Reading the Gospels Together The Storyline of John’s Gospel – Part 14 But, the gospel of John will continue for one more chapter. Once again we are at one of the glaring “seams” in John’s gospel. John’s storyline would be complete without this last chapter. And at one point in time it is very likely that John’s gospel ended at this point. But the last chapter has been added and we can be pleased that it has. The last chapter does tie up a few loose ends in the story. The last chapter begins with a story set at an indefinite time later than the story of Jesus and his disciples in the upper room in Jerusalem on the second Sunday following Jesus’ death. The setting of the story is on the banks of the Sea of Galilee. This may be a bit surprising to readers of John’s gospel since so little of his gospel is set in Galilee. John tells his readers that seven disciples are present – Simon Peter, Thomas, Nathaniel, the sons of Zebedee, and two unnamed others. We learn later that one of these unnamed others was the beloved disciple. The story that John tells is one that Luke had used in a completely different context. The disciples have gone fishing. They have no success. So Jesus tells them to cast their net on the other side of the boat. And a great catch of fish are gathering in. At this point John tells his readers of the presence of the beloved disciple who recognizes that it is Jesus. He tells Peter and Peter puts on his clothes and jumps into the sea to get to Jesus. On the beach there is a charcoal fire burning – just like the charcoal fire in the courtyard of the high priest. Jesus feed his disciples with the fish he already has been cooking and then he encounters Peter. By the charcoal fire in the courtyard Peter had denied Jesus three times. Here, by the charcoal fire, Peter is given three opportunities to repent and in the end Peter is restored. Following the restoration of Peter, the beloved disciple makes one more appearance. Peter asks Jesus what will become of the beloved disciple and is told that, in effect, that is nothing of Peter’s business. If Jesus wants that disciple to live until his return so be it. But then John tells his readers that Jesus was not predicting that the beloved disciple would live until his return but only used his comment as hyperbolic speech to Peter that the fate of the beloved disciple was not Peter’s concern. Apparently, within the community of John’s gospel the belief had arisen that the beloved disciple would not die but that he had in fact now died. Was Jesus wrong? The writer of John’s gospel corrects the false expectation and perhaps that is one of the reasons why this last chapter was added to what was already a completed storyline. At any rate John goes on to tell his readers that it is the witness of this beloved disciple that stands behind this whole gospel. Only the gospel of John makes such a claim that one of Jesus’ closest disciples is at the foundation of the writing of a gospel. This is a significant claim and deserves our attention. And so we have come to the end of tracing the storylines of each of the four gospels. We have uncovered some striking similarities and also some striking differences. We have discovered that each of the gospel writers tells a unique and different story from the others. No two storylines are the same. We are now ready place these storylines beside each other and look for the points of connection between them. We will move to that in the next chapter.