08. The Disciple Who Loved Jesus.

THE DISCIPLE WHO LOVED JESUS.

XXVII.

St. John was the disciple whom Jesus loved, but he was also the disciple who loved Jesus. All the disciples, with the exception of Judas, loved the Lord, just as He loved them all; but, as he bore to St. John a peculiar love, so the love of this apostle for him was peculiarly deep and faithful. Of this, indeed, there is in the earlier passages of St. John’s history little evidence; some passages even appear to betray an unusually selfish temper. But his affection for his Master must have been organizing itself in the depths of his nature, and at length it broke somewhat suddenly into flower. Sometimes love is thus brought suddenly to a head. It may never have been confessed, it may not even have come to consciousness in the heart itself till some unexpected turn of circumstances supplies the opportunity, when all at once it overflows the heart in a passion of desire, and at the same time makes itself known by word or act.

Among such occasions misfortune is not an unusual one. To see the person beloved in a position of dire need calls forth chivalrous devotion; reticence is forgotten, and personal considerations are thrown to the winds; the lover stands forth, avowing his passion before the world and ready to bear or to do anything which the interests of the object of his affection may require. Such were the circumstances in which St. John’s love for Jesus came to full maturity and manifestation; it was in the four-and-twenty hours before the death on the cross that he showed how much he loved the Saviour. The first scene of the kind took place in the upper room during the evening of the Last Supper, before the Lord fell into the hands of his enemies. The feet-washing had taken place, and, the dispute which had given occasion to it having been composed, the Twelve were at last arranged round the table to begin the evening meal. They reclined on couches, each resting on his left elbow with his feet outstretched towards the back of the couch, so that the back of the head of his next neighbor was at each one’s breast. St. John had the place immediately in front of Jesus, on whose breast he therefore leaned. It was a place apparently conceded instinctively to him by the rest, perhaps expressly appointed by Christ himself. It afforded opportunity, at all events, for closer fellowship than was conceded to the others.

Jesus had produced peace among the Twelve; but he was not at peace within himself, and his conversation could not flow as it did later in the evening. As the dove shivers when the hawk appears in the sky, or the horse stops and is bathed in perspiration when a snake lies across its path, so the spirit of Jesus was troubled, because in this scene about to be dedicated to friendship and religious exaltation there was an element entirely foreign and hostile. With the false heart of Judas in the room the spirits of Jesus could not rise; and at last he was forced to let out the secret: “Verily, verily, I say unto you that one of you shall betray me.” The word fell like a bombshell among the guests, and instantly every one looked into the eyes of his neighbor to see the signs of guilt. Judas must have had a mind thoroughly schooled in the art of dissimulation to be able to remain unmoved beneath these searching glances; but he did not betray himself with the faintest blush or the least quiver of a lip. It speaks well for the honest hearts of the rest that they had never suspected him; they were not forward to think evil of a brother. Even now each rather doubted himself; and they began to ask in turn, “Lord, is it I?” At last, however, St. Peter, who happened to be placed down the table at a distance from Jesus, signified by a gesture to St. John to ask the Master who was to be the betrayer. This was a significant act. It was the acknowledgment by St. Peter of St. John’s primacy in the love and confidence of Christ. It was a tribute from the man of action to the man of contemplation. Those who are most prominent in the outer work of the Church must sometimes be indebted to the less conspicuous disciples, who lie in the bosom of the truth and brood on its hidden mysteries.

St. John asked the question in a whisper. Jesus might have kept the secret, sparing Judas till the last moment, but he whispered back, “He it is to whom I shall give a sop, when I have dipped it;” and he gave it to Judas. Two now knew the terrible secret.

Jesus had relieved his heart of its burden by making John partaker of it.

Judas knew that John knew; and this may be why it is said that, after the sop, Satan entered into him. He had long been aware that Christ knew what was going on in his mind, but he could keep his countenance as long as his treachery was concealed from his fellow-disciples. Now, however, when Jesus had told John, he was unmasked; and he was frantic. He hated Jesus for telling; he hated John for knowing; and when, immediately afterwards, he received the opportunity from a word of Christ he rushed out to carry into execution his diabolical design.

“And it was night,” says the historian, with tragic brevity. The son of darkness had entered his own element and was reeling blindly down to his doom, while within the chamber, now relieved of his presence, all darkness vanished away, and during the hours which ensued the disciples were sitting in the light eternal. Of St. John especially may this be said. Are not he and Judas the extreme opposites? The same incident which drove forth Judas to his fate installed John more firmly than ever in the confidence and affection of his Master.

