story.
In Revelation 2:17, John writes to tell us about the promise of a “white stone” with a “new name” written on it, known only to the recipient, that it’s a symbol of a personal, intimate, and enduring relationship with God, signifying a transformed identity and a unique place in His kingdom.
“Let anyone who has an ear listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches. To everyone who conquers I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give a white stone, and on the white stone is written a new name that no one knows except the one who receives it.”
I think this was Johns white stone moment.. So why this moment when there are countless encounters between John and Jesus? no less at the foot of the cross or the transfiguration.
Here’s a little sciency bit that the disciples wouldn’t have known. Something happens when we are in very close proximity to another. Our hearts synchronise, it’s a scientific fact that when we lie closely next to someone, our heartbeats take on the same rhythm. It’s why premature babies thrive and calm when placed on a parent’s breast, it regulates their temperature, breathing and their heartbeat. The heartbeats of total strangers can synchronize when they are absorbed in the same story, or even, according to other research, when strangers simply trust one another. Can you imagine then the symphony that arises when it’s no stranger but God whose heart you are in time with?
The magnetic energy produced by the heart is approximately 60-100 times greater than the magnetic energy produced in the brain. This radiates out three feet in all directions. So the physical closeness, the trust and the deepening love meant that from here John’s heart took on the beat and rhythm of Christ’s….wow, just in time for when he would need it most.
There’s one more element to this, John is facing out, he’s leaning back into Christ, not facing him, he is at this moment not only got Christ’s heart beating inside him, but he is at the same time seeing what Christ is seeing.
I wonder if all those moments we feel that we can’t see God, where he is in a situation, you know those hard times when what you want is an awareness of his presence, we want to turn our face in towards the security of His heart, but he is turning us outwards – He is inviting us to see life through his eyes, Oh, friends, let’s pray for an understanding of this, an awareness in those moments that our hearts are beating in time with His, so we can see how He sees.
John would have looked with Christ’s eyes at Judas, about to betray them all. Peter, about to deny he had ever walked with the Lord, the others who would run away from Gethsemane in just a few short hours. I wonder if he felt the same heartbreak, the same tension, and the same love Christ was feeling for each and every one of them, and if he did, did he know why?
Christ knew that His death would bring the power to transform each of their present and historic failings into serving Him in Glory. Those very failings making the glory and the transformation even greater, I think.
Its from this encounter of the heart sync that John’s arrogance becomes a channelled confidence; he goes in with Jesus to the temple court, He negotiates Peter coming in a little further, and as Peter warms himself by a coal fire outside, denying Christ to a young girl, John remains present to his Lord. I think he not only received Christ’s heart and view here but was transformed from it, how could it not change everything?
From here, in a few short hours he could love Mary as his own mother; he could stand at the foot of the cross, experiencing the pain of Christ’s passion. It was from here that he was able to love like Christ, with that rhythm sustaining him
We rightly focus on the suffering of Christ on the cross, but I think what is often missed is that watching someone you love suffer can be just as painful as the suffering you’re witnessing. It’s a supernatural love that pins your feet to the ground in front of such agony and torture. Your own pain shares in the suffering of the one you gaze on. That’s where we can find a shred of beauty in what is wholly ugly, that supernatural love that transforms us mere humans into reflections of God, that ability to share willingly in the suffering of others because of love.
We, too, are invited to pin our feet to the ground in front of that cross and experience a share in that supernatural love. Take up our roles as the beloveds.
I cant think of one encounter more intimate than leaning on Christ’s breast apart from that is to receive that same flesh and that same blood that pumped through that sacred heart that John leant against at communion.
John gives us one more gift, he invites us to an open intimacy with Christ. Not only does he put down his fishing net he lays down his safety net. You know the one, the net that allows us to stay safe in ration and reason, that makes us intellectualise whats going on in our hearts. John crosses the boundaries we set to protect ourselves from vulnerability, he gives us licence to move from our heads to our hearts.
So in those days after the crucifixion, I imagine John not to be falling apart or disappointed, I think it would have been harder for him to imagine that was the end, so when Mary of Magdala comes running back saying the tomb is empty, he has to run as fast as he can to see it. When we have lost something, we return to the place where we last recall seeing it or having it. I think instinctively John would have gravitated to the tomb.
He arrives there first but humbly waits for Peter. (Note the respect for authority now, the transformation is becoming more and more apparent)
John lives on into old age, just as Jesus told Peter he would; he lives in Ephesus, where he is supposedly thrown into boiling oil and comes out unscathed, and then exiled to Patmos, where he writes Revelation. When he is freed, he returns to Ephesus, where he dies of natural causes sometime after AD 98. (His tomb is found in Ephesus. However, when it was opened, no bones were found; it’s thought he too was assumed. We don’t know for sure).
In his last years, his own disciples would carry him to church, and he could not muster the voice to speak many words. During gatherings, he usually said nothing apart from, “Little children, love one another.” The disciples and brothers listening in became irritated eventually because they always heard the exact same words. Finally, they said, “Teacher, why do you always say this?” He replied with a line so predictably worthy of John: “Because it is the Lord’s commandment and if it alone is kept, it is sufficient.”
He was the only one not martyred, and whilst that sounds like a blessing, I’m sure there is nothing he would have wanted more than to be reunited with His Lord and friend in heaven. We are back to the bigger, perhaps more challenging call to live for Christ, with a heart that loved like His, ached like His and broke for the same things Jesus’s did.
Someone must stay and tell the story of all He has done.
Ask Him now what he calls you, ask him your new name,
precious, rejoiced in, Beloved …..
