Peter looked back and saw the disciple Jesus loved was following as well, the one who had reclined close to Jesus at the supper, and had asked him, “Lord, who is to betray you?” On seeing him, Peter asked Jesus, “Lord what about him?
Jesus answered, “If I want him to remain until I come, is that any concern of yours? Follow me!” Because of this, the rumor spread in the community that this disciple would not die. Yet Jesus did say to Peter, “He will not die,” but,” Supposed I want him to remain until I come back, what concern is that of yours?
It is this disciple who testifies about the things and has written these things down, and we know that his testimony is true.
But Jesus did many other things; if all were written down, I think the world itself could not contain the books that should be written.
POINTS OF REFLECTION
There are two categories of prayers, personal prayer and community prayer. Often times, if not all, a person prays only for his/ her intentions and greater advantage. In other words, it will boil down to what we called as selfish prayer. This is almost everybody’s way of praying. But what have we noticed? Did the Lord answer all our prayers? I think, God seems turning out our petitions into deaf ear of our personal request. Why? Because God hears a prayer when any two agrees of what they ask for from the Lord, Matthew 18:19. So, God will never grant anything to man if neither two nor more agrees on of what they asked for to the Lord. Community prayer will likely be heard by the Father in heaven.
When Jesus said to Peter,“If I want him to remain until I come, is that any concern of yours? Follow me!” Jesus means that disciple and Christian follower’s concern is not His concern. His concern was those who would follow him and turn back their own concern of this life. And having called as Jesus said “Follow me!” the disciples follow his led without second thought but kept the joy of obeying Jesus command even to their death. This is how early Christians appeared that cause us who we are today as religious community.
Finally, this gospel reminded us that our concern is not God’s concern. God will never conform to our concern but we are duty bound to conform to His concern. In fact, our frustrations and failures of this life always happen every time when our actions do not conform to the concern of God.
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