Dear God, that’s too much to paste here so I’m not going to try to actually put the scriptures at the top of this. But where the other Gospels take two chapters to tell this story, John takes eight. And he changes the order around a little. I am starting each of these with Jesus being anointed at Simon’s house in Bethany with perfume and Judas deciding to betray him. We all know John’s Gospel is not synomptic with the other three. That will become very apparent here.

• For John, Bethany becomes before the Triumphant Entry, but it’s not Simon’s house where they are. It’s Martha’s/Mary’s/Lazarus’s house. It’s Mary who anoints him with perfume, and John intimates that only Judas was annoyed by it. He also ascribes greed and even theft to Judas’s motivations. John doesn’t mind naming names and calling people out, as we’ll see later with Peter and the sword.
• The leading priests decided to not only kill Lazarus but Judas also. I might have read that before, but I don’t know that I ever let it sink in. What exactly did Lazarus do to deserve execution? That heart that let’s evil in can really get on a roll and lose all perspective. In for a penny, in for a pound.
• I don’t think I’m going to give a blow by blow through these eight chapters, but I’ll pain with broad brush strokes since there is so much that is unique to John’s telling of the story. Next is the Triumphant Entry. This comes before the anointing in Bethany in the other gospels. I’ll say that John brings up the Lazarus resurrection again here as a motivator for the crowds. John obviously remembers that as being a huge turning point in Jesus’s ministry. Okay, I just realized this–for such a pivotal moment in Jesus’s ministry, John is the only one who gives us the Lazarus story! You would think it would at least get a mention in the other Gospels. That’s weird, and I honestly don’t know what to think about that. I had to look it up just now. The theory I like the most is that the writers of the Synoptic Gospels were protecting Lazaraus’s anonymity because he was still alive when the Gospels were written, and they wanted to save him persecution from the Jewish leadership. I’ll buy that.
• The Greeks want to meet celebrity Jesus and approach Philip to get an audience with him. Jesus seems to ignore the request and talk about/explain his coming death. And then comes “After saying these things, Jesus went away and was hidden from them. His last public appearance before his arrest.
• John gives a generic exchange between Jesus and an unbelieving crowd, but it seems unrelated to this particular time and event. It’s more a general interaction between them.
• Starting in chapter 13, John starts the Passover Meal narrative by describing in an intimate way the love Jesus had for his disciples.
• John relates Satan coming into Judas as a motivator like Luke did.
• John is the only one to give us the foot-washing story and Peter’s response. I’ve heard Skye Jethani talk about this: “Jesus was willing to humiliate himself because he had nothing to prove and nothing to lose.” It wasn’t servant leadership. It was an expression of love through service and letting our own esteem go. Jesus goes on to explain in verse 15 that it’s about an example to follow of equality between us all.
• Jesus says someone will betray him. Again, he didn’t have to do this. He could have kept it to himself. In this telling, John describes Jesus as specifically identifying Judas and sending him away.
• Jesus prophecies about what’s to come.
• Jesus predicts Peter’s denial here at the table and not on the way to the Mount of Olives like Matthew and Mark did.
• Jesus does a lot of teaching here in chapters 14-16:
  • Jesus the way to the Father. “I am going to prepare a place for you.” “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.” “You can ask for anything in my name and I will do it so that the Son can bring glory to the Father.” It’s always about your glory, Father, not ours.
  • Jesus promised the Holy Spirit. He will be and Advocate and Teacher. “I am leaving you with a gift–peace of mind and heart. And the peace I give is a gift the world cannot give.” I love this. Peace is the only fruit of the Spirit I can’t will myself to experience. It only comes from you, Father, Jesus, and Holy Spirit.
  • Jesus is the True Vine. I need you for my nourishment. I am nothing without you. “When [I] produce much fruit, [I am] your disciple. This brings great glory to my Father.” I hope I bring you glory, Father. Thank you for grafting me to your vine, Jesus. “Love each other as I have loved you.” Jesus once again reiterates in verse 15:16 that we can ask for things in His name and it will be given to us.
