Jesus’ best friend

John: Thank you. But I am not the only “best friend” of Jesus. So are you and so is everyone else. You have this beautiful hymn, “What a Friend, we have in Jesus. All our sins and griefs to bear!” I tell you, Jesus is even more than “a friend” to us. Many of the prophets of God wrote or told their followers how to pray and in my time, my name sake, John the Baptist, taught his disciples how to pray. That’s why some of us, went to ask Jesus the same thing. Really, we expected him to say something like, “Almighty, all powerful, O great God” and so on, but he answered and told us to say, “Our Father.” You know what that means? He did not say, “Pray to ME or pray to MY Father.” But “OUR Father!” This means I am the brother of Jesus and so are you and so are all of us!

Interviewer: Jesus is my brother! What a wonderful feeling! Now, we know from the Bible that you, your brother James and Peter were selected to witness Jesus’ transfiguration where you saw Jesus speaking to Moses and Elias. You all saw the raising of Jairus’ daughter back to life and Jesus; agony in the garden of Gethsemane. Would you say that the three of you were his favourites?

John: It is not for me to say. But some of the disciples felt so. Further, when Jesus selected the 12 apostles he gave James and me the name “Boanerges” which means “The sons fo thunder.” And he called Peter, “Cephas” – which is Aramaic for “stone”. Once my mother went to Jesus and asked him to give my brother and me seats on each side of him when he should come into his kingdom. Needless to say, this caused a bit of displeasure among some of his followers.

Interviewer: That’s expected. At the crucifixion, you were the only apostle there with Mary his mother. Jesus said, “Woman, behold thy son,” and to you, “Behold, thy mother.” You wrote, “From that time the disciple took her to live in his home.” Later we learnt that Mary Magdalene told you that Jesus was not in the tomb. Can you tell us more about these incidents?

John: After Jesus died, Joseph of Arimathea one of his secret disciples went to Pontius Pilate and asked for the body. Pilate granted his request and Jesus was buried in a new tomb. Some followers were afraid that the Romans would crucify us — one by one. The burning question was, “Who would be next?” Would it be Peter, my brother James and so down the line? But we were not afraid to die for Jesus because he told us repeatedly during his three year ministry, “Do not be afraid. Believe in me. I go to prepare a place for you.”

It was the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene, from whom Jesus had cast out seven devils, came running as fast as she could and said to Peter and me, “They have take the Lord from the tomb, and we don’t know where they have put him.” Right away Peter and I dashed off. I reached before him and when I bent down, I saw an empty tomb. As soon as Peter came, puffing and panting, he went right into the sepulchre. Then I went in and we knew he had risen from the dead.

Interviewer: Well, John, our time is up. We leave our listeners with the words you wrote in 2 John 5, “Let us love one another.”