The end of John’s gospel is unusual in many ways. Firstly there are two clearly distinct endings (in Chapters 20 and 21) which must have been brought together from separate materials at some early point in the compilation of the gospel as it has come down to us. It is also notable that the accounts of activity after the resurrection are very brief (remarkably so given the length and detail in the rest of this gospel). And the things that John chooses to include are very distinctive. That’s true of much of John’s material, but the absence of any mention of Pentecost or the Ascension is nevertheless striking.
As we noted also of the Eucharist, it’s not that John doesn’t mention these things – he includes extensive commentary in the long passages he places before Jesus’ passion. But after the Resurrection, in the first ending that we hear today (Jn 20:19-31), all he has is two brief meetings with the apostles. The final words that Jesus says before John closes off his gospel are: “Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed” – a very obvious message to his contemporary audience, who wouldn’t have known Jesus personally, and to all of us following later.
The impact of that belief is varied and evolving, then and now.
Our first reading from the Acts of the Apostles (Acts 4:32-35) presents an idealized view of the social structure in the early church – “they had everything in common”. We know from Paul’s letters that this was not universally true even at the very beginning, and the degrees of inequality that developed in the church emerged very quickly. Those inequalities became the defining feature of much of medieval life and continue in various forms today.
We may also note that the dramatic change that overcame the disciples at Pentecost is not reflected in John’s account. In Jesus’ first appearance ‘he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit”’, but in the second, a week later, they were still behind locked doors. No sudden transformation to fearless proselytizers here.
We’d like to believe that there is a simple, sequential story that follows on from the Resurrection, but nothing in the New Testament supports that. Whatever happened, happened gradually, for different people and different communities in different ways. Just as for us now, the important issue is not the details of what happened, in what order, but the overall message that Jesus left behind and the animation of the Spirit who is his presence with us still: ‘God with us’, from birth, to death, in His resurrection and ours.