A peculiar designation is given to the brothers James and John. Jesus surnamed them Boanerges, the sons of thunder. There must have been a meaning in such a name given by Jesus himself. Perhaps the figure of thunder suggests capacity for energy--that the soul of John was charged, as it were, with fiery zeal. It appears to us, as we read John's writings, that this could not have been true. He seems such a man of love that we cannot think of him as ever being possessed of an opposite feeling. But there is evidence that by nature he was full of just such energy held in reserve. We see John chiefly in his writings; and these were the fruit of his mellow old age, when love's lessons had been well learned. It seems likely that in his youth he had in his breast a naturally quick, fiery temper. But under the culture of Jesus this spirit was brought into complete mastery. We have one illustration of this earlier natural feeling in a familiar incident. The people of a certain village refused to receive the Master, and John and his brother wished to call down fire from heaven to consume them. But Jesus reminded them that he was not in the world to destroy men's lives, but to save them.
We know not how often this lesson had to be taught to John before he became the apostle of love. It was well on in St. Paul's old age that he said he had learned in whatsoever state he was therein to be content. It is a comfort to us to know that he was not always able to say this, and that the lesson had to be learned by him just as it has to be learned by us. It is a comfort to us also to be permitted to believe that John had to _learn_ to be the loving, gentle disciple he became in later life, and that the lesson was not an easy one.
It is instructive also to remember that it was through his friendship with Jesus that John received his sweetness and lovingness of character. An old Persian apologue tells that one found a piece of fragrant clay in his garden, and that when asked how it got its perfume the clay replied, "One laid me on a rose." John lived near the heart of Jesus, and the love of that heart of gentleness entered his soul and transformed him. There is no other secret for any who would learn love's great lesson. Abiding in Christ, Christ abides also in us, and we are made like him because he lives in us.
John's distinction of being one of the Master's closest friends brought him several times into experiences of peculiar sacredness. He witnessed the transfiguration, when for an hour the real glory of the Christ shone out through his investiture of flesh. This was a vision John never forgot. It must have impressed itself deeply upon his soul. He was also one of those who were led into the inner shadows of Gethsemane, to be near Jesus while he suffered, and to comfort him with love.
This last experience especially suggests to us something of what the friendship of John was to Jesus. There is no doubt that this friendship brought to John immeasurable comfort and blessing, enriching his life, and transforming his character. But what was the friendship to Jesus? There is no doubt that it was a great deal to him. He craved affection and sympathy, as every noble heart does just in the measure of its humanness. One of the saddest elements of the Gethsemane sorrow was the disappointment of Jesus, when, hungry for love, he went back to his chosen three, expecting to find a little comfort and strength, and found them sleeping.
The picture of John at the Last Supper, leaning on Jesus' breast, shows him to us in the posture in which we think of him most. It is the place of confidence; the bosom is only for those who have a right to closest intimacy. It is the place of love, near the heart. It is the place of safety, for he is in the clasp of the everlasting arms, and none can snatch him out of the impregnable shelter. It was the darkest night the world ever saw that John lay on the bosom of Jesus. That is the place of comfort for all sorrowing believers, and there is abundance of room for them all on that breast. John _leaned_ on Jesus' breast,--weakness reposed on strength, helplessness on almighty help. We should learn to lean, to lean our whole weight, on Christ. That is the privilege of Christian faith.