- Suggested Johannine Passion
Narrative Lection
based on the Revised NAB translation and on Seminar
discussions at its 2000 and 2001 meetings
(non-annotated version)
For short form read 19:16b-19:30.
Chapter 18
- Jesus went out with his disciples across the Kidron Valley to where
there was a garden, into which he and his disciples entered.
- Judas his betrayer also knew the place, because Jesus had often met
there with his disciples.
- So Judas got a band of soldiers and and from the chief priests
guards .
. . and went there with lanterns, torches, and weapons.
- Jesus, knowing everything that was going to happen to him, went out
and said to them, "Whom are you looking for?"
- They answered him, "Jesus of Nazareth." He said to them,
"I am." Judas his betrayer was also with them.
- When he said to them, "I am," they turned away and fell to
the ground.
- So he again asked them, "Whom are you looking for?" They
said, "Jesus the Nazorean."
- Jesus answered, "I told you that I am. So if you are looking
for me, let these men go."
- This was to fulfill what he had said, "I have not lost any of
those you gave me."
- Then Simon Peter, who had a sword, drew it, struck the high priest’s
slave, and cut off his right ear. The slave’s name was Malchus.
- Jesus said to Peter, "Put your sword into its scabbard. Shall I
not drink the cup that the Father gave me?"
- So the band of soldiers, the Roman tribune, and the Temple guards seized
Jesus, bound him,
- and brought him to Annas first. He was the father-in-law of Caiaphas,
who was high priest that year.
- It was Caiaphas who had counseled . . . that it was better that one
man should die rather than the people, lest the Romans come and
take away both the land and the nation.
- Simon Peter and another disciple followed Jesus. Now the other
disciple was known to the high priest, and he entered the high priest’s
courtyard with Jesus.
- But Peter stood at the gate outside. So the other disciple, the
acquaintance of the high priest, went out and spoke to the gatekeeper
and brought Peter in.
- Then the maid who was the gatekeeper said to Peter, "You are
not one of this man’s disciples, are you?" He said, "I am
not."
- Now the slaves and the guards were standing around a charcoal fire
that they had made, because it was cold, and were warming themselves.
Peter was also standing there keeping warm.
- The high priest questioned Jesus about his disciples and about his
doctrine.
- Jesus answered him, "I have spoken publicly to the world. I
always taught in a synagogue or in the temple area where all Jews gather and in secret I have said nothing.
- Why ask me? Ask those who heard me what I said to them. They know
what I said."
- When he had said this, one of the temple guards standing there
struck Jesus and said, "Is this the way you answer the high
priest?"
- Jesus answered him, "If I have spoken wrongly, testify to the
wrong; but if I have spoken rightly why do you strike me?"
- Then Annas sent him bound to Caiaphas the high priest.
- Now Simon Peter was standing there keeping warm. And they said to
him, "You are not one of his disciples, are you?" He denied
it and said, "I am not."
- One of the slaves of the high priest, a relative of the one whose
ear Peter had cut off, said, "Didn't I see you in the garden with
him?"
- Again Peter denied it. And immediately the cock crowed.
- Then they brought Jesus from Caiaphas to the
praetorium. It was morning. . . . .
- So Pilate came out to them and said, "What charge do you bring
[against] this man?"
- They answered and said to him, "If he were not a criminal, we
would not have handed him over to you."
- At this, Pilate said to them, "Take him yourselves, and judge
him according to your law." The chief priests* answered him,
"We do not have the right to execute anyone,"
- in order that the word of Jesus might be fulfilled that he said
indicating the kind of death he would die.
- Pilate went back into the praetorium and summoned Jesus and said to
him, "Are you the King of the Jews?"
- …
- …
- Jesus answered, "My kingdom
does not belong to this world. If my kingdom did belong to this world,
my attendants [would] be fighting to keep me from being handed over . .
. . But as it is, my kingdom is not here."
- So Pilate said to him, "Then you are a king?" Jesus
answered, "You say I am a king. For this I was born and for this
I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs
to the truth listens to my voice."
- Pilate said to him, "What is truth?" When he had said
this, he again went out to the chief priests and said to them, . . .. . .
- "You have a custom that I release one prisoner to you at
Passover. Do you want me to release to you the King of the
Jews?"
- They cried out again, "Not this one but Barabbas!" Now
Barabbas was a revolutionary.
