The Apostle John

If Judas represents betrayers, Peter, preachers and Thomas, doubters, then John, surrenderers.  I call Jesus' disciple, John, a surrenderer because he surrendered fully to the love of Christ without question or reservation.  I do not think there are too many surrenderers like John.  I actually do not know of another. [1] The remote possibility could exist that other surrenderers had lived over the centuries but I am skeptical. [2]

All the love John had in him was given to Jesus for the first time when Jesus called him to be His disciple.  From what I have read, John was young when he was called but no one knows exactly his age.  It has ranged from late teens to late twenties.  If I were to guess, I would say that he was 14, going on 15.   At this age, a boy who was living in a lawful society would presumably not have lost his innocence and I believe John was that boy, completely innocent and highly impressionable.  I believe that he was a quiet boy who did not say much, did not know much and was afraid to say anything because he was young [3], and that he was humble and was always in awe of goodness.

The general consensus is that John was the "disciple whom Jesus loved." [4]  Certainly John was loved by Jesus. [5]  He loved him so much he even gave John His Mother, the Virgin Mary, when He was on His cross. [6]

I think that Jesus loved John because he possessed the purity of youthful innocence, and that John's innocence of youth never left him.  John's mentor was, after all, Christ Himself, pure and innocent of all evil.

I believe John, the disciple, represented love, love for Jesus and love for the Virgin Mary, and no one has since loved Jesus and the Virgin Mary as perfectly as John had.

John was the only apostle who died a natural death. [7]




[1] San Francesco d'Assisi was more like Peter than he is like John.
[2] I do not believe that a surrrenderer is among us.  Even if he is, a surrenderer to the love of Christ is an unknown.  He is an unknown precisely because he has surrendered to the love of Christ humbly and completely and his surrender is neither an occasion of shame or of pride and therefore unnoteworthy and unnoticeable in today's media.  A surrenderer gives to God all the love he has, a love that is expressed with deep meaning, happily with action but scarcely with words.  You are definitely not going to see a surrenderer on Facebook or Twitter.
[3] I assume that as John matured, and grew old with wisdom and knowledge, he spoke more.  Some even think that he wrote the Gospel of John.  See http://jkinak04.wordpress.com/2013/04/02/why-did-the-apostle-john-refer-to-himself-as-the-disciple-whom-jesus-loved/
[4] See http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+21:7
[5] http://jkinak04.wordpress.com/2013/04/02/why-did-the-apostle-john-refer-to-himself-as-the-disciple-whom-jesus-loved/
[6] According to what I have read, Jesus preached for three to three and a half years before His crucifixion. Based on my guess that John was 14, going on 15 when Jesus called him to be His disciple, John would have been 17, going on 18 when he was given the Virgin Mary, Mother of God, by Jesus on the cross to be his mother, to take care of him and for him to take care of Her.  And see http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+19%3A26-29&version=NIV:

When Jesus saw his mother there, and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to her, “Woman, here is your son,” and to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” From that time on, this disciple took her into his home.

[7] See page 5 of 9 at https://www.reclaimingthemind.org/content/Parchmentandpen/DeathoftheApostles.pdf