NOTES for Joh 20:2-8

It is considered that the disciple of Christ of whom the Gospel says that "Jesus loved him" was the apostle John. These words puzzle many people: how can this be? Does Jesus not love everyone equally? Did He not die on the Cross and rise for each of us?

Of course, for each of us; of course, His love cannot be compared at all. He does not love one person more and another less, but neither does He love everyone in the same way. He loves each person separately, each as an independent person whom He created, to whom He gave a name, for whom He suffered and died, whom He forgave, and to whom He gave eternal life. But we can love more or less. The apostle John himself loved more, loved Jesus more strongly than anyone else. And the one who loves more can receive and contain more love. Christ gives each person as much love as that person can bear, because in our souls there are sometimes such dark corners that they simply cannot coexist with love, and the Lord does not wish to do violence to us.

Therefore John needs no proofs or assurances, because his immense love for the Teacher gives him hope in Christ's Resurrection, although he, like the other apostles, did not understand the prophecies about death and resurrection. And this same immense love gives him such faith that it is enough for him to see "the linen cloths lying there, and the cloth that had been on His head, not lying with the linen cloths but folded up in a place by itself," to know that the Lord has risen. The Gospel does not even tell us precisely what the disciple believed, because the whole Gospel speaks of faith in the Resurrection.