Chapter 19
- Then Pilate took Jesus and had him scourged.
- And the soldiers wove a crown out of thorns and placed it on his
head, and clothed him in a purple cloak,
- and they came to him and said, "Hail, King of the Jews!"
And they struck him repeatedly.
- Once more Pilate went out and said to the chief priests,
"Look, I am bringing him out to you . . ."
- So Jesus came out, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple cloak.
And he said to them, "Behold, the man!"
- When the chief priests and the guards saw him they cried out,
"Crucify him, crucify him!"
- . . .
- . . .
- [Pilate] went back into the praetorium and said to Jesus,
"Where are you from?" Jesus did not answer him.
- So Pilate said to him, "Do you not speak to me? Do you not know
that I have power to release you and I have power to crucify
you?"
- Jesus answered [him], "You would have no power over me if it
had not been given to you from above. For this reason the one who
handed me over to you has the greater sin."
- . . . but the chief priests cried out, "If you release him,
you are not a Friend of Caesar. Everyone who makes himself a king
opposes Caesar."
- When Pilate heard these words he brought Jesus out and seated him on
the judge's bench in the place called Stone Pavement, in Hebrew,
Gabbatha.
- It was preparation day for Passover, and it was about noon. And he
said to the chief priests, "Behold, your king!"
- They cried out, "Take him away, take him away! Crucify
him!" Pilate said to them, "Shall I crucify your king?"
The chief priests answered, "We have no king but Caesar."
- Then he handed him over . . . to be crucified.
So they took Jesus,
- and carrying the cross himself he went out to what is called the
Place of the Skull, in Hebrew, Golgotha.
- There they crucified him, and with him two others, one on either
side, with Jesus in the middle.
- Pilate also had an inscription written and put on the cross. It
read, "Jesus the Nazorean, the King of the Jews."
- Now many of the Jews read this inscription, because the place
where Jesus was crucified was near the city; and it was written in
Hebrew, Latin, and Greek.
- So the chief priests . . . said to Pilate, "Do not write ‘The
King of the Jews,’ but that he said, ‘I am the King of the Jews.’"
- Pilate answered, "What I have written, I have written."
- When the soldiers had crucified Jesus, they took his clothes and
divided them into four shares, a share for each soldier. They also
took his tunic, but the tunic was seamless, woven in one piece from
the top down.
- So they said to one another, "Let's not tear it, but cast lots
for it to see whose it will be," in order that the passage of
scripture might be fulfilled [that says]: "They divided my
garments among them, and for my vesture they cast lots." This is
what the soldiers did.
- Standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother and his mother's
sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary of Magdala.
- When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple there whom he loved, he
said to his mother, "Woman, behold, your son."
- Then he said to the disciple, "Behold, your mother." And
from that hour the disciple took her into his home.
- After this, aware that everything was now finished, in order that
the scripture might be fulfilled, Jesus said, "I thirst."
- There was a vessel filled with common wine. So they put a sponge
soaked in wine on a sprig of hyssop and put it up to his mouth.
- When Jesus had taken the wine, he said, "It is finished."
And bowing his head, he handed over the spirit.
- Now since it was preparation day, in order that the bodies might not
remain on the cross on the sabbath, for the sabbath day of that week
was a solemn one, the chief priests asked Pilate that their legs be
broken and they be taken down.
- So the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first and then of the
other one who was crucified with Jesus.
- But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they
did not break his legs,
- but one soldier thrust his lance into his side, and immediately
blood and water flowed out.
- An eyewitness has testified, and his testimony is true; he knows
that he is speaking the truth, so that you also may [come to] believe.
- For this happened so that the scripture passage might be fulfilled:
"Not a bone of it will be broken."
- And again another passage says: "They will look upon him whom
they have pierced."
- After this, Joseph of Arimathea, secretly a disciple of Jesus . . .
, asked Pilate if he could remove the body of Jesus. And Pilate
permitted it. So he came and took his body.
- Nicodemus, the one who had first come to him at night, also came
bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes weighing about one hundred
pounds.
- They took the body of Jesus and bound it with burial cloths along
with the spices, according to the Jewish burial custom.
- Now in the place where he had been crucified there was a garden, and
in the garden a new tomb, in which no one had yet been buried.
- So they laid Jesus there because of the Jewish preparation day; for
the tomb was close by.
- .
-