One of the earliest decisions that the church made, as a whole, was that there would be four gospels telling the One Gospel. The four would not be smoothed out into one streamlined account; each would be allowed its own voice, its own emphases and peculiarities. Almost as early, systematically-minded and earnest theologians tried to iron out the wrinkles and force the four into one. Tatian in the second century tried to do just this with his Diatesseron. The church didn’t think much of it and stuck with the four.

For all intents and purposes, the one-year lectionary that dominated in the West for so many centuries ended up doing much the same thing, compressing four voices into one. The essentials of the gospel story were effectively told, but a great deal of the interesting detail was lost in the process. The three-year lectionary is certainly an improvement, but there is still room for improvement. John doesn’t get a year to himself, but his version of the passion usually dominates on Good Friday.

A number of times now I’ve taken church classes through the passion narratives of the four evangelists in successive weeks. You can download the chart I had them use to keep track of each gospel’s distinctives. It’s a good way to get the complete story of the passion of our Lord in preparation for Lent (a Bible study to follow midweek services, for instance, or on Sunday mornings in Lent). It shows the tremendous similarities—that all gospels are, after all, telling the same story about the same person—but also the little variations in memory and concern in each of the four communities that preserved these gospels.

If this method proves to be a success, you can also try this study—the “Top Ten Hits” of each of the four gospels. Each has a list of ten things distinctive to that gospel, giving participants a feel for the evangelist’s concerns and quirks.