You need to be aware of the moves St. John makes as he wrote the fourth gospel. In Chapter 13, for example, after the dialogue between Jesus and Judas and the betrayer leaves the Last Supper we read “It was night.” Of course, it was night. They were eating supper. St. John does not throw that in merely as information but to suggest the spiritual situation. Way back at the beginning of the Gospel we are told that Nicodemus came at night. The evangelist wants us to understand that whenever we are without Jesus we are stumbling in the dark. For St. John there is a prior question to “what would Jesus do.” Rather we should challenge ourselves, “how does Jesus see ” — with compassion and mercy.
