Personal Friendships of Jesus - J. R. Miller (beach books txt) 📗

know him when he comes
  Not by any din of drums,
  Nor the vantage of his airs;
  Neither by his crown,
  Nor by his gown,
  Nor by anything he wears.
  He shall only well-known be
  By the holy harmony
  That his coming makes in thee!"

John calls himself the "disciple whom Jesus loved." This designation gives him a distinction even among the Master's personal friends. Jesus loved all the apostles, but there were three who belonged in an inner circle. Then, of these three, John was the best beloved. We are not told what it was in John that gave him this highest honor. He was probably a cousin of Jesus, as it is thought by many that their mothers were sisters. This blood relationship, however, would not account for the strong love that bound them together. There must have been certain qualities in John which fitted him in a peculiar way for being the closest friend of Jesus.

We know that John's personality was very winning. He was only a fisherman, and in his youth lacked opportunities for acquiring knowledge or refinement. If Mary and Salome were sisters, the blood of David's line was in John as well as in Jesus. It is something to have back of one's birth a long and noble descent. Besides, John was one of those rare men "who appear to be formed of finer clay than their neighbors, and cast in a gentler mould." Evidently he was by nature a man of sympathetic spirit, one born to be a friend.

The study of John's writings helps us to answer our question. Not once in all his Gospel does he refer to himself by name; yet as one reads the wonderful chapters, one is aware of a spirit, an atmosphere, of sweetness. There are fields and meadows in which the air is laden with fragrance, and yet no flowers can be seen. But looking closely, one finds, low on the ground, hidden by the tall grasses, a multitude of little lowly flowers. It is from these that the perfume comes. In every community there are humble, quiet lives, almost unheard of among men, who shed a subtle influence on all about them. Thus it is in the chapters of John's Gospel. The name of the writer nowhere appears, but the charm of his spirit pervades the whole book.

In the designation which he adopts for himself, there is a fine revealing of character. There is a beautiful self-obliteration in the hiding away of the author's personality that only the name and glory of Jesus may be seen. There are some good men, who, even when trying to exalt and honor their Lord, cannot resist the temptation to write their own name large, that those who see the Master may also see the Master's friend. In John there is an utter absence of this spirit. As the Baptist, when asked who he was, refused to give his name, and said he was only a voice proclaiming the coming of the King, so John spoke of himself only as one whom the Master loved.

We must note, too, that he does not speak of himself as the disciple who loved Jesus,—this would have been to boast of himself as loving the Master more than the other disciples did,—but as the disciple whom Jesus loved. In this distinction lies one of the subtlest secrets of Christian peace. Our hope does not rest in our love for Jesus, but in his love for us. Our love at the best is variable in its moods. To-day it glows with warmth and joy, and we say we could die for Christ; to-morrow, in some depression, we question whether we really love him at all, our feeling responds so feebly to his name. A peace that depends on our loving Christ is as variable as our own consciousness. But when it is Christ's love for us that is our dependence, our peace is undisturbed by any earthly changes.

Thus we find in John a reposeful spirit. He was content to be lowly. He knew how to trust. His spirit was gentle. He was of a deeply spiritual nature. Yet we must not think of him as weak or effeminate. Perhaps painters have helped to give this impression of him; but it is one that is not only untrue, but dishonoring. John was a man of noble strength. In his soul, under his quietness and sweetness of spirit, dwelt a mighty energy. But he was a man of love, and had learned the lesson of divine peace; thus he was a self-controlled man.

These are hints of the character of the disciple whom Jesus loved, whom he chose to be his closest friend. He was only a lad when Jesus first met him, and we must remember that the John we chiefly know was the man as he developed under the influence of Jesus. What Jesus saw in the youth who sat down beside him in his lodging-place that day, drank in his words, and opened his soul to him as a rose to the morning sun, was a nature rich in its possibilities of noble and beautiful character. The John we know is the man as he ripened in the summer of Christ's love. He is a product of pure Christ-culture. His young soul responded to every inspiration in his Master, and developed into rarer loveliness every day. Doubtless one of the qualities in John that fitted him to be the closest friend of Jesus was his openness of heart, which made him such an apt learner, so ready to respond to every touch of Christ's hand.

