Homily for the Day of the Repose of the Holy, Glorious, and All-Praised Apostle and Evangelist John the Theologian
By St. Innocent of Kherson
By St. Innocent of Kherson
We celebrate the repose of John. But did he die? Is he not still alive? These are unexpected questions, but it is not curiosity that prompts us to raise them; it is the Gospel itself, for you have heard what is said concerning John: “And this saying went abroad among the brethren, that that disciple should not die” (John 21:23). The brethren of the divinely illumined Apostolic Church could not have lightly seized upon a dream of their imagination and arbitrarily presented it as an interpretation of the Savior’s words. Moreover, when the Gospel mentions the expectation “that that disciple should not die,” it does not refute it as something impossible that arose from a misunderstanding of the Savior’s words concerning John, but merely limits its cause and basis to their precise bounds, guarding against every exaggeration: “Yet Jesus said not unto him, He shall not die; but, If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to you?” (John 21:23).
In the Church hymn sung yesterday in honor of Saint John, we hear something even more; there he is directly and clearly called “still living and awaiting the fearful Second Coming of the Master” (Sticheron at Small Vespers).
If Saint John, then, did not die and is still alive, how do we celebrate the day of his repose? Is this not similar to someone commemorating as dead a man who remains alive?
No, John truly departed this life, for he is no longer on earth, although he did not die in the manner in which all ordinarily die. This very thing is expressed in the Church hymn cited above, when it calls him “received from the earth and yet not departing from the earth.” For what is meant by departed? It is when a person who lived among us is no longer on earth; when he ceases to be counted among the living and becomes forever invisible, as happens with the dead. In this sense Saint John departed this life, for, from the second century of Christianity onward, he was no longer on earth among men.
What do we call death? The separation of the soul from the body, as a consequence of which the soul departs into another world, while the body is dissolved into its parts and returns to dust. In this sense, it can rightly be said of Saint John that he did not die.
To understand this better, let us hear what the sacred Tradition of the Church says concerning the Apostle’s repose:
“Having completed one hundred years and more of his life, he went out from the house of the Lord with seven of his disciples, and having reached a certain place, he commanded them to sit there. It was toward morning, and he withdrew a stone’s throw away and prayed. Then, after his disciples had dug a grave in the form of a cross, its length corresponding to his height, as he had commanded them, he instructed Prochoros to go to Jerusalem and remain there until his death. Having instructed the disciples and kissed them, he said: ‘Bring earth, my mother, and cover me.’ And the disciples kissed him and covered him up to his knees. And after he had again kissed them, they covered him up to his neck, and placed a veil over his face. And having kissed him, they covered him completely, weeping bitterly. When the brethren in the city heard this, they came and, having uncovered the grave, found nothing there, and they wept greatly. Then, having prayed, they returned to the city. Every year, however, from his grave there appeared fine dust on the eighth day of the month of May, and through the prayers of the Holy Apostle John it granted healing to the sick, to the glory of God who is praised in Trinity, unto the ages of ages.”
Having weighed the force of this tradition with all due care, should we not say of Saint John precisely what we have said, following the words of the Church hymn, namely, that he departed from us and yet is alive; that he died and yet did not die, in accordance with the mysterious prophecy of the Lord concerning him?
Thus, the seemingly irreconcilable contradiction concerning John’s repose is easily resolved: the Church is right to celebrate the day of his repose, and the brethren of the Apostolic Church are free from any charge of frivolity for expecting “that that disciple should not die.”
Let this example teach us, among other things, not to be troubled if we sometimes encounter in the narratives and actions of the Church something resembling a contradiction. Upon examining the matter more deeply and taking all the circumstances into consideration, it will certainly prove that this contradiction, as in the present case, is only apparent. We should not be troubled even if we ourselves are unable to resolve some difficulty. We may not resolve it, but others will. And even if no one should resolve some other difficulty, that too is not surprising and cannot serve as a reproach against the Church. Natural scientists boast of their knowledge of nature, but how much remains in it that is unresolved by every effort of the mind! Yet no one dares to reject what cannot be resolved, and one who did so would appear foolish. But the Kingdom of grace, of which the Church serves as the realization on earth, is incomparably more vast and exalted than the kingdom of nature. Is it surprising, therefore, that there are things in it that are difficult to comprehend?
