GOSPEL READING

THE GOSPEL OF JOHN: WELCOME

The Programme

Our plan is to read the first four chapters of the Gospel of John during the next eight weeks, March to April 2010 (more or less the time of Lent)

There will then be a pause for a few weeks before we continue the reading.

Introduction

The Gospel of John is not read as a Sunday Gospel on a regular semi-continuous manner in the way that the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke are read. These three, the Synoptic Gospels, form the basis of the three year Sunday cycle. The Gospel of John instead has its place at special times of the year, especially Christmas, Lent and Easter. It is regarded as helping us to a deeper understanding of the mysteries being celebrated at those seasons.

The result is that the Sunday Gospel readings do not present us the Gospel of John as the story it is. This is a much more traditional approach to the Gospels where the parts are proclaimed with little regard for the whole.

Our approach to the Gospel of John will be to read it as a story. Whereas Matthew, Mark and Luke follow a broadly similar telling of the story of Jesus, the Gospel of John tells a different story.

For the three Synoptic Gospels, Jesus' public ministry leads up to Passover time which is also the time of his Passion. The Gospel of John however speaks of three Passovers.

A more biographical reading of the Gospels would be concerned about this apparent difference between the Gospels with the different numbers of Passovers. According to Matthew, Mark and Luke, the public ministry of Jesus appears to have lasted but one year. According to John it might have lasted three years.

In fact, the Gospels are more theology than biography. We can see this for example in chapter 6, the bread of life discourse of Jesus, the setting at the time of the Passover (Jn 6,1) is the essential background to the discourse. Seeing this as a historical matter could make us wonder what the crowd was doing in Galilee when they might be expected to have gone to Jerusalem for the feast (cf. Lk 2,41). That is something which would not have concerned the evangelist.

The Story of the Gospel

As I commented on the home page, our first step is a reading of the Gospel in order to give ourselves an overview of the story.

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