  • The World’s Hatred. I’ve been persecuted by people for my faith. Ironically, the people who have persecuted me the most for it are some of the people I love the most in this world. It breaks my heart, but I don’t know another way to be. I love you and I need you.
  • Teaching about the Holy Spirit. “There is so much more I want to tell you, but you can’t bear it now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth.” Verses 16:14-15 draw a line from me to the Holy Spirit through Jesus to the Father: “He will bring me glory by telling you whatever he receives from me. All that belongs to the Father is mine; this is why I said, “The Spirit will tell you whatever he receives from me.”
  • Hope in their sadness turning to joy. I like how John describes the disciples as being in the fog about all of this. They keep asking each othe questions on the side. Interesting dialogue here between Jesus and the disciples about them not understanding and him speaking plainly vs. figuratively.
• Jesus’s prayer in chapter 17. I’m always struck by the fact that when Jesus prayed for future believers (us), he asked that we would be one. That’s where Satan attacks us, and it is very successful. Help us as your church to repent and to be one.
• They head to the Mount of Olives. John gives us a lot more detail about Judas. That he knew the place because Jesus went there a lot. The leading priests and Pharisees had given Judas a contingent of Roman soldiers and Temple guards.
  • John skips Jesus’s prayer in the garden! I’ve absolutely never noticed that before. At least I don’t think so. That’s amazing. And he was one of the three Jesus asked to accompany him along further and chastised for falling asleep.
• Jesus is confronted and John identifies Peter as cutting off the right ear of Malchus (again, the first time we get a name). Luke is the only one to tell us that Jesus healed Malchus’s ear.
• Peter and presumably John (another disciple) followed Jesus to Annas’s house (first time we get this detail or even hear about Annas). We also find out that John got Peter into the high priest’s courtyard because he knew the high priest. John gives the detail that it was when the servant was letting Peter in at John’s behest that she first asked him about being a Jesus disciple and Peter denied it.
• Jesus is questioned at Annas’s house (and slapped by a Temple guard) before he is sent to Caiaphas.
• Flashback to Peter by the fire, he not only gets questioned a second time, but the third time he’s asked is connected to his attack on Malchus’s ear. Then the rooster crows.
• John kind of skips over the trial at Caiphas’s house with just barely a mention in one sentence. Then we are off to Pilate’s. The other Gospels are much more descriptive of Caiphas’s rage towards Jesus.
• Pilate’s trial is pretty similar here to the other Gospels, but I think John has some amount of sympathy for Pilate’s position on this one. I won’t go into all of it here, but Pilate really seems to be trying to understand what is going on and then spare Jesus’s life. No handwashing in this telling of the story.
• No Simon to carry the cross.
• No conversation between Jesus and the other two on the crosses.
• Extra conversation between Pilate and the leading priests over the “King of the Jews” sign. I think Pilate is angry with the leading priests and trying to offend them.
• More people at the foot of the cross, including, apparently, John. His mom and his aunt, Mary (Clopas’s wife), and Mary Magdalene. I wonder why the name Mary was so popular then. I just looked it up. This was a reference to Miriam, Moses’s sister. Of course, now there are a lot of Mary’s because of Jesus’s mother.
• Jesus takes a drink of sour wine and dies. No “Father, forgive them,” or “Why have you forsaken me?”
• Only time we get the leg-breaking scene. John claims the veracity of his story and the fulfillment of the scriptures.
• Joseph of Arimathea asks for the body, but John is the only one to tell us that Nicodemus, a Pharisee who has two other mentions by John is there too. They put the body in the tomb, but John doesn’t tell us it’s Joseph’s tomb. And he doesn’t mention the women watching where they put Jesus.

Okay, that’s John’s version of Passion Week. It’s so interesting to see how different it is from the others, and yet which beats are details are the same. It’s an amazing story. As I sit here on Good Friday and consider all of this, I want you to know, Father, that I ache as I read this. And the aching is good. I ache for what Jesus went through. I ache that he had to go through it, and I’m one of the reasons he had to go through it. I ache for the world today and its pain. But I am also hopeful. I can hope in what is to come after this life. I am at peace in you, knowing I can sit here forgiven of my sin and blameless before you because of what I just read.

I pray all of this in Jesus and with your Holy Spirit,

Amen