Saturday 9th August 2025

St John 21: 20 – 25

Peter turned and saw the disciple whom Jesus loved following them; he was the one who had reclined next to Jesus at the supper and had said, ‘Lord, who is it that is going to betray you?’ When Peter saw him, he said to Jesus, ‘Lord, what about him?’ Jesus said to him, ‘If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you? Follow me!’ So the rumour spread in the community that this disciple would not die. Yet Jesus did not say to him that he would not die, but, ‘If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you?’ This is the disciple who is testifying to these things and has written them, and we know that his testimony is true.  But there are also many other things that Jesus did; if every one of them were written down, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.

Reflection

Here’s a second ending to the Gospel that has opened our eyes to Jesus as the great ‘I am’ among us, God’s Word made flesh, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.  The final verse of chapter twenty explains John’s purpose: it was ‘written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name’.   Life is the Gospel’s great theme – the life in abundance that Christ intends for all.  But paradoxically that life is offered and received through death – primarily the death of Jesus, but other deaths too.

The death of Peter and of ‘the beloved disciple’ had raised big questions among the community and so a final chapter is written, to explain how failure can be turned into glorious success, denial turned into renewed commitment and love, and death itself overturned.  Both Peter and John will face death, but the Gospel will not die.  In the words of Brian Wren’s great hymn:

Christ is alive! Let Christians sing. 
His cross stands empty to the sky. 
Let streets and homes with praises ring.
His love in death shall never die.  

The community that adds the final chapter to the Gospel knows that Jesus is not one who is trapped in the past, a great figure to be remembered oh so reverently.  No, Christ is alive and to be followed, here and now, in our own times and situations and ways.  Peter is gently encouraged by Jesus not to overconcern himself with John’s path, but rather focus on his own following of Jesus.  The risen living Christ returns to that simple invitation that began it all for Peter, those two words ‘Follow me.’

And what of us?  The Jesus story is not over.  More books – written on papyrus or paper or in human lives – are to be written.  How will we write that story in our own life today?

Prayer

Living Lord Jesus
write your book of life
in the lives of your people today.
Defeat hatred with your love.
Overturn death with your death,
that life may blossom once more.