The third day of Christmas is celebrated as the feast day of St. John the apostle in Roman Catholic and Anglican churches. For some Christians, however, figuring out all of the traditions associated with John presents a challenge. To begin, the name John was common in Biblical times and there are multiple characters with that name.

John the Apostle was not the same person as John the Baptizer. That much is quite clear. The Gospels report distinct stories of those two. John the Baptizer was the son of Elizabeth and Zechariah who was born before Jesus. Tradition slates the birth of John the Baptizer as six months before the birth of Jesus. His feast day is June 24. John the Apostle is among the first disciples recruited by Jesus. Together with his brother James, John was recruited as they were fishing with their father, Zebedee. Their mother Salome is also mentioned in the Gospels. John is assumed to be the younger of the two brothers. His name is always mentioned after that of James in the Gospel of Mark, which is the earliest of the four Gospels that appear in the Christian Bible.

Jesus called James and John Bonarges, or “sons of thunder.” The reason for the nickname isn’t completely clear, but some point out their desire to call down fire from heaven on Samaritan towns that didn’t accept Jesus (Mark 9:38 and Luke 9:54).

There might be another John in Jesus’ inner circle. The Gospel of John mentions the sons of Zebedee only once, as being at the shores of the Sea of Tiberias when Jesus appeared after his resurrection. That Gospel does make reference to the “disciple whom Jesus loved.” That disciple is never directly names in the Gospel and it is not clear from the text which disciple it is.

At various times in the history of the Church, John the disciple has been credited with writing the Gospel of John, the three Letters of John, and the Revelation of John. Biblical scholarship leads one to believe that such credits are unlikely. Evidence including the timing of the writing, the structure of the language used, and other factors compels the majority of Biblical Scholars to say that the author of the Revelation of John is not the same as the writer of the other biblical books. There is less evidence to distinguish the letter writer from the Gospel writer, but there are those who believe that these also might not be of the same author. The timing of the first appearance of the Gospel of John in written form presents challenges to the traditional belief that it was written by the disciple John.

John the disciple has an authoritative position in the church after the Resurrection. He visits Samaria with Peter to lay hands on new converts there. Some traditions say that there was a theological difference between John and Paul. Paul wanted Gentiles to be admitted to the church. Some say John was opposed to Gentile membership, though the evidence is sketchy on this point and not all scholars agree.

To confuse matters more, Jesus also had a brother named James and the traditions of the two men named James are also confused at points.

What happened to John is not entirely clear. There are legends. Polycrates claimed that John's tomb is at Ephesus. Some legends say he was a priest and was martyred, though there is little direct evidence of how, when, or where he died. The Revelation of John was written at Patmos. Various relics including writing claimed to be the John’s autograph and dust claimed to be collected from his tomb cannot be verified in any manner as genuine or not.

In the traditions of the church and in the recognition of the third day of Christmas as the feast of St. John, a whole lot of different stories and perhaps multiple characters with the same name come together into a somewhat confusing blend of stories, traditions, and legends. Because of all of those layers of tradition and the length of time that separates contemporary believers from the historic events, it is impossible to establish hard facts that are not subject to dispute. Like many parts of the Biblical narrative, our impressions are colored by not only our imaginations, but the imaginations of generations of believers. Artwork featuring John sometimes portrays him as a youth without a beard. After all he is assumed to be the younger brother of James. But there are also Byzantine works of art depicting John as old with a white beard carrying the Gospel. The symbol of John in some artwork is an eagle.

While I enjoy the tradition of celebrating Christmas for 12 days, my personal health and diet would not benefit from 12 days of feasts. In our household the Feast of Stephen on the second day of Christmas and the Feast of John on the third day of Christmas feature various leftover foods from Christmas Day when we generally prepare way more food than we are able to eat. Our house is still full of sweets and baked goods as well as leftover turkey, gravy, potatoes, cranberries and other good food. We even have fresh pears from Christmas day, although we do not have any partridge as mentioned in the song about the 12 days. The pheasant in our freezer will stay there for several more weeks while we deal with other food that needs to be eaten.

Nonetheless, I’m not ready for everything to go back to normal quite yet. There are tasks associated with the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day that are part of my personal traditions. The new web page for my journal is in the works and will appear sometime in the next couple of days. There are records to update in preparation for filing our tax returns. And new to us the weather in the place where we now live is such that we can even catch up on some deferred yard work, something we never did when we lived where our yard was covered in snow at this time of the year, though even South Dakota is short on snow this winter.

However you celebrate, I wish you health and happiness on this feast of St. John whoever he may be.