2025/10/27

219. The Priesthood and the Gospel of John

The fishermen who followed Jesus and became Apostles after hearing his word became the first to eat from the Tree of Life, which no one had ever eaten from before. Thus, Jesus Christ showed the world "the way to the tree of life" (Gen 3:24), which God had protected by expelling Adam and placing cherubim east of the Garden of Eden with the flaming sword turning every way. That was as Jesus said, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me" (Jn 14:6). Jesus spoke these words in the Gospel of John. 

The priesthood is a major theme in the Gospel of John. The words that the priest says to the heavenly Father on the altar, "so that it may become for us the Body and Blood of your most beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ," cause the same phenomenon in the priest as what happened to Mary, the mother of Jesus. At that moment, the Holy Spirit descends on the priest, and the power of the Most High overshadows him. So, the child to be born, the Eucharist, "will be called holy, the Son of God" (Lk 1:35). The Mother who gave birth to Jesus in the world, filled with the Holy Spirit, symbolises the priesthood. On the cross, Jesus united his mother and the disciple whom he loved in a parent-child tie. The Gospel says, "And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home" (Jn 19:27). This scene informs the successors of the Apostles that the proof is here that Jesus conferred the new priesthood on the Apostles and that they received it. 

The content of John's Gospel develops, often relating to the three Synoptic Gospels, as described below. It does so in order to get at the theme of the priesthood. As discussed in the previous issue, the dialogue between Jesus and Peter in Luke's Gospel, when Jesus summons the first disciples, contained a significant context for the priesthood. When Jesus finished teaching the people from Peter's boat, he instructed Peter to let down the nets for a catch. To which Peter replied, "Master, we toiled all night and took nothing! But at your word I will let down the nets" (Lk 5:5). These words of obedience by one man who would later receive the priesthood, cancelled Adam's disobedience to God, which was the source of many people's sins. This obedience, which was derived under Jesus' guidance, was inherited by the successors of the Apostles and became the foundation on which many were made righteous. 

Peter, surprised by the great catch, said, "Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord" (Lk 5:8). These words were accepted by God as words that met his will and made up for Adam's treachery to God. Peter was chosen to be the one to fulfil God's words to Adam in Genesis, "In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; you are dust, and to dust you shall return" (Gen 3:19), i.e., the one to assume the priesthood. The words, "In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread," refer to the priesthood. In the words of God that follow, the hope is implied that even with the natural body of a creature returning to the earth, one will be resurrected as one who returns to a body of dust, which God has formed from the dust of the earth and breathed into it the "breath of life" (2:7). The new priesthood is charged with bringing this hope to all. That is testified to by the words of Jesus when he said, "Henceforth you will be catching men" (Lk 5:10). 

Apostle Peter was not only chosen as the head of the Apostles and the rock of the Church, but was also the Second Adam, so to speak, whom Old Testament history had prepared to be given the priesthood so that He could celebrate with the people the days that He had blessed and hallowed (cf. Gen 2:3). This important dialogue between Jesus and Peter in Luke's Gospel can be more clearly understood by connecting it with the scene in John's Gospel when he summons the first disciples, as follows. And we can also make up for the fact that the name of Peter's brother, Andrew, is not mentioned in this important scene. 

According to the Gospel of John, one of the first two among the disciples of John the Baptist to follow Jesus was Simon Peter's brother, Andrew. He took Simon to Jesus. Jesus looked at him and said, "So you are Simon the son of John? You shall be called Cephas (which means Peter)" (Jn 1:42). If we read the scene of the fishermen in Luke's Gospel based on this sequence of events, we see that Jesus and Peter had not met each other for the first time, which makes us focus on the dialogue between them here. 

Maria K. M.