Reading the Gospels Together The Story of the Last Meal – Part 4 First of all, John adds the significant story of the foot washing – in fact in some ways that is the heart of the event for John. Mark, Matthew, and Luke know nothing about this – or at least they do not tell their readers anything about it. As important as foot washing is for John and how important the concept which lies behind the foot washing is it seems strange that the others say nothing about it. Was John’s community so separated from the communities of the others that they had developed a whole new practice? This is one of the things that leads to the hypothesis that John’s community was not connected to what has sometimes been called the “Great Church” tradition out of which our own understanding of Christianity flows. So one might come to the conclusion that at least two forms of Christianity came forth following the death and resurrection of Jesus – the form which stands behind John’s gospel and the other that stand behind the “Great Church” of Mark, Matthew, and Luke. It is significant that these two forms do agree fundamentally with one another and that they are not really in conflict with one another. But it is interesting to ponder that perhaps there was more than one way in which the Christian faith unfolded. If that is so then a good question to also ponder is to ask what happened to the expression of the church that grew up around the community of John’s gospel. Of course the final answer is that if there was another expression of the church represented by John’s gospel that expression was finally swallowed up by the “Great Church” when the gospel and letters of John were accepted as part of the Biblical cannon. And along with that came the practice of foot washing – a practice that still seems somewhat foreign to the “Great Church” to which we belong. A second thing that John adds to the story is an emphasis on love within the community of God’s people. This is something that has been a major theme of John’s gospel all along. The theme is carried through in the letters of John too – “God is love. We love because God first loved us!” In a way this emphasis on love goes hand and hand with the foot washing. Both are signs of the love and service that believers give to one another. A third thing that John adds to the story is perhaps the most important contribution he makes. In John’s story Jesus is deeply concerned about how the followers of Jesus will survive once Jesus has departed from their midst. This is the main focus of John’s material and the reason John’s story gets so long. Jesus is concerned that the disciples do not experience abandonment and so he gives them the promise of the “advocate” who is the spiritual presence of Jesus himself with his disciples following his departure. John tells his readers that Jesus will send the Holy Spirit to be with them and to sustain them and to guide them. The Holy Spirit is the presence of Jesus even though Jesus has returned to the Father. And a final addition by John is a lengthy prayer by Jesus in which Jesus prays for his followers and for those who will come to believe in Jesus through their witness. Jesus prays for all who come to believe – and that includes us. We will notice that once the story moves to the garden at the Mount of Olives John will not include the story of Jesus praying in the Garden of Gethsemane. Could it be that John is aware that Jesus prayed on that fateful night and that he moves that prayer within the meal scene? Of course there is no way to answer that question with certainty but it is at least interesting that John knows of Jesus praying at the end of our just after the story of the meal in Jerusalem. John has added much. We can be thankful for all that he has included. Nothing that John adds conflicts with the story told by the others. We would be greatly lacking without John’s longer story of the meal and its extended discussion in the upper room. Before we leave this section it is important to note that there are problems within John’s gospel with respect to the flow of things. At the end of John 14 John seems to bring the story to an end only to pick it up again for three chapters. We do not need to discuss that here but only to notice this issue.