Intimate companionship with Jesus depends on him being real to us as a person. That can only be so as we meditate on what the Scriptures, and particularly the four Gospels, tell us about him. Indeed, Gospel meditation can be thought of as the equivalent of gazing upon the photo of a dearly loved but absent friend.
But what does “Gospel meditation” involve? Skilled practitioners in the art have written at length on it. I wouldn’t put myself in the category of a “skilled practitioner”, but let me share how I approach the activity.
For the purposes of Gospel meditation I take a small section of one of the Gospels – just a single event or incident, or perhaps just a verse or word or two. There is a place for reading larger chunks of the Gospels, and indeed for reading them in their entirety at a single sitting. But you can’t do that when your aim is to meditate deeply on what you read.
Next, I make a point of reading with a view to seeing the Person of Jesus in the passage. It’s possible to approach Bible reading from a number of perspectives – or, as I like to put it, through a number of pairs of spectacles. We can read with our doctrinal spectacles on, for example, eager to see how a particular passage adds to our understanding of a doctrine. Or we may read with our linguistic spectacles, looking for new or recurring words in a passage. Or we may use our practical spectacles, looking for things we can do to live in a way that pleases God.
What I am suggesting is that in Gospel meditation we read with our “personal” spectacles on, with the specific aim of seeing Jesus as a person. We look to see what a verse or paragraph says about him – what he did, what he said, how he went about it, and even how people responded to him. Having seen that, we keep the idea steadily before our minds. Some stress the value of using the imagination to visualize what we are reading about. According to this approach you put yourself in the position of a bystander and recreate the scene in your mind. Some advocate letting the mind wander freely, day-dreaming about the event you are considering. I must admit to being wary of that practice, conscious of how it can easily deteriorate into dreamy mysticism. The basic idea of Gospel meditation is to keep what we learn of Jesus fixed in our minds so that we can dwell upon it. As we do so he seems to take form in our minds, allowing us to gaze steadily and lovingly upon him.
An example might help. This morning I reflected for a few moments on
Luke 9:51 – “As the time approached for him to be taken up to heaven, Jesus
resolutely set out for
It was the word “resolutely” (NIV) that caught my attention. The expression tells me something about Jesus. It tells me that in spite of what lay ahead – all that he shrank from in the flesh – he nevertheless wasn’t deterred. This was his Father’s purpose for him, and he deliberately, steadfastly, resolutely set out to do it. With a determined act of will he continued the journey that would take him to the cross.
Even that single idea – Jesus’ resolve to do what he had to in the face of great difficultly – tells me something about him. It helps me know his heart better. More than that, it draws me to him and makes me want to be like him, to be “resolute” in doing what God is clearly calling me to do. It makes me love him and want to follow him. That’s the effect that “gazing on Jesus” will always have on those who already love him; they will find themselves drawn to him even more.
There is a vast difference between this and purely objective
knowledge about Jesus. I could well have looked at the same passage from the
point of view of a Bible harmonist – someone wanting to recreate a “harmony” or
an integrated picture of the Gospels – and said, “Here we are; Jesus is on the
move again. He is headed for
There’s nothing wrong with doing this if my main interest is in piecing the different incidents in Jesus’ life together into a coherent story. But doing that is not going to help me become intimately acquainted with him as a person. I’m not going to know more about him as a result of that exercise beyond having a fuller appreciation of what he did. But as to who he is and what he is like, the stuff that builds relationships and personal acquaintances, there won’t be anything gained.
That’s why we need to take time to look at Jesus and learn all we can about him as a Person from the Gospels. The more we do, the more we will find ourselves attracted to him, awed by him, hungering to be like him.
Andrew Young
Associate Principal (
Grace Theological College