Already by the year 200, John's gospel was called the spiritual gospel precisely because it told the story of Jesus in symbolic ways that differ sharply at times from the other three.

Head of Saint John the Baptist on a Charger by Aelbert Bouts,1500 © Metropolitan Museum, New York. Source: Christiant Art.

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Fr. John Dear speaks Jan. 15, 2017, at St. Peter the Apostle Church in River Edge, New Jersey. Art Laffin calls Dear's book The Gospel of Peace the culmination of Dear's lifework. (CNS/Octavio Duran) ...

So read John 18:1–19:42. All of it. Read some of the text before and after it too, maybe even through the resurrection and to the end. Divide it up and get some people to read it together, with ...