John: The Beloved and Patmos
When Jesus chose his twelve disciples he didn’t choose the best that society had to offer. None of them were particularly educated or eloquent. Nor were they wealthy or influential. Perhaps more telling than all this is that none of them was a model of good behavior either. Peter often spoke before he thought and could be patronizing. Judas was greedy and dipped his hand into the money bag frequently. James and John were dubbed the sons of thunder because of their volatile tempers. Yet these men, with the exception of Judas, changed the world and established the Christian church.
Of the twelve John was often referred to as the beloved disciple. He was the one who leaned on Jesus during the last supper, who accompanied him into Annas and Caiaphas’ judgment hall in the dead of night, and who stood at the foot of the cross as Jesus died. When Jesus met John he was volatile and ambitious. He and his brother were fishermen and along with their father Zebedee had a small business that kept the family afloat.
Jesus saw beyond John’s many shortcomings to the man he could be through the transforming power of God’s grace. The time he spent with Jesus opened John’s eyes to his own shortcomings. John saw what he could be when he looked at Jesus and instead of driving him away, the revelation drew him closer. The more time John spent with Jesus, the more he began to be like him. Jesus presented the perfect juxtaposition of power and tenderness, majesty and meekness, patience and strength and John craved that beauty.
John’s ministry to others was a result of his connection with Jesus. He was like a man who stood on the brink of a deep well filled with living water. The more time he spent with Jesus, the more water he drew from that well until it flowed out of him and nourished everyone he associated with.
During the five decades of his ministry, John witnessed the rapid spread of the gospel and the rabid opposition of the Roman world against both it and its followers. When the church suffered persecution under Nero, John along with the other apostles who were alive, worked hard to strengthen the faith of the believers and to encourage them to cling to Jesus.
When Peter and Paul fell to Nero’s tyranny John survived. He lived to be quite old, witnessing the destruction of Jerusalem and the ruin of the temple just as Jesus had predicted so many years before. But John’s ministry was interrupted by the hatred of the Jews. Their continuous accusations against him gathered enough momentum to have him summoned to Rome to answer for his faith. During his trial, his words were misconstrued and his views misrepresented. Given the chance to defend himself, John presented the facts clearly and lucidly but the more convincing his testimony the more rabid the expressions of hatred hurled against him.
Enraged by John’s reasoning and unbowed courage, the emperor Domitian ordered him to be cast into a caldron of boiling oil. It was a cruel way to die but Domitian was determined to destroy the final surviving disciple of Jesus in the cruelest way he could think of.
As John was placed in the cauldron the boiling oil did nothing to scald or mar his skin or his body. He sat there, as serene as a man in a vat of warm water. Defeated the Romans had no choice but to haul him out. But Domitian couldn’t release him so he exiled John to Patmos, which was nothing more than a barren rock in the middle of the Aegean Sea.
Strictly speaking, Patmos was a Roman penal colony especially set aside for exiling criminals but to John, Patmos became a sanctuary of divine revelation. It was here that John received the visions that would become the book of Revelation, a book written in symbols specifically for the church in the end times. Revelation unlocks the future, explaining what will take place just before Jesus comes so that we can prepare to meet him.
John’s life was long and fruitful. From the moment he met Jesus until he closed his eyes in death, he served God faithfully wherever he was needed. Called from a life as a fisherman, catapulted into the dizzying whirlwind of Jesus' earthly ministry, plunged into the horror of Jesus' death, John allowed his experience with Jesus to mold him into the man God wanted him to be. After Jesus' resurrection John’s ministry focused on caring for Jesus’ mother Mary and then after her death, John served as a missionary for many years before being exiled to Patmos where he wrote both the book of Revelation and the gospel of John.
In every stage of his spiritual life, regardless of how young or old he was, John was a faithful servant to his master. Wherever God placed him, he served with faithfulness and diligence. Whatever task was appointed to him he took it up with the assurance that God would do good work both in him and through him. John’s willingness to let God shape his life has made him a beacon of hope for millions over two thousand years. That is truly a life worth living.
