Sermon 7th February 2016

Today, our Vicar, Cameron Barker, continues our study of Bible faith-heroes. 

This week, it is John the Divine and the reading is from Revelation 1:1-11.

This is not a rhetorical question. So please listen very carefully when I ask what these men all have in common – because I am hoping for an answer! That list of names is: Calvin; Cleese; Donne; Galliano; Hume; Lennon; McEnroe; Newton; Rockefeller; Ruskin; Steinbeck; and Wesley.

And the answer is … yes, they are all named John!

I could have gone on for a very long time: John’s quite a common Western name. But it doesn’t matter how full a list I’d have come up with. It simply isn’t possible to find enough of them to equal the impact of just this one John who is today’s hero of faith.

That is a bold statement, I realise. But then we are talking about the person who wrote one-fifth of the New Testament. That may only rank him third (behind Luke and Paul) in terms of the volume of words written. But of the 3 of them, John was the only one who was an actual disciple of Jesus: and the ‘beloved one’ at that – most likely! Now’s a good time to make the first of several necessary confessions, then. I’ve made this claim about John based on the assumption that the same person wrote the Gospel that carries his name; plus the 3 letters that also do; and the book of Revelation that today’s reading has come from. (And that adds up to very nearly 28 100 words, by the way.)

Now you won’t be surprised to hear that this claim is not one that everyone agrees with! Having this week read rather a lot of material about all of these writings, my head is spinning with all the available theories. But, as usual, they are just that: theories. Nobody knows for sure; and there is a very real sense in which their authorship doesn’t matter. All of these books have been in the canon of scripture since it was first drawn up, centuries ago; and they are in here not least to teach people in all ages how to follow and live for Jesus; as best they can, in their own unique circumstances. We can, and must, learn from them; whether all this material was written by one man called John; by several different people with that name; or even by a school of scholars dedicated to his work – which are just three of the many theories that are out there.

So it’s good to remember the point of this series that ends today. It has been about the Bible characters that some of the local preaching team have found to be inspiring, for a range of both personal and spiritual reasons. As ever, if you’ve missed any of them, catch up via our website – but only if you would find that inspiring! The aim has been to offer encouragement to discover ways which help us to deepen our discipleship – and not everything works for everybody. Even so, what has emerged above all from this series, I think, is that all of these are ordinary people who somehow became involved in God’s extra-ordinary story. Each of them found themselves being amazingly transformed in the process; as could happen to any of us ordinary people too.

It will be no surprise, then, if I say that John was an ordinary person, living an ordinary life; who found that life turned upside-down very quickly. We meet him, along with Jesus’ other first disciples, early in Matthew, Mark and Luke. John was one of the pairs of fishing brothers: Simon and Andrew; James and John, who were called by Jesus. But a close reading of the 4^th Gospel – John – tells a slightly different story. John is, of course, a very different book to those other 3 – and that’s partly why I’m very happy to claim its author as one of my faith heroes. More on that later; for now it’s back to the start of the Jesus-and-John story; because there’s another John in there!

In John’s Gospel it’s subtly clear that our John was first a follower of John the Baptist. It’s pretty logical, though: that John came to prepare the way for Jesus. Initially they preached almost the same message: that Kingdom of God which John said was coming was the same Kingdom of God that Jesus claimed (and proved) he brought in by his words and deeds. “The Kingdom of God is near” of John became “The Kingdom of God is here” with Jesus. John the Baptist knew that he wasn’t the one; he knew that Jesus needed to take over. Not all of his followers grasped that fact; but our John did: instantly. The first time he encountered Jesus, our John became his disciple: quite probably Jesus’ first one. And that takes courage, of a kind that I greatly admire personally: to see the picture as it’s developing and to go with God’s new work as it’s happening requires both the bravery and faith that are the stuff of which heroes are made.

This incident in itself probably tells us lots of important things about John’s character. We certainly learn plenty more about him as the story unfolds; in all four gospel accounts. Of course we read more about John in the other 3 than we do in his own; and they have 2 particular stories that I want to refer to. But it is from his own gospel that we learn most about John the person; not least from how little he appears in it. His is usually thought of as the last gospel to be written, and that’s part of the picture too. But the other gospels offer a rather more raw picture of him. Having said that, John soon became part of Jesus’ inner circle. How often do we read that Jesus took Peter, James and John off with him to see or do something?

