Besides Mary the mother of Jesus, I believe that the apostle John and Mary Magdalene had the most unique relationship with Jesus of all the other followers. Mary Magdalene was the first person that Jesus revealed himself to in his resurrection, but John was the first person to believe, and John believed without having to have Jesus appear to him after the resurrection. Even Mary Magdalene, when she first saw the empty tomb fled, not believing that He had risen, but believing that someone had stolen His body. Early on resurrection morning Mary and other women came to the tomb and when they saw that the stone was rolled away and the body gone, Mary ran to tell Peter and John that the body had been taken away and they didn’t know where to find it. Peter and John immediately started to run to the tomb. John arrived first, stepped inside, and saw the linen wrappings lying there but he did not go in. Peter followed him, immediately entered the tomb, and saw the linen wrappings and the face cloth which had been on the head of Jesus. The face cloth was not lying with the linen wrappings, but rolled up in a place by itself. At that point John decided to enter the tomb and he saw the same thing, then he believed.
John 20:3-8 NASB; So Peter and the other disciple went forth, and they were going to the tomb. [4] The two were running together; and the other disciple ran ahead faster than Peter and came to the tomb first; [5] and stooping and looking in, he saw the linen wrappings lying there; but he did not go in. [6] And so Simon Peter also came, following him, and entered the tomb; and he saw the linen wrappings lying there, [7] and the face-cloth which had been on His head, not lying with the linen wrappings, but rolled up in a place by itself. [8] So the other disciple who had first come to the tomb then also entered, and he saw and believed.
The question I ask is, “Why was John so quick to believe. and yet all the other disciples, including Mary and the other women who were close followers of Jesus, did not believe until Jesus personally appeared to them?” All of these others had personal encounters with the risen Christ before they could believe, and yet John was different. Why? I believe the simple answer is found in John 13:23, the night before the crucifixion in the upper room during the Last Supper. It says this simple thing about John; “There was reclining on Jesus’s breast one of His disciples, whom Jesus loved.” The actual grammar there should be “whom Jesus was always loving,” and I believe that in that moment, leaning on the breast of Jesus, in that place of intimacy, John heard the heartbeat of Jesus, and it changed his life forever. When I say heartbeat, I don’t mean the physical heartbeat of Jesus, but I mean, he heard what was in the heart of Jesus, and it forever changed the way he thought about himself. Including this verse, five times over the rest of the gospel of John, whenever John referenced himself, he always referred to himself as the disciple whom Jesus was always loving. Even in John 20 when Mary ran from the tomb to tell Peter and John that the body was missing, John said that “she ran and came to Simon Peter, and to the other disciple whom Jesus was always loving.” (John 20:2)
When John was about 93 years, old exiled to the Isle of Patmos he wrote the book of the Revelation, (by the way, the last thing you wrote when he was about 95 years old was the gospel of John) and in his opening statements addressing the seven churches in Asia John said in verse 5, “and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. To Him who is always loving us, and released us from our sins by His blood.” This could be as many as over 60 years after John had his experience in the upper room with his head on the breast of Jesus, and yet what he understood about Jesus after that experience in John 13, and what he therefore understood about himself and his true identity as the one who Jesus is always loving, never left Him.
Stick with me here in my thinking. I believe because of John’s encounter in that place of intimacy in the upper room the night before the crucifixion, it was easy for him to believe when he went inside the empty tomb, because he knew the heart of his Lord. If you remember, Jesus told all the disciples on that evening, the night before good Friday, that when things started to go down on the day of his crucifixion that all the disciples would abandon him, and they did, except for the fact that after initially running, John came back and stood with the women at the foot of the cross. He was the only apostle to do so. What happened? What caused him to be able to overcome his fears and and stand at the foot of the Cross? I believe it was because the heartbeat of Christ pounded in his ears, and it came to him that the Cross was not some horrible capture and disaster, but was of course the place where the love of God would lead Jesus. He knew after that night on the breast of Jesus, that the love of Christ would take Jesus that far, even to the suffering and death of the Cross. John came back to the cross because he BELIEVED, and he believed because he knew how much Jesus loved, and I also think that when he looked inside the empty tomb, it was easy for him to believe that Jesus was risen.
John was the only gospel writer that wrote about the upper room discourse, and during that upper room discourse Jesus said in John 14:18 – 19, “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. After a little while the world will behold Me no more; you will behold me; because I live, you shall live also.” Jesus promised them life and life more abundant. The Jewish hope of the coming Messiah was that He would make all things new. The Messiah was to come and put away the old order, and to create a whole new world and order, and a whole new humanity. John heard the heartbeat of Jesus, and that heartbeat was to make all things new, and I believe that’s why it was easy for John to believe that Jesus going to the cross was part of God’s plan to make all things new in Christ, and that the resurrection had to happen because Jesus promised “because I live, you shall live also.” All those who had extraordinary encounters with the risen Christ stirs my heart, because I love to have that kind of encounters with Jesus, but the encounter that John had at the breast of Jesus with the massive nature of the love of God for him personally, was the most significant encounter of all. It was why he was the first to believe in the resurrection, though he had the least amount of physical evidence. No angel had talked to him; there been no personal moment with the resurrected Christ, but he believed that Jesus was risen. You see, faith works through love. I encourage to get along with Jesus and lay your head on his breast until you hear Is heartbeat of love for you. Stay there until you KNOW, and if you will your understanding of who he is, and who you are will change forever, and believing will become like breathing, because the heartbeat of Christ will forever cause your heart to beat a little faster.