Gospel of John, Part 5

Part 1 on this series on John’s Gospel is here.    

Part 2 is here:   

Part 3 is here.    

Part 4 is here. 

One last post on the Gospel of John, this on the resurrection scenes.  What is marvelous is the physicality of the resurrected Christ.  When He appears to Mary Magdalene and she finally realizes it is Him, she embraces Him.  He has to say, “Stop holding on to me” (John 20:17).  In the Vulgate Latin, it’s “Noli me tangere” or literally “Do not touch me.”  I don’t know which is the more accurate translation, I assume the more modern one, but both emphasize touch.  Well, one doesn’t touch a spirit.  One touches a body. 

And when Jesus appears to Thomas and He has Thomas put his hands into Christ’s wounds, we can sense along with Thomas Christ’s physicality.  Despite Jesus being able to go through walls, He is corporeal.  He is of a special type of flesh.

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Finally I noticed something in chapter 21 that I never noticed before.  After that marvelous scene where Jesus has Peter commit three times his love, and Jesus forecasts Peter’s death, Peter asks about the beloved disciple.

Peter turned and saw the disciple following whom Jesus loved, the one who had also reclined upon his chest during the supper and had said, “Master, who is the one who will betray you?”  When Peter saw him, he said to Jesus, “Lord, what about him?”  Jesus said to him, “What if I want him to remain until I come? What concern is it of yours? You follow me.”  So the word spread among the brothers that that disciple would not die. But Jesus had not told him that he would not die, just “What if I want him to remain until I come? [What concern is it of yours?]”  (John 21:21-23)

Of course I’ve read that passage many times, but I never noticed that John, who we know as the Beloved Disciple, was following Jesus.  Where is he going?  Does he disappear from the disciples?  We know that John is the only apostle who is not martyred.  We know he forms a community in Asia Minor, and he does disappear from the apostles in Acts.  What is strange is that Jesus asks Peter to metaphorically follow Him but it is John who physically follows Him here.  I don’t have an answer for that.  But it caught my attention.