For reasons I shall discuss later, St. John's gospel provides details missing from the earlier three. Take, for example, the simple phrase in John 13:30, "and it was night." The thousands of paintings of the Last Supper are all incorrect. They all, by necessity, depict it in full daylight. In fact, it took place after dark, in the flickering light of multiple olive-oil lamps.
And while we are on the subject, the earliest record of the Last Supper is not in the gospels, but in St. Paul's first letter to the Corinthians (1 Cor. 10:16, 11:23-26), written about AD 55. We are so used to these words - they are incorporated into the liturgy - that we fail to see how extraordinary is the concept. The early church had to develop their worship services more or less from scratch, and naturally included prayers, preaching, and hymns. However, if they wanted something to specifically focus on Jesus, they would hardly have invented something like a common meal, where the bread and wine were somehow linked to his body and blood. Yet, here it is, less than a quarter century later, taken for granted as the central ritual of the service. The only conclusion is that the narrative is genuine at this point: they were acting on Jesus’ instructions, and that he himself was aware that his last day had arrived.
But we are digressing. The real action shifts to the olive grove known as the Garden of Gethsemane. It was late, probably after midnight, when Peter, James, and John were asked to keep company with Jesus while he prayed, but once they had sat down, they could hardly keep their eyes open. Suddenly, everything changed with the arrival of Judas and the temple police. In the face of a couple of hundred armed men, what did Peter do? He decided to defend his master! When the slave of the high priest grabbed Jesus, Peter swung his sword at his head. Fortunately, the latter ducked, but the sword took off his ear. At that moment there was a strong possibility that the disciples would be massacred. Jesus retrieved the ear, reattached it, and told Peter to put back his sword. The disciples scattered into the night.
However, for two of them, the night was far from over. Peter and John joined forces and decided to follow the arresting party, even though there was not much they could do. When the party entered the high priest's palace, John had an idea. He was known to the high priest personally. How is not explained. It has been suggested that, as a fisherman, he had been involved in the salt fish trade of the palace, but this is conjecture. In any case, he was known in a private capacity, not as a disciple of Jesus. He therefore went to the entrance and said to the girl keeping the door, in effect: "You know me - John bar Zebedee. Is it all right if I and my friend come in?"
Of course, we have all heard, over and over again, about Peter's denial of Christ. But this should not blind us to the sheer courage of the two disciples - especially since there was nothing they could do to help. (The other nine were more sensible.) We tend to imagine Peter and John huddled among an anonymous crowd of onlookers gathered outside. That would have been dangerous enough, but it wasn’t so. They were deep in enemy territory, so to speak: the only two members of the public in an enclosed space filled with the high priest's staff and the attendants of the temple police. Of course, they would attract attention!
The high priest's palace would have been similar to other Greek palaces. A narrow vestibule would have led to an open air court, from which all the other rooms branched off. At the far end it would have opened into the hall where the trial would have been taking place. In the glow of olive oil lamps one could see the Sanhedrin, the members themselves sleep deprived, seated in a horseshoe formation with the accused, Jesus standing in the middle. Standing! Imagine being required to stand for hours on end in the early hours of the morning, when you have not only had no sleep, but had been through a traumatic emotional event such as Jesus' agony in the garden.
But we digress. It is now the third watch of the night: from midnight to three. An hour ago the two apostles could hardly keep their eyes open. Now they are running on adrenalin. John, I presume, kept a low profile and prayed that nobody would call him out. Meanwhile, Peter warmed himself at a brazier someone had set up in the courtyard. When someone identified him as one of Jesus' disciples, he suddenly realised that everybody surrounding him were enemies. Panic-stricken, he denied it all. What most of us do not notice is what he didn't do. Unlike any normal person in that predicament, he did not get the heck out of there. He merely retreated to the shadows. He was still determined to stay on. If the bugle sounding the start of the fourth watch (the "cock crow") hadn't sounded just as he had made his third denial, he probably would have stuck it out to the end.
While Peter slunk away in shame, John appears to have stuck it out to the bitter end. We next meet him as the sole male disciple keeping vigil at the cross. He would also be offering consolation to his own mother, who was one of the women there. We tend to forget that. Then Jesus committed his mother, Mary to John's care.
On Good Friday we naturally focus on the Savior's suffering, as is right and proper. But we tend to forget that the witnesses were flesh and blood too. The women remained there throughout the day from 9 o'clock till almost sunset, without food, and probably without anything to drink. And John? Apart from perhaps a half hour in Gethsemane, he had not slept since early morning the previous day. Throughout the wee hours of the morning, and the first three hours of sunlight, he had been running on adrenaline. Now the reaction would have set in; he would be like a limp rag. He hadn't eaten, and probably hadn't drunk anything since the Last Supper. And I don't suppose there were many public lavatories in the vicinity.
Finally, as the day was declining, he dragged his feet through the streets, escorting his mother, and Jesus' mother, back to whatever accommodation they had in the city. Now, where was he to go? The disciples had expected to sleep in Gethsemane the previous night. A bit of thought would have shown him that there was only a single "safe house" in Jerusalem: the upper room where they had eaten the Last Supper. When he arrived, he discovered that the other nine had come to the same conclusion. We never ask ourselves how the women knew where the disciples were staying the following Sunday when they reported the empty tomb, but it is not difficult to work it out.
Afterwards
Peter and John had become a team. When the women reported the tomb being empty, it was those two who followed Mary Magdalene back to the tomb to see for themselves. After Pentecost, we find them preaching together in the temple. Later they were sent to look into the revival taking place in Samaria.
After that, they appear to have parted ways. In hundreds of separate sermons Peter would have told the story of his denial of Jesus as a lesson in forgiveness, and a second chance. What he failed to emphasize was the sheer courage required to enter the palace in the first place, and to remain there even after he had been identified. He also failed to mention that it was he himself, and not some random disciple, who rashly decided to defend his master in the face of a small army of armed men. Finally, after 30 years, he became a martyr at Rome. In his absence, his assistant, St. Mark wrote down the stories he had told in some sort of order, in the gospel which now bears his name.
About the same time, St. John moved to Ephesus. There, at an age when most of us would be considering retirement, this redoubtable apostle began his greatest work. For 30 years he cast a long shadow over all the churches of what is now western Turkey. Finally, his congregation came to him and said, in effect: "You are the last of the apostles. When you die, all these great stories you have been telling us will be lost. You have to write them down."
St. John's gospel was written with the other three gospels in front of him. This is the only way one can explain the almost total absence of nearly all the material about the Galilean ministry recorded in the other three. When it comes to the climax of the story, John adds new material. With respect to material recorded by the others, he either passes over it, or elaborates on it. He appears to have examined each item, and put it in one of two pigeon-holes:
(a) They already know about this; there is no need to say more.
(b) In this case, it is about time the world knew the full story about what happened during that terrible 24 hours that changed the world.
