Daily Gospel Reflection
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December 27, 2023
On the first day of the week,
Mary Magdalene ran and went to Simon Peter
and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and told them,
“They have taken the Lord from the tomb,
and we do not know where they put him.”
So Peter and the other disciple went out and came to the tomb.
They both ran, but the other disciple ran faster than Peter
and arrived at the tomb first;
he bent down and saw the burial cloths there, but did not go in.
When Simon Peter arrived after him,
he went into the tomb and saw the burial cloths there,
and the cloth that had covered his head,
not with the burial cloths but rolled up in a separate place.
Then the other disciple also went in,
the one who had arrived at the tomb first,
and he saw and believed.
The details of this passage always strike me. Everyone runs. They don’t just come and go. Peter and John even seem to race. While John is first to arrive, we hear that Peter enters the tomb first.
The setting is described with care. There is nobody there, but the burial clothes are present. We even learn that the head covering is separated, not strewn about but rolled up neatly in a separate place. It is a vivid account because the details hold together as the occasion of something transformational. The beloved disciple, John, tells us he saw the tomb and believed. It may be the first day of the week, but it’s also the first day of the rest of his life: Jesus Christ has risen from the dead.
We recall these events during Christmas because, in divine Providence, the birth we celebrate leads here. If we look closely enough, we can even see traces of the nativity within it. As the shepherds and wise men before them, John and Peter travel on news of their messiah and king. They also find him alive. While not in swaddling clothes, he has laid aside his burial cloth in victory over death. The beginning and the end bear the same shape of his grace, even in the details.
For us today, such details reveal a sure path: to seek after him like these forebears, to run, if we must. Like John, Jesus desires us to run to him, behold him, and believe. The details of our lives are different: we will not race Peter or enter a garden tomb. But in much the same way, Jesus desires to reveal his saving love for us amid the people, settings, conflicts, and hopes of our lives. Wherever you may be in this moment, he desires for you to see him and to believe. Run after him: he is in the details.
Prayer
Lord, John the apostle “saw and believed” when he entered the empty tomb. His faith told him that you had indeed risen from the dead. Assist us, Lord, when our faith is weak, and we do not know what to believe. Help us know that you have indeed risen and are always with us. Amen.
Saint of the Day
John is known in Scripture as being Jesus’ beloved disciple. Jesus called John along with his brother, James, as they were mending their nets near the Sea of Galilee. He called the two brothers “sons of thunder.”
John was the youngest of all the disciples, and it is believed he outlived the others. He was the only one who is known to not have suffered martyrdom—he died when he was in his 90s.
John, represented in today's featured image by a stained glass window from the chapel in St. Edward's Hall, was present at most of the important moments of Jesus’ life—the transfiguration and in the Garden of Gethsemane before Jesus was arrested, for example. In the story of the Last Supper, John leans on the breast of Jesus to ask who would betray him. Of all the disciples, he remained with Mary at the foot of the cross, and before he died, Jesus handed over care for his mother to John.
John eventually settled in Ephesus among the Christian community there. His biography indicates that he was arrested, tried in Rome, and banished to the island of Patmos, where he received visions and dreams that he recorded in the Book of Revelation.
After the emperor’s death, John returned to Ephesus, where the Church's tradition holds that he wrote his Gospel. John’s Gospel is entirely different from those of Mark, Luke, and Matthew—it presents Jesus with great authority, radiating divinity throughout. For his soaring theology, John is represented by the symbol of an eagle (depicted below in stained glass from the chapel in Morrissey Hall). He also wrote three letters that are part of our New Testament.
It is said that when John was too old to preach to the Christians at Ephesus, he was brought before the congregation and would simply say, “My little children, love one another.” When asked why he always repeated these words, he would reply, “Because it is the word of the Lord, and if you keep it, you do enough.”
Several pieces of St. John's relics are kept in the reliquary of the Basilica of the Sacred Heart on campus, including a piece of his tomb. The chapel in Farley Hall, a women's residential hall on campus, is named after him. Croatian artist Ivan Mestrovic sculpted a story from John's Gospel of Jesus talking to a Samaritan Woman at the ancient site of Jacob's Well and portrays John and Luke on either side of the main sculpture, which stands in front of O'Shaughnessy Hall on South Quad.
St. John the Evangelist, whose Gospel urges us to love one another because God is love—pray for us!