Tarry - John 21:18-25

Peter more clearly understands his role in God’s kingdom now, he’s not meant to simply go home and live out a peaceful existence, he is to preach the gospel and accept whatever consequences come with that. I think about Peter’s family who probably miss him, and the fact that they had to sacrifice their husband and father for the sake of the kingdom, and maybe they had to work in different ways to make ends meet, maybe sometimes they had to go without. But because of their sacrifice the gospel of Jesus Christ went out into the world and changed history and as much as I wouldn’t want them to suffer, I’m grateful that they were willing to do so for the rest of us to have the good news.

The Savior adds in a little tidbit at the end of teaching Peter to “feed my sheep” and I read this over and over and I couldn’t figure out what they were talking about and the interpretation that John gives, I don’t understand how that’s what it means. Jesus says basically that when Peter was young he could take care of himself and do what he wanted, but when he’s old, other people will “gird thee, and carry thee whither thou wouldest not.” John explains, “This spake he, signifying by what death he should glorify God.” It seems like Jesus was explaining to Peter the job that he wanted him to do and what the consequences would be. After all that they had been through together Peter is going to have to look at all the options and costs of either heading up Christ’s church or going home and living out an uneventful life, and Jesus is making sure that he knows what he’s getting himself in to.
We all know that Peter chose to lead the church and spread the gospel and we know that his family sacrificed for him to be able to do so, but the IM tells us that Jesus was accurate in predicting a death that would honor him. The IM says, “It is generally believed that Peter was put to death in Rome about A.D. 64 or 65, during Nero’s persecution of Christians. Tradition holds that Peter was crucified head downward, having protested that he was unworthy to die in the same manner as the Lord. Regardless of the exact manner in which Peter was killed, the Savior’s prophecy that Peter would ‘glorify God’ was certainly fulfilled. Both in his life and his death, Peter exemplified the kind of discipleship the Lord had invited His followers to have: ‘Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.’”
It was probably a lot to consider and pretty overwhelming for him, but ultimately we know what he chose to do. Apparently, while Jesus and Peter are having this discussion, John approaches and asks, “Lord, which is he that betrayeth thee?” I briefly looked for something that explains why John would ask Jesus this question, but I couldn’t find anything so I’m just going to have to speculate. It had been a couple of weeks since the crucifixion, Judas was dead, but I wonder how long it took for the other disciples to figure out that he wasn’t coming back. For me, this question from John indicates that the other disciples at this point didn’t know what Judas had done. It’s difficult to read an account that explains all the facts in hindsight because then we assume that all the players knew all the facts at the same time that we do, but that doesn’t seem to be the case here.
Just really quickly an aside on Judas, my family was discussing his betrayal of the Savior a couple of weeks ago and one perspective that was brought up came from my mom who said that once a Sunday School teacher of hers told the class that Judas was the holder of the purse, he was the treasurer. Because he was in charge of the money and knew that the chief priests were willing to pay 30 pieces of silver, Judas went there to give them the information so that they could have the money for the purse. Judas had seen previously that Jesus miraculously escaped murderous mobs, and really, had no reason to believe that this case would be any different. Maybe Judas thought that he was tricking the chief priests by taking their money and then Jesus would get out of the trap somehow. Was it the right thing to do? No. But it would explain the fact that Judas killed himself so quickly after it became clear that Jesus had no intention of “getting out of this.”
It would also explain why Judas asked “Lord, is it I?” just like the rest of the disciples at the last supper, he didn’t see himself as a betrayer, but more like a clever manipulator. It’s very possibly that Judas went to the chief priests to tell them where Jesus was, fully believed that Jesus would somehow get himself out of that situation again, because he had seen it done several times before. Surely he didn’t understand the scriptures or the Jesus’ teachings about his upcoming death or the prophecies, but none of the disciples did at this point. In fact, this betrayal was so unexpected and out of character for Judas that even weeks later, the other disciples seemed to have no idea what happened. Like I said before, Judas didn’t cause the crucifixion, nor could he have prevented it. What he did, he only affected himself, and with his immediate suicide and his behavior before hand, we should consider it a possibility that he played into a major misunderstanding.
