Chase The Kangaroo

The Love That Remains

Not all witnesses die young.

After Christmas and after Stephen, the Church gives us John. This is deliberate.

If St. Stephen shows us the cost of love in a single, shattering moment, John the Evangelist shows us the cost of love stretched across years. Across decades. Across disappointment, opposition, and endurance.

John is heroic, but not dramatic.

He is remembered not for how he died, but for how long he stayed.

John was there at the beginning. He walked with Jesus. He heard the teaching firsthand. He watched the miracles unfold. He leaned close enough at the Last Supper to hear what others could not.

And then he watched nearly everyone else fall away.
Stephen is killed.
James is executed.
Peter is imprisoned and eventually martyred.
John remains.

Tradition tells us he survives persecution, exile, and isolation. He outlives his friends. He outlives the first generation of believers. He lives long enough to see the Church grow, fracture, struggle, and endure.

That is not a lesser calling. It is a harder one.

John’s Gospel opens differently than all the others.
No manger.
No shepherds.
No angels in fields.

Instead:
In the beginning was the Word.

John refuses to let Christmas shrink. The child born in time is the Word through whom all things were made. From the first sentence, John insists that the Incarnation carries eternal weight.

And yet, he never loses intimacy.
The Word becomes flesh.
The light enters darkness.
Love draws near and stays.

John does not separate Christmas from the Cross. He understands from the beginning that love will be tested, resisted, and misunderstood. And still, he writes decades later without bitterness.

That is his heroism.

John speaks of love more directly than any other biblical writer. But his love is not soft.

Love, for John, is truth that remains when enthusiasm fades.
Love abides when belief becomes lonely.
Love stays when leaving would be easier.

As John writes late in life, with no urgency left to prove himself, “Let what you heard from the beginning abide in you.”

Not novelty.
Not reinvention.
What was true at the beginning, held without release.

This is why the Church places John here, on December 27.
After arrival.
After cost.
Before revelation.

John stands as proof that faithfulness is not always proven in a moment of courage. Sometimes it is proven by waking up again and again and choosing not to abandon what you know to be true.

John is the disciple who stays at the foot of the cross.

While others scatter, he remains. While others fear association, he stands close enough to be entrusted with Mary’s care. Love, for John, is proximity when distance would be safer.

And decades later, when he writes, his voice is steady. Not loud. Not defensive. Certain.

God is love.
Not agreeable.
Not sentimental.
Faithful.

St. John the Evangelist reminds us that the Christian life is not always a blaze of witness. Often, it is a long obedience. A steady refusal to leave. A quiet heroism that no one applauds.

Not all are called to die for Christ.
All are called to remain with Him.

Love came near at Christmas.
Love was tested with Stephen.
Love endured with John.
And that love still abides.