Janet Driver

< " In the beginning...what does that phrase call to mind ?..." In the beginning...a scientific formula... ?... or... the first few wordsof the Bible.../... the opening words of St John's Gospel...?

today we celebrate the life of St John the gospel writer... but he kept himself carefully anonymous in the Gospel... "the other disciple"... then much later "the beloved disciple"... which sounds rather odd to our ears, but maybe was quite ok in his own culture ? after all,it does seem that he was very close to Jesus ( being requested by Peter to just lean back and ask who was going to betray him...clearly expecting the response could easily be quietly whispered to him as he was so near : John 13 v 21 - 25 ) and he is theonly Gospel writer who claims to have been an eye-witness...eg John 19 v 35 & also John 21 v 20f... so, although we know little about whohe was... except through glimpses and hints& guesses intheGospels... maybe this is the important thing to celebrate today... that we have aneyewitness who wrote down, or morelikely dictated to a scribe, what he had actually seen of the life of Jesus, and the impact itmade on him... we can celebrate and read his Gospel in a new light... realising that here we have an eyewitness... * and if youdoubt this, and have been taught that this Gospel was written much later...then do look at "The Priority of John" by John Robinson (1984) and read the narrative parts of John's Gospel, and see foryourself... yes, he gives us a different angle on things than St Mark... and remember that Matthe & Luke are following Mark's account & not giving us independent eyewitness versions that happen to agree with his version of events... so maybe Jesus did spend much more time with individuals, as John suggests, and had at least three years before being arrested, ratherthanthe ratherhurried single year suggested by Mark...enjoy reading St Hohn's Gospel & take the life of Jesus at a slower, moremeditative pace... let it bring tears to your eyes... notice things... look at Jesus himself through the eyes of someone who was very close to him... and celebrate the life of this remarkable writer...enjoy :)