Homily, The One Whom Jesus Loves
Easter Day, 2025
St. Peter’s Episcopal Church
Plant City, FL
The Rev. Derek M Larson, TSSF
Today’s Lectionary Readings:
I wonder who is your favorite book or movie character. Maybe it’s Bluey from the tv show. Or Albus Dumbledore from the Harry Potter series. Maybe it is Laura Ingles from Little House on the Prairie. Maybe it is Elsa from the movie Frozen or the epic Darth Vader from Star Wars. Do you have someone in mind?
There’s nothing like a good character in a favorite story is there? Someone with whom you connect. Someone you admire or hope to be like someday. Someone that gives you life or brings you comfort. Our favorite characters are the ones that make stories come to life.
Our gospel reading today has a lot of wonderful characters. There is Jesus, of course, the one this story is about, and his life, and death, and resurrection. But there are other characters as well. There’s Mary Magdalene, first to find the empty tomb, first to see the risen Christ, first to share the good news. There is Simon Peter who followed Jesus even after he denied him three times. There are the two angels sitting in the empty tomb.
And then there is the other disciple—the one whom Jesus loved.
Who is this disciple? The one whom Jesus loved, as the passage calls him? Well, the text doesn’t say. Hundreds of years of tradition has named him John, the disciple. The one the Gospel Book is named after. But the text doesn’t actually say. And so many scholars have suggested other possibilities. Perhaps it is Lazarus, the one whose death made Jesus weep, before he was brought back to life. Or perhaps it was a young child, given the way this disciple leans on Jesus’ chest at the last supper and runs ahead of Peter on the way to the tomb, and is suspected of living longer than the other disciples in John 21. Or perhaps James, the brother of Jesus, because he is named Mary’s son at the foot of the cross. There are a number of possibilities.
But my favorite answer is to the mystery is this. You are the disciple whom Jesus loved. You.
Some scholars have suggested the anonymity of the disciple in this passage is a literary tool by which the author invites the reader or the listener into the story first hand. So that the story is not simply one we peer into from the outside, but one we encounter for ourselves. The story becomes not solely a story of history, but a story of ourselves and our encounter not only with Jesus, but with the love of Jesus.
For according to John, that is the foundation of faith. Love.
Notice in this passage, this unnamed disciple, upon seeing the empty tomb, believed. He did not at first see Jesus. He did not at first understand, the passage says. But he believed. And if he believed not because he saw and not because he understood, perhaps he believed because he was loved. Because he knew he was loved.
Love, not understanding, is the foundation of faith. It is only in experiencing our belovedness that we can really hear the message of Easter.
This morning the most important question for you is not if you believe in God. Or in the Bible. Or in the resurrection. This morning the most important question is: Do you believe in your belovedness? Do you believe you are worth loving? Do you believe that you were created good and beautiful? Do you believe that you are the one whom Jesus loves?
You may have little to no understanding of the Christian faith. You may be apathetic or skeptical about it. You may be hurt by previous experiences of it. You may not have your life all put together. You may be riddled with doubts, and pains, and anxieties. You may not know why you are here today. And I am not really here to convince you the Church has the answers for which you are looking.
Instead, I’m simply here to ask you: do you believe that you are beloved. Because you are. No matter what you say about yourself, no matter what anyone else says about you, no matter what you have even heard said about you from the pulpit, you are a beautiful and lovely creature of God. You are beloved.
The story of the resurrection, which we celebrate today, is not heard with a brain that understands, but with a heart that is loved. It is only in believing that we are loved, that we can know the risen Christ. Because love, not understanding, is the foundation of faith.
If you are here today, and if you have heard this story, this is your story. And you might be my favorite character, because you are the one whom Jesus loves. Do you believe?
Thoughts on Faith 