04 Apr Holy Week with St John’s Gospel

The Community invites you to journey through Holy Week this year with the Gospel of John. An audio recording of the entire gospel has been made by our long-standing friend, Paul Edmondson, who explains more:

‘All of the gospels reveal something distinctive and beautiful and profound about the life of Jesus. But for many years now, John has been emerging as the one which keeps striking me afresh. Everytime I go to it I find something new. It is, as a priest friend of mine once said ‘So off-the-wall.’ And one of its great themes is Jesus doing all he can to convince people that he is who he says he is: that he and the Father are one, and that he is doing nothing on his own.

Two friends and I have read John’s gospel on or around Good Friday evening with bread and fish and wine for many years (and we shall do so again, virtually, during this coming week). As the church throughout the world asks itself daily: ‘How can we find new ways of being Church in these difficult times?’ I have spotted that audio-recordings are a positive way forward, and then realised that I was being called to read the whole of John for people to listen to during Holy Week.

There are seven episodes from Palm Sunday through to Easter Day (excluding Easter Eve, ‘a dead day), but you can listen as much of it as you wish. Each episode lasts around 15-20 minutes. I’m reading from the New Revised Standard Version.’

The recordings can be accessed by clicking on the links below:

Part 1: Palm Sunday

Part 2: Monday of Holy Week

Part 3: Tuesday of Holy Week

Part 4: Wednesday of Holy Week

Part 5: Maundy Thursday

Part 6: Good Friday

Part 7: Easter Day