XXVIII. The second scene in which the love of St. John was displayed was immediately after the arrest of the Lord. At the gate of Gethsemane, when Jesus fell into the hands of the soldiers sent to take him, all the disciples forsook him and fled. This may be a general statement, admitting of exceptions; just as the fourth Gospel says, in reference to the words in which Christ gave Judas his dismissal, “No man at the table knew for what intent he spoke this unto him,” although it is manifest that St. John knew. In the same way this disciple may be an exception to the statement that all forsook their Master and fled. At all events, if St. John fled, his desertion must have been of the briefest possible duration; because immediately afterwards he, with St. Peter accompanying him, is seen following the procession to the palace of the high-priest; and he was in time to pass into the house, in the rear of the procession, before the gate was shut.

He had an advantage over his fellow-disciples which served him in good stead upon this occasion— he was known to the high-priest. In what way this acquaintance had been formed we have no information; conjecture has, however, been busy to fill up the blank. Some have found here an indication that the apostle had higher family connections than his station in life would naturally suggest, while others have thought that he may have been known to the high-priest through his business. There was a market in Jerusalem for the harvest of the Sea of Galilee; and there is no difficulty in believing that the family of Zebedee, or the firm to which they belonged, may have had an agency for the sale of their property in the capital. We really know nothing whatever on the subject, beyond the fact stated in the Gospel. Apparently, however, John knew not only the high-priest but his servants, and he was acquainted with the palace; and his familiarity in the place served as a passport, admitting him to the close neighborhood of Christ, where he wished to be. Had he, indeed, been more timid about his own safety than anxious to be near his Master, the fact that he was known to the high-priest might have operated in precisely the opposite direction. He might have been afraid of being recognized as a follower of Jesus; and his very hesitation might have led to the consequences which he dreaded. Boldness in a critical situation is half the battle; and love made John bold. In St. Peter we see the working of the opposite state of mind. Perhaps from the first his heart was rather with those who fled than with St. John; but John constrained him. Some hesitation at all events is indicated by the fact that he was shut out of the palace when St. John was shut in. But the more loving disciple was eager to keep Peter up to the mark; and so he returned to the gate and secured his admission. Thereby, however, he unwittingly did his friend an injury. He was forcing on him an effort of testimony for which he was not prepared; he was introducing him to a temptation which was too strong for his powers of resistance; and the result was disastrous.

Then was made manifest how far St. John was ahead of St. Peter. He probably attended the trial throughout, and his silent presence was a support and comfort to Jesus, while Peter was showing what extraordinary elements existed in him under the covering of his Christian discipleship—profanity, falsehood and selfish fear.

What made so great a difference? Of two friends of Alexander the Great the historian Plutarch calls one Philo-Basileus, that is, the friend of the king, and the other Philo-Alexandros, that is, the friend of Alexander. Similarly some one has said St. Peter was Philo-Christos, the friend of the Christ, but St. John was Philo-Jesus, the friend of Jesus. This touches the quick: Peter was attached to the person who filled the office of Messiah, John to the Person himself. And this is a distinction which marks different types of Christian piety in all ages. The Christ of some is more official—the Head of the Church, the Founder of Christianity, and the like — that of others is more personal; but it is the personal bond which holds the heart. The most profoundly Christian spirits have loved the Saviour, not for his benefits, but for himself alone.

XXIX.

It is probable that St. John attended Christ through all the weary stages of his double trial—before the ecclesiastical and the civil authorities—and that, after a night thus spent, he accompanied the procession in the forenoon to the place of execution and witnessed everything that followed. At all events in the afternoon “there stood by the cross of Jesus his mother and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalene and with these holy women, one of whom was in all probability his own mother, stood St. John.

Striking it is that, in this hour of peril, when the men of Christ’s following were conspicuous only by their absence, the women were so loyal and fearless; and the only man who stood with them was the most womanly spirit in the apostolic company. But there is an infinite difference between the feminine and the effeminate. Woman may in some respects be weaker than man, but she is stronger in love; and it was in the strength of his love that John was like a woman, while in mind and character he was a thorough man. The women may have been protected by their sex; he had no such protection, and yet he was there. No doubt in the service of Christ all kinds of power are necessary, and the masculine virtues have a part of their own to play; but for the supreme efforts of sacrifice and devotion which Christianity requires it must always ultimately depend on the strength of love.

Amid the howling sea of evil passions with which his cross was encompassed the dying eyes of the Saviour rested with a sense of profound relief on this little group of loyal and loving hearts. But it is specially told that his glances rested on his mother and his favorite disciple. These were the two dearest souls to him on earth, and his eyes lingered on them. It was not, however, with unmixed satisfaction that he looked on his mother. This was for her an hour of unspeakable pain. It was not only that she was losing a son, and such a son, but her faith in God was subjected to a terrible strain. The event of her life had been the birth of him who, the angel had told her, would sit on the throne of his father David; but here he was expiring, and this promise had not been fulfilled! Was it a lie? The universe was swimming round her, and the sword of which the aged Simeon had spoken was piercing her soul. Besides, humbler anxieties about her troubled her son. He had been her support; but where would she now find a home? Who would now cheer and comfort her? Her other sons were still unbelievers. At last he spoke. Indicating St. John with his eye, because he could not do it with his finger, he said to Mary, “Woman, behold thy son;” and, indicating him in the same way to her, he said, “Behold thy mother.”

