Think back through the highlights of your life. What makes things memorable? Poignant situations? Sights, sounds, and smells?
Response to tragedy? Joyful emotions of celebration? Embarrassment? Personal enlightenment? Life-changing experiences as well as natural life passages?
Imagine the impact of what the disciples saw, heard, and felt over the 3-4 years of Jesus’ “public” ministry. Hundreds of miracles – thousands of people stories – heights of exaltation as well as the lows of deep disappointment. Not to mention coming to terms with your once dead Master returning to life after you witnessed His public humiliation and execution.
The Gospels were recorded between 60 and 80 AD. John had many years to process what he had seen and heard – day after day – floods of deep, influential memories. In addition, he had the Holy Spirit to retrieve every etched moment, every character, and all the amazing experiences.
From John we gain much insight to what it meant to be a close companion of the Son of God. His experiences invite us to engage this same closeness in our own relationship with our King.
What are the things that make human relationships meaningful? The things that enhance relationship with God?
“This is the disciple who is testifying to these things and wrote these things, and we know that his testimony is true. And there are also many other things which Jesus did, which if they were written in detail, I suppose that even the world itself would not contain the books that would be written.” – John 21:24,25
“The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show to His bond-servants, the things which must soon take place; and He sent and communicated it by His angel to His bond-servant John, who testified to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw. Blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of the prophecy, and heed the things which are written in it; for the time is near.” – Revelation 1:1-3