I don’t know why John chose to interrupt this deep conversation between Peter and the Savior at this moment or why he chose to interrupt with this particular question, but it kind of pulls Peter’s head out of contemplation. Perhaps confronted with his own mortality, Peter sees John and asks Jesus, basically, “and what shall this man do?” He’s kind of saying, “Well if I spend the rest of my life preaching the gospel and then die an excruciating death, what is going to happen to this guy?” Maybe he’s trying to figure out if he’s the only one who is going to have to sacrifice, maybe making sure that everyone is going to have to put skin in the game.
Jesus answers, surely in a kind way, “If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? Follow thou me.” The way that I read this was more stiff and abrasive, but I’m confident that Jesus answered Peter in a kind way that reminded him and Peter’s plan is for Peter and don’t worry about anyone else. It is a pretty strange response though “if I will that he tarry till I come,” what does that mean? I think that the disciples had a grip on the concept of the second coming, but we know that they didn’t understand the timeline. Here we are almost 2,000 years later and I don’t think that any of the disciples at that time thought that it would take that long. They were thrown through a loop when the Savior was resurrected, and we know that Lazarus and a few others had been raised from the dead, but it would have been a completely different struggle to understand that John would be immortal without being resurrected, immune to pain and aging without a glorified body.
The IM explains, “Earlier in His earthly ministry, the Savior had said, ‘there be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom.’ The resurrected Christ foretold that John would be one who would fulfill that prophecy and ‘tarry’ on earth until He came again. A more complete account of this conversation between the Savior, Peter, and John is found in Doctrine and Covenants, section 7, which is ‘a translated version of the record made of parchment by John and hidden up by himself.’ This revelation clarified that John asked the Savior for ‘power over death, that I may live and bring souls unto thee,’ and in response, the Savior granted John power to live until His Second Coming. John thus became a ‘translated’ being. Such beings are ‘changed so that they do not experience pain or death until their resurrection to immortality.’ For more information on translated beings, see 3 Nephi 28:4-40, which affirms that three Nephite disciples experienced the same change undergone by John.”
Even as a child, I never understood John’s request to live until the second coming to preach the gospel. I don’t want to live forever, and missionary work seems frustrating and tedious. If Jesus were to tell me “ask me for something and I’ll give you whatever you ask for,” I would see that more as a magic genie, three wishes, type of experience. I’d probably ask for one billion dollars tax free and my own private island to live on. I guess that’s why I’m not an apostle because asking to live for thousands of years so that I could be a missionary would never had crossed my mind, ever.
It appears that John didn’t need to be convinced to spend the rest of his life preaching the gospel. John finishes his record by tying himself into this account because this whole time, he hasn’t referred to himself by name or in the first person perspective, he’s always referred to himself as “that disciple whom Jesus loved.” It seems to me that Jesus loved them all but John apparently feels some type of special connection to the Savior, more so than anyone else. He finishes by saying that the disciple which will tarry until Christ comes again, “is the disciple which testifieth of these things, and wrote these things: and we know that his testimony is true.”
There are a lot of different perspectives in there and I just assumed that John was really seeing this third person perspective through to the end. But the IM suggests that perhaps professional scribes helped in the compilation of the record. The IM says, “The pronoun ‘we’ in John 21:24 suggests that others may have either assisted in the original composition of the Gospel of John or added their own testimony to a later copy of the Gospel. It was common for professional scribes to assist in the production and preservation of ancient texts of all kinds. Their roles varied, depending on the author and the scribe. Sometimes scribes wrote down what the original author said, word for word. Sometimes they assisted the author in crafting and producing a work. At other times, scribes may have noted the main points of a speaker, written the message in their own words, and then submitted it to the speaker for approval. The assistance of scribes at any stage of the production of the Gospel of John does not change its clear testimony that it originated with John, the Beloved Apostle of Jesus Christ.”