St. John – Patronal Feast December 27, 2019
Fr. Albert St. John the Evangelist, Jeanerette
“He saw and believed.” Don’t some people just have all the luck? St. John the Apostle and Evangelist seems to get everything. He’s the “beloved disciple.” He gets to be in the inner circle for the Transfiguration and the Agony in the Garden. He’s the only one at the foot of the cross. He’s one of the first people who gets to enter the empty tomb of Jesus, the holiest place in the universe. And then, to top it all off, he’s the only Apostle who didn’t get brutally murdered.
If you have even a little faith, it’s really easy to be a little jealous of St. John the Evangelist. And probably worst of all is the fact that he got to see and believe. In a world full of doubt and confusion and fake news, it’s incredibly difficult to know what to believe. Most of what we know about Jesus and God we have to take on faith, without seeing anything, unlike lucky St. John.
And you know what almost makes it worse? That he kind of rubs it in in his letter, our first reading. “What we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we looked upon and touched with our hands… we proclaim to you now.” Does he really have to keep reminding us of what we didn’t get?
Yes, because that’s exactly how we do get the same opportunity he did. Though it’s not in the same way, we actually can see and touch and hear Jesus even today. Pay attention to the reason St. John gives for his proclamation of Jesus: “so that you too may have fellowship with us.” With all the talk about Jesus, you might expect him to say “fellowship with Jesus,” but he doesn’t. Why us? Who is us anyway?
The Church. Us is the Church, the body of Christians founded on the Apostles. Jesus, the Word of life was made visible – what we celebrated 48 hours ago and will celebrate for the next 3 weeks. And what did the Word of Life made visible do? He spent time with people. He did not write a book… he didn’t write anything. He came to make God tangible for humanity and when he ascended into heaven, he did not say “read my book to know God.” No, he said “make disciples.”
That’s key. Discipleship is a relationship. It requires personal interaction with a living human being. Jesus did not come to give us the bible, important and good though it is. He came to give us himself, to give us the chance to see and believe just like St. John in the Gospel.
And St. John spent the rest of his life proclaiming the word made visible, only writing down a few things at the very end of his long life. He knew that Jesus came to give us a Church, a spiritual family. So John’s focus was on fellowship and discipleship. Why? Because it is only through fellowship with the Apostles that people can see and touch and hear Jesus. This is possible through the teachings of the Church, through the Sacraments, and through Christ present in Christians.
Though we don’t see and hear exactly what John did, a Christian fully alive makes Jesus present in a way that others can see. We call St. John “the Evangelist” because he wrote a Gospel and spent his life evangelizing. Even more than what he wrote, the life he lived, the grace in his soul, the sacraments he celebrated made Jesus, God, visible to other people.
We have the same responsibility. In a world filled with incredulity, it is really hard to ask someone whose never heard of Jesus to believe in him when they can’t see him. So we should allow them to see him by allowing him to live so fully in us that he is visible to those who look at us.
Of course, not everyone who sees Jesus in us will be glad of it. Though John was not martyred, it was not for lack of trying and he did still die in exile. Christ promises that, if we truly manifest him to the world, some people will reject us and him, often with deadly violence. But that must not deter us. Indeed, the very love that make Christ present in us is the same quality of love that moves us to suffer for the very people who cause us to suffer. To make Jesus real to the ones we love, we must make him present to the ones who hate us for it, because that’s what he did. And it is precisely in patiently suffering the attacks of others that we take steps towards conquering their hearts for Christ.
Face your doubts. Lean into the life of the Church. See, hear, and touch Christ in his followers, his teachings, and the Sacraments. Persevere in this so that one day, it may be said of us and of those around us that “[we] saw and believed.”