Thus he gave them to one another, as mother and son, with the solemnity with which in marriage husband and wife are given to each other, or as a dying person may sometimes indicate to two, standing beside the bed, that they ought to become one. They were kindred spirits in many respects, and especially they were one in their love to him. To none could Mary speak so freely about her son as to this loving disciple; from no one else could John learn so much as from her about Him whom to know is, as he declares, life eternal. To Mary this was a splendid gift. It assured to her a home for the rest of her days in which she would breathe the same peaceful and hallowed air as Jesus had breathed into the home at Nazareth, and it gave her the protection of a Greatheart to stand between her and the world. To St. John it was a gift no less precious. Mary, on her own account, would have been an adornment to any home; but, even if her presence had involved inconvenience, she would still have been thrice welcome to him as the mother of his divine Friend. Friend? Jesus had called his own mother “thy mother;” was not this to adopt him as a brother? This was a supreme honor: and all the trouble which it might involve was light to a heart which loved with such fervor as his.

XXX.

It is generally supposed that at once St. John gently removed Mary from the scene of suffering and took her to his house in the city, which was thenceforth to be her home; and there, it is said, he cherished her for twelve years, refusing to leave Jerusalem, even for the purpose of preaching the gospel, till she died. But after he had safely deposited his precious charge in his home he hurried back to Calvary. By this time all was over. The execution was finished and the crowd had dispersed. Only a few soldiers were left, watching the bodies. St. John again, however, resumed his station at the foot of the cross of his beloved Master. His fidelity was rewarded with a sight which profoundly impressed him, and which he has recorded with unusual solemnity. After narrating the incident he adds, “And he that saw it bare record, and his record is true; and he knoweth that he saith true, that ye might believe.” In Deuteronomy there is a law to this effect: “If a man have committed a sin worthy of death, and he be put to death, and thou hang him on a tree, his body shall not remain all night upon the tree, but thou shalt in any wise bury him that day (for he that is hanged is accursed of God); that thy land be not defiled which the Lord thy God giveth thee for an inheritance.” Perhaps this rule was not always observed, and the Jews might be careless about it when executions in their country were carried out not by themselves but by the Romans. But the death of Jesus happened at a season when they were particularly scrupulous about anything which might defile, especially in the neighborhood of the Holy City. It was the Passover, and they besought the governor to have the bodies taken down and buried before sunset. Before this could be done, however, it was necessary that they should be dead; and crucified persons did not die so quickly. The Jews asked, therefore, that the life of the three crucified men should be extinguished by breaking their legs with clubs; and the governor consented that this should be done. When, however, the soldiers came to Jesus they perceived that he was dead already; so that they did not break his legs. But, by way of making assurance doubly sure, one of the soldiers plunged his spear into his side, whereupon there flowed out blood and water.

Such was the sight which so impressed the apostolic onlooker. But what was it which made it appear to him remarkable?

He recalled a word of the Old Testament which said, “A bone of Him shall not be broken.” Originally it referred to the paschal lamb; and to St. John the dead Saviour was thus pointed out as the true Paschal Lamb, whose sacrifice should inagurate a new dispensation of grace and truth, as the original paschal lamb inaugurated the dispensation of the Law. Also he recalled another Old Testament word, which said, “They shall look upon Him whom they have pierced;” and there seemed to him to be a divine purpose guiding even the hand of the rude soldier, when, totally without his own will and knowledge, he brought the mode of Christ’s death into line with Old Testament prophecy.But the mystery did not stop here. Probably St. John was aware that from a dead body, if it is pierced, there is, as a rule, no outflow; but in this case there flowed out blood and water. It was a mystery; but in it there seemed to be a symbol of much that Christ had taught about himself. The cleansing of the world from sin had been the. purpose of his life; and he had spoken of the cleansing power of water and the cleansing power of blood. The two sacraments which he instituted referred respectively to these two elements. The dead body of Christ appeared to be a double fountain, out of which was issuing what was required for the purification of the world.

Modern medicine, however, believes that it sees in the phenomenon which St. John has reported a significance which even he did not perceive. Great medical authorities allege that the stream of blood and water shows that the heart of Christ had ruptured at his death and the blood poured into an enclosing sac, where it would naturally resolve into its elements one red like blood and the other white like water—and that it was this sac which the spear emptied. So that the Saviour literally died of a broken heart. The pressure of grief, the pressure of the burden of sin which he was bearing, so overcharged his heart that it could no longer contain; and, when it broke, he died.

However this may be, St. John was amply rewarded for his vigil of love. Love kept him near Christ living and dying; and to be near Christ is to be in the place of discovery. We are reminded how much we owe to St. John for his faithful love as often as we sing, “Let the water and the blood From thy riven side which flowed Be of sin the double cure:

Cleanse me from its guilt and power.”