Again it’s hero material, perhaps: to be that close to Jesus that often; to see people healed; the dead raised to life; to see Jesus transfigured in the presence of Moses and Elijah! But each of those 3 disciples were so flawed; in so many ways. Peter’s failings we know well. But in Luke 9, when a Samaritan village wouldn’t welcome Jesus, what did James and John do? Well, I suppose at least they asked first; but their offer was to call down fire from heaven to wipe the place out! (Jesus declined, in case you don’t know this story.) But it’s a fine illustration of why he’d nicknamed these brothers ‘Boanerges’ – meaning Sons of Thunder! They did crash about a bit, James and John; and that in itself may make them heroes for some people of similar bent.

However, there wasn’t an indulgent smile anywhere in sight in the next incident. James and John’s fellow disciples were irate with them in Mark 10 when they found out what the brothers had done behind their backs. They had gone to Jesus with an outrageous request: that he do for them whatever they asked. Of course Jesus asked for details first; and discovered that what they wanted was to sit either side of him in his glory. Of course they had no idea what that involved, because they said that they could do whatever it would take. What followed was some (more!) painful, humbling learning for all 12 of the disciples; but, even so, there wasn’t much sign that any of them had absorbed those key Jesus-lessons about self-sacrifice and suffering.

Mind you, in Mark 11 it’s Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem and the final week of his life. And from John’s gospel we know that he was there when Jesus was arrested; there at the cross with Jesus’ mother, when he died; and then the first (man!) to arrive at the empty tomb. So maybe John had in fact already learned rather more about the place of perseverance, suffering, and persecution in following Jesus than he’s always credited with. And maybe that’s why, when he came to write his own account of the story of Jesus much later in his life, John put so very little emphasis on his own part in it. He’d come to realise, I think, how little it was about him; and how much it had to be about Jesus. And that makes him even more of a hero in my book of faith.

To make that point more clearly, here’s how John opened his first letter: “We proclaim to you the one who existed from the beginning, whom we have heard and seen. We saw him with our own eyes and touched him with our own hands. He is the Word of life.” For John by then it was all about Jesus: living for him alone: in any and all circumstances. And it must be said that circumstances were well less than ideal for followers of Jesus. From 70 AD – which is likely long before John wrote anything – Christians were persecuted throughout the Roman Empire. By legend, John was the only disciple who was not put to death for his faith. He lived into old age; but when we meet him in his next book, as the author of Revelation, he had been banished for his faith. His reward for refusing to stop preaching the truth about Jesus was hard labour on the island of Patmos! And here’s another reason why John is one of my faith-heroes: in his old age he refused to deny Jesus – even at the cost of breaking rocks on a tiny prison island 35 miles off the coast of modern Turkey.

Listen again to how he describes himself here: “I, John, am your brother and your partner in suffering and in God’s Kingdom and in the patient endurance to which Jesus calls us.” How different is that to the one who wanted to call down fire from heaven?! Now his whole being is caught up with living in and for Jesus: even, especially in this: “All glory to him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by shedding his blood for us. He has made us a Kingdom of priests for God his Father. All glory and power to him forever and ever! Amen”, wrote John – from his prison island exile. And in this he was completely aware of the central place that Jesus has not just in bringing in, but in making real the Kingdom of God: here and now.

Right at the very start of this final book of the Bible, John made it clear who, and what, it was all about. Continuing to quote from the New Living Translation, “This is a revelation from Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants the events that must soon take place. He sent an angel to present this revelation to his servant John, who faithfully reported everything he saw. This is his report of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ.” It’s from Jesus; it’s about Jesus; and it’s for Jesus; and John’s role is ‘just’ to pass on God’s message as accurately as he can do; to clear the way for God to do what wants: through Jesus.

I really don’t think that there is any better place that we could end this series: than with John; here in this place. My final confession is that I was kind of forced into taking John as the last hero, though! This Lent adults will be picking up the next part of this letter. (That’s what the whole book of Revelation actually is: Jesus’ letter through John to the church in Asia.) At the start of it, this Jesus who is Lord of everything and everyone had messages for seven First-Century churches that his 21^st-Century church needs to hear just as urgently. So my task for today included giving some of the background to this book; to those messages; and to the one through whom God communicated them. And what we’ve seen in John is an excellent example of a person who came to realise how he needed to let God be first. He’s a great hero of faith not least because of how far back he came from; to see that it’s having faith in the greatness of God that matters most. So as we get ready for Lent, let’s be prepared to learn from his example as we listen to the messages that God gave John. These come from “The one who is, who always was, and who is still to come – the Almighty One; and, as John had learned, it’s all about him! So let’s pray that it really will be, then …