A Story About John the Apostle

"Apostle John the Theologian" 

by A.N. Mironov

A new commandment I give you: love each other. Just as I have loved you, you also must love each other. This is how everyone will know you are my disciples, by your love for each other.

Gospel of John 13.34-35

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The blessed John the Evangelist lived in Ephesus until old age. His disciples could barely carry him to church and he could not muster the voice to speak many words. During individual gatherings he usually said nothing but, "Little children, love one another." 

The disciples and brothers in attendance, annoyed because they always heard the same words, finally said, "Teacher, why do you always say this?" 

He replied with a line worthy of John: "Because it is the Lord's commandment and if it alone is kept, it is sufficient."

Jerome (AD 347- 420)
Fathers of the Church, Commentary on Galatians 6.10, Andrew Cain Jerome, CUA Press, 2010

Last Words

End of the Line

Photo by Willy Volk

Synchroblog is a little community of mostly Christian bloggers who write about "post-modern faith and life," posting on a particular subject each month. Bad news though: Synchroblog is on its last legs and this will be its last set of essays ever. So this post is part of the October 2015 Synchroblog  whose theme is, appropriately enough,‘If this was my last blog post, here’s what I would want to say’.

See the list at the end to read everybody else's final missives.

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I haven't been a very good Synchroblogger, I admit. I joined in October 2013 with a post called The Gospel Truth About Social Justice, which actually became one of the more popular posts I've written here. But as encouraging as that was, I've only posted four more: (Jesus Christ Superstar Saved My Soul, Going Home, The Year of Reading Scripture for the First Time, and Law of Liberty). And this one if I get it done before the deadline.

This time the writing prompt invites me to imagine that this is my final blog post.  Actually I've written final posts for several blogs so it's easy to tell you what those look like: Nothing. Usually I've written until I got sick of it and just stopped.

I did do a little more with a sister blog of this one. My immortal last words there were:

I can't think of a use for this blog. And really I haven't used it a lot anyway.

Pretty moving, huh?

So I'm going to take our theme as not just my last words for this blog, but my last words ever. What if I knew that 5 minutes from now I would be dead? What words would I write on this page then?

Actually, I had an entirely different set of words I was going to include here. But as I thought about it that way -- as the final few sentences I want to leave the world with after my passing -- different words came to mind. And now they seem like the only thing important enough to say.

As you know if you read Authentic Light a lot, I am rather obsessed with the early Christian movement -- the first 300 or 400 years. I am what is called a Paleo-orthodox theologian. Jerome, the ancient Christian scholar from that era, reports an old tradition (in his Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians, 6.10) about the Apostle John once he got up in years.

When John was too weak to deliver full sermons anymore, he still insisted on being carried into Christian meetings where he would invariably hoist himself up on his stretcher and deliver this short message:

Little children, love one another.

After a while of course this became monotonous and a few of the people asked him why he didn't change it up a little.  His answer was: "This is the Lord’s command, and if this alone be done, it is enough."

I always liked that story, so that is the last thing I want to say in my last Synchroblog: Love one another, the way Jesus loves you.

"Everyone will know by this that you are my disciples—if you have love for one another."

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This is a list of the Synchrobog contributors for this final month. Read them all and leave a comment!

K.W. Leslie – Synchrobloggery

Glenn Hager – Parting Shot

Clara Mbamalu – What is love?

Carol Kuniholm – A Final Synchroblog

Peggy Brown – Abi and The Last Synchroblog

Leah Sophia – Synchroblog: Creation One More Time

Jeremy Myers – If this were my only blog post, I would invite you to do one thing

J. A. Carter – Last Words

Tony Ijeh – Sharing Jesus

Liz Dyer – Last words about love

"...Radically Unlimited Liberality..."

Karl Barth

Sixth Sunday of Lent

"Dear friends, we should love each other, because love comes from God. Everyone who loves has become God’s child. And so everyone who loves knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love to us: He sent his only Son into the world to give us life through him. True love is God’s love for us, not our love for God." 

First Letter of John chapter 4 verses 7 - 10

Lent is about humbling one's self and taking on the nature of Christ. Each Sunday during this time I am letting wise Christians speak on these subjects. This week we have the thoughts of the great Protestant theologian Karl Barth on Christian love.

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What we have here -- in Christian love -- is a movement in which a man turns away from himself. In the continuation love turns wholly to another, to one who is wholly different from the loving subject. Christian love turns to the other purely for the sake of the other. It does not desire it for itself. In Christian love the loving subject gives to the other, the object of love, that which it has, which is its own, which belongs to it. It does so with a radically unlimited liberality.

Karl Barth
Church Dogmatics, Vol. 4 Part 2, p. 733

Christmastide - Eternity

The third day of Christmas is the Feast of John the Apostle. As with the second day, John's feast isn't officially connected to Christmas proper, but it does fit in quite nicely. Because John, with his profound teachings clothed in simple words, is the New Testament writer who tells us most clearly that this was no ordinary child that was just born...