A Good Friday Meditation – The Passion of Christ – John’s Gospel

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A 19-minute audio guided meditation in John’s Gospel, John 19:13-42, using Lectio Divina.

I am struck by two key invitations as we meditate on the suffering of Jesus in Holy Week.

The first invitation is to see how fully and completely Jesus offered himself in love.

And the second invitation is to attend to pain, to difficult emotions and circumstances. Our public and private lives give us more than enough pain to come to terms with and it is often easiest to ignore or numb in the face of it all. But at the cross Jesus seems to suggest that the only way is through (as the adventurer in the children’s rhyme “We’re Going on a Bear Hunt” knew so well). The only way to resurrection and eternal life is through the grave. The only way to wholeness is through the heart centre of all that is broken. The only way to healing is through the pain.

May you have the grace to open yourself more fully to this mystery this week.

This meditation covers several moments in the crucifixion and death of Christ, and each section is read just one time. If you’d like to repeat a particular section or the entirety of the passage you will find the relevant times below.

6:24 Pilate hands Jesus over to the Jews – John 19:13-16

8:11 Jesus is put on the cross – John 19:17-25

11:09 At the foot of the cross “Here is your son, here is your mother” – John 19:25-27

12:13 Sour wine and “it is finished” – John 19:28-30

13:27 Jesus side is pierced – John 19:31-37

15:17 Jesus is buried – John 19:38-42

In this meditation on John’s Gospel, I invite you to join me in taking a ‘long, loving look’ at the passion of Christ, beholding the words as living, shimmering, life-giving containers which hold endless layers of wisdom, mystery, beauty and truth.

Just for these few minutes, I invite you to leave your dogma, your creed, your thoughts, and your rational mind aside, and become present to your deeper self, your true self or essential self. I invite you to a way of unknowing, a place of deep being. 

Contemplative at Home offers guided meditative prayer – space to slow down and listen to the truth that is being born out of God’s love for you today – drawing on Ignatian spirituality and at times, Lectio Divina.

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All music by Pete Hatch.