But let us return to John. What a wondrous destiny was his! Why did it fall to him and not to one of the other Apostles? Was it because he was the disciple “whom Jesus loved” (John 13:23)? But the love of Jesus is not like ordinary human love; there is no partiality in it. It loves according to what the object of its love deserves. Whoever does the will of the Heavenly Father, as He Himself said, is His brother and mother (Mark 3:34–35). Therefore, the cause and foundation of John’s wondrous destiny are hidden within him. In what, precisely?
The very name by which the Holy Church distinguishes him from the other Apostles may help us resolve this. For the names given by the Church are not empty names, but express the character of a person or thing. What, then, does she call John? Theologian.
We too are sometimes called theologians, but our theology consists for the most part only of thoughts and words. John’s theology was not like this. He was in God, and God was in him; hence the extraordinary height of his teaching: “for God is light” (1 John 1:5). Hence also the overflowing love in John’s writings and explanations: for “God is love” (1 John 4:16). And this light and love, united together, produced such an abundance of eternal life even in time, even in John’s mortal body, that “the mortal was swallowed up by life” in him (1 Corinthians 15:54), without that transformation which consists in the separation of the soul from the body and which we ordinarily call death.
Was it not a foretaste of this very thing that guided John’s hand when he wrote: “We know that we have passed from death” (1 John 3:14)? Without doubt, this passage from life to death had first taken place in John’s spirit, but afterward, according to the natural order not only of grace but also of nature itself, it extended from above downward, spreading even to his bodily nature and, throughout his long life—for John lived more than one hundred years—preparing it for immediate entry into the spiritual world, so that perhaps the very act of his disciples covering his body with earth was commanded by him not because of any necessity for him personally, but solely out of humility.
And what is so astonishing if Christ’s beloved disciple continues to grow even on earth toward the measure of the future resurrection of the dead? By Christ’s death the power of death has been so decisively overthrown, and by the grace of the Holy Spirit so many means to eternal life have been given to us, that we ought rather to marvel at how few people attain such perfection. “The sting of death is sin” (1 Corinthians 15:56), says the Apostle. Therefore, he in whom this sting has been crushed is inaccessible to death. And how could there not be among the multitude of those who believe in the name of Christ some who, by His grace, have been completely purified from every sin?
And yet, you will say, the greatest saints died. We do not dispute this. We only consider it our duty to note that what is attributed to John could have happened not only to him: that although he passed through the way of the grave, in reality he was not subject to death in the same manner as we are. For, as the accounts testify—for example, the Ladder of John Climacus—the body of not only John was not found in the grave after his death, but the bodies of certain other saints were not found either, beginning with the Mother of God.
If the bodies of the other saints remain among us on earth, nevertheless there take place in them things no less wondrous than their departure in the flesh to heaven. First among these is their incorruption. For if anything is especially subject to the destructive action of the elements, it is the human body when abandoned by the soul. Yet the bodies of the saints, often lying in the very midst of corruption, remain unharmed for entire centuries and millennia. What is this, if not an invisible and unceasing reflection of eternal life in them, a transitory triumph of it over death in the very midst of its own domain? To this wondrous quality of incorruption there are ordinarily added other gifts, such as the healing of diseases, the expulsion of evil spirits, and sometimes even the raising of the dead. In this case, there is something even more wondrous: we see that holy flesh, even after its separation from the spirit, through the presence of the power of grace within it, is so mighty that it performs deeds surpassing all the powers of nature.
Let us cease, then, to be perplexed and astonished by what is related to us concerning John. Instead of perplexity, let us strive to follow the path he has left for us. For all of us, despite our unworthiness, are called to bear the name of theologians and teachers of the faith. Let us therefore, like him, be theologians not in name alone, but in deed and in truth. We too shall become such if we walk in the light and do the works of God; if we purify ourselves, just as “He, our Savior, is pure” (1 John 3:3); if we love our brethren as He loved us; and if, finally, not only our lips but our entire life becomes an instrument of the glory of God.
Then we too, having completed our earthly course, shall pass from death to life, though not as wondrously as John, but as befits every true follower of Christ, and all the more so as a herald of His name, worthy of all worship. May this be so for all of you and for us, through the prayers of Christ’s Evangelist! Amen.
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
