Reflections for Easter

As the Easter story moves forward, we hear how the church is now needing structures and organization beyond simply following the original disciples. Paul and Barnabas are appointing “elders” for their new groups of believers, using a framework familiar in Jewish life anywhere away from Jerusalem and its temple rituals.  But there is more to […]

The Easter stories we have heard so far are stories of joy, stories of discovery, of discovery of something that was thought lost, discovery of something even better than what went before. This week we hear how there is also a dark side to these stories. Or, if not exactly dark, that there are challenges

This week we continue with readings illustrating three very different types of Easter experience.  For John of Patmos his mystical experience now extends from the personal and individual that he started with, to encompass “everything in the universe” (Revelation 5:11-14). This is a common feature of mysticism in all religious traditions, combining the intensely personal

Last week we reflected on how we are “an Easter people” and what that means. Now as we enter into our 50 day long celebration of Easter we might ask an even more basic question – what is Easter? This might seem a strange question – isn’t the answer obvious? It’s the celebration of Christ’s

“We are an Easter People”. This idea can be traced to St Augustine, but was brought into modern consciousness when Pope John Paul II used it in an address on a visit to Australia in 1986. There is also a deep theology around the idea that the defining characteristic of the early church was an

It’s natural to think that the Feast of Ascension is about what happened to Jesus at the end of his time on earth. But that isn’t really where the focus lies. The Feast of the Ascension isn’t so much about what happened to Jesus, rather it’s about what happened to the disciples. Mark, as usual,

Our gospel readings for the first two weeks of Eastertime spoke of the various ways in which the early church recognized and understood the presence of Jesus in the world after his resurrection. Last week the focus shifted a little to reflect on the nature of the relationship that we have with the risen Jesus.

We are used to thinking of shepherds as guides, herding their sheep, leading them to pasture. This image is powerfully portrayed in that most famous psalm – The Lord is My Shepherd (Ps 23). Insofar as we have any acquaintance with the activities of shepherds (and their dogs, which of course are the cute ones),

This week we get to Luke’s account of events after the resurrection.  It is similarly brief as was John’s that we heard last week, and completely different in content. Like John, Luke has two endings for his gospel story – the second is in the book we call the Acts of the Apostles. That one