Family and Friendship

A visit to Ephesus, Turkey, and a journey into wide-eyed wonder

Last night when someone asked me what I liked best about this week—museums, mosques, ancient cities, vibrant lights, continent hopping, Persian meals, shopping, island visits, ancient ruins, seaside lunches, Bosporus cruises…the list goes on and on—I told them my favorite part has been relationships. I’ve so enjoyed getting to know the Lissner and Lamming families, seeing the family grow, and deepening my connection with others. I’ve loved getting to know stories of cousins and brothers and moms and dads and in-laws and friends. Stories, relationships, and connection—those are my treasures.

It stands to reason, then, that one of my very favorite parts of the trip was learning about Jesus, his best friend, his mother and a promise lived out in commitment and love.

Thursday our group of eight woke up hours before the sun, gathered in the hotel lobby at 4-dark-thirty, and boarded a shuttle for the airport. A short 55-minute flight landed us in Izmir, Turkey’s third largest city and home to three million people.

Greeted by a tour guide, we boarded a transport and traveled 45 minutes and 2,000 years back in history to the days of the life of the church after Jesus and before Constantine legalized the faith practice of following Christ.

Before I delve too much into history, let me do what I do best: tell the story. Throughout the Gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke and John—the authors talk about Jesus and His kind, gracious, correcting, healing, direct, truthful, and empowering relationships with lots of different people. To some He was the Savior, drawing lines in the sand and shielding them from adultery-accusations and stoning. For some He was encourager, builder, admonisher and teacher, forgiving their denial of him three times or their lack of faith and the like. For some He was the guy who tipped over tables in the temple, chased out money changers, and told religious leaders that they were missing the mark.

But for John, as in “John, the guy who wrote four books called ‘John’ plus Revelation,” for John, Jesus was all this and more. Among all the relationships we have documented in the life of Christ, John is referred to as “the Disciple Jesus loved.”

Did He love all the people?

Well, sure. It is loving to feed, heal, lead, teach, travel alongside, spend time with, encourage, admonish and do life with other individuals. But John, oh John—his relationship with Jesus was special. Beyond disciple, Jesus’s relationship with John went deeper. He was a best friend, and that friendship was built on trust.

How do I know that? Because when the going got really, really indescribably publicly-shaming tough, John stood beside Him. When others fled, John stayed within whisper distance. While Jesus bled on the cross, John was at his feet. And when Jesus prepared for death, John was the one he turned to with a “I need to ask you a huge favor; you’re all I can depend on” -type of need.

“Bestie,” He said, “take care of my mom. She’s gonna need it. And, Mom, hang with John and encourage and support him the way you’ve supported me. He’s gonna need it, too.”

There, tortured and dying, Jesus was busy caring for others.

So, John and Mary lived in Jerusalem for a while, until it was no longer safe for them to do so. Then, he took her to Ephesus where they lived. As Paul was writing to the church there, periodically visiting and preaching about one God instead of several, John and Mary each lived nearby. He built a home for Mary in the hills about the 250,000 person city, and this place sheltered her until her dying days. John went on to Patmos where he wrote revelation in a cave, then returned to the Ephesus region where he led and served until he died at 100 years old.

A couple amazing things about our visit to Ephesus, learning moments for this woman who is still learning:

• Mary is the only woman mentioned in the Quran. In fact, there is a whole chapter there written about her. The Muslim faith reveres her because, they believe, she remained a virgin her whole life. The respect runs so deep that they’ve preserved and protected her home across millennia.

• John stayed faithful to his promise to his best friend. Jesus chose a good one to allocate his sonship. John never left Mary unattended or without her safety planned for.

Yep. Thanks to Ephesus you have a civilized place to potty. (See the cat chilling on the public latrine.)

• Islam, we’re told, reveres Jesus as a prophet. In fact, just down the hill from St John’s Basilica (where Jesus’s Bestie is buried after dying at 100 years old), is a house of worship dedicated to Him. Literally translated, it’s name is The Mister Jesus Mosque. I think I will periodically refer to Him as The Mister Jesus. It has a nice ring.

• John’s church has a baptismal. I got to walk through it, East to West. It was kinda breathtaking and amazeballs to join millennia of people worshipping and observing faith alongside The Disciple Jesus Loved. I mean … wow.

• At one point, St John’s Basilica was the center of Christianity and the largest church in the world. Why haven’t I heard of it before? Exploring the ruins on a hill above Ephesus was a soul-deepening surprise.

I asked our guide Ismael why, if Islam and Christianity have so much in common, why there is so much fighting. Then I remembered that Christians have had this historical (panache or shortfall) for crusades and we are totally less than stellar-perfect ourselves.

Ismael, it turns out, didn’t have an answer to why religions have warred since the beginning of time. In fact, that was the one question for which he had no response. Shoot, friends. I don’t have a response, either. I bet it goes back to the reason Paul got run out of Ephesus: money, commerce, power, everyone demanding their own way or their own home-field advantage.

While I didn’t solve the eternity-long struggle for position and power, I did learn so much. As I closed my eyes to fall asleep, I thought of the end of John’s account of his best friend’s life, and this storyteller teared up recalling his words:

“This is the disciple who testifies to these things and who wrote them down. We know that his testimony is true. Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written.”

Still learning, and in awe and wonder writing,

—Rebecca