It would be interesting to trace the story of this holy friendship through the three years Jesus and John were together, but only a little of the wonderful narrative is written. Some months after the first meeting, there was another beside the sea. For some reason John and his companions had taken up their fishing again. Jesus came by in the early morning, and found the men greatly discouraged because they had been out all night and had caught nothing. He told them to push out, and to cast their net again, telling them where to cast it. The result was a great draught of fishes. It was a revealing of divine power which mightily impressed the fishermen. He then bade them to follow him, and said he would make them become fishers of men. Immediately they left the ship, and went with Jesus.

Thus John had now committed himself altogether to his new Master. From this time he remained with Jesus, following him wherever he went. He was in his school, and was an apt scholar. A little later there came another call. Jesus chose twelve men to be apostles, and among them was the beloved disciple. This choice and call brought him into yet closer fellowship with Jesus. Now the transformation of character would go on more rapidly because of the constancy and the closeness of John's association with his Master.

A peculiar designation is given to the brothers James and John. Jesus surnamed them Boanerges, the sons of thunder. There must have been a meaning in such a name given by Jesus himself. Perhaps the figure of thunder suggests capacity for energy—that the soul of John was charged, as it were, with fiery zeal. It appears to us, as we read John's writings, that this could not have been true. He seems such a man of love that we cannot think of him as ever being possessed of an opposite feeling. But there is evidence that by nature he was full of just such energy held in reserve. We see John chiefly in his writings; and these were the fruit of his mellow old age, when love's lessons had been well learned. It seems likely that in his youth he had in his breast a naturally quick, fiery temper. But under the culture of Jesus this spirit was brought into complete mastery. We have one illustration of this earlier natural feeling in a familiar incident. The people of a certain village refused to receive the Master, and John and his brother wished to call down fire from heaven to consume them. But Jesus reminded them that he was not in the world to destroy men's lives, but to save them.

We know not how often this lesson had to be taught to John before he became the apostle of love. It was well on in St. Paul's old age that he said he had learned in whatsoever state he was therein to be content. It is a comfort to us to know that he was not always able to say this, and that the lesson had to be learned by him just as it has to be learned by us. It is a comfort to us also to be permitted to believe that John had to learn to be the loving, gentle disciple he became in later life, and that the lesson was not an easy one.

It is instructive also to remember that it was through his friendship with Jesus that John received his sweetness and lovingness of character. An old Persian apologue tells that one found a piece of fragrant clay in his garden, and that when asked how it got its perfume the clay replied, "One laid me on a rose." John lived near the heart of Jesus, and the love of that heart of gentleness entered his soul and transformed him. There is no other secret for any who would learn love's great lesson. Abiding in Christ, Christ abides also in us, and we are made like him because he lives in us.

John's distinction of being one of the Master's closest friends brought him several times into experiences of peculiar sacredness. He witnessed the transfiguration, when for an hour the real glory of the Christ shone out through his investiture of flesh. This was a vision John never forgot. It must have impressed itself deeply upon his soul. He was also one of those who were led into the inner shadows of Gethsemane, to be near Jesus while he suffered, and to comfort him with love.

This last experience especially suggests to us something of what the friendship of John was to Jesus. There is no doubt that this friendship brought to John immeasurable comfort and blessing, enriching his life, and transforming his character. But what was the friendship to Jesus? There is no doubt that it was a great deal to him. He craved affection and sympathy, as every noble heart does just in the measure of its humanness. One of the saddest elements of the Gethsemane sorrow was the disappointment of Jesus, when, hungry for love, he went back to his chosen three, expecting to find a little comfort and strength, and found them sleeping.

The picture of John at the Last Supper, leaning on Jesus' breast, shows him to us in the posture in which we think of him most. It is the place of confidence; the bosom is only for those who have a right to closest intimacy. It is the place of love, near the heart. It is the place of safety, for he is in the clasp of the everlasting arms, and none can snatch him out of the impregnable shelter. It was the darkest night the world ever saw that John lay on the bosom of Jesus. That is the place of comfort for all sorrowing believers, and there is abundance of room for them all on that breast. John leaned on Jesus' breast,—weakness reposed on strength, helplessness on almighty help. We should learn to lean, to lean our whole weight, on Christ. That is the privilege of Christian faith.

There was one occasion when John seems to have broken away from his usual humility. He joined with his brother in a request for the highest places in the new kingdom. This is only one of the evidences of John's humanness,—that he was of like passions with the rest of us. Jesus treated the brothers with gentle pity—"Ye know not what ye ask." Then he explained to them that the highest places must be reached through toil and sorrow, through the paths of service and suffering. Later in life John knew what the Master's words meant. He