John’s Gospel is all about relationships – the relationship between Jesus and the Father, and our relationship with both of them. When talking about these relationships, John often uses the phrase “remain in me” – we hear it repeated many times today in both the gospel and John’s letter. To us this is an odd […]
Fifth Sunday of Easter Read More »
Jesus has risen. A new life has started, not just for him but also for us. Sin and death are overcome. But what exactly is this new life. It’s not just the old life restarted. Jesus is clearly different from how he was before, that’s the point of most of the post-resurrection stories. And for
Good Friday. We hear again, in simple, unadorned form, about the pain and suffering that Jesus endured. And then it’s over. He’s dead. There is a sense of calm, of quietness, of finality. Of course we know this is not the end. It is a time of waiting. We know, we believe, that in three
In Luke’s account of the events of this Thursday evening, Jesus says: I have longed to share this meal with you. (Lk 22:15) What Jesus says to his disciples he says to all of us. And so we share that meal, the last meal of his life, with him. We do that every time we
Today, at the end of our Easter season, we hear two very different accounts of the coming of the Holy Spirit to the disciples. Luke in the Acts of the Apostles gives us the full Hollywood treatment, with rushing wind and fire and miraculous speech. This parallels the beginning of his Gospel where he has
As we come toward the end of our Easter season, the final Sunday before Pentecost we celebrate the Ascension – we remember the occasion on which Jesus finally left this earth and ascended to heaven. Or do we? Is that really the point of the Ascension? All those paintings of Jesus drifting up through the
We have many relationships in our lives – with family, friends, colleagues at work; and with maybe a hairdresser, a tax preparer, a doctor. Most of us I suspect don’t have a close or ongoing relationship with a lawyer, certainly not the type that represents you in court. The sort of relationship with an advocate
(This week is a little more technical than previously. I hope you still find it helpful.) In John’s gospel, his account of events after the Resurrection is very brief. He includes the empty tomb and the meeting with Mary Magdalene, a very brief account of the coming of the Holy Spirit (with none of the
The disciples received the Holy Spirit and started their new life with the Risen Lord. And how did they behave? One might expect them to keep their heads down and avoid getting into trouble. That’s certainly what they’d been doing up until then. But in fact they immediately went out and started speaking out with
We know how each of the Gospels differs from the others, in often quite major ways. Each of the evangelists tells of salvation from their own perspective and for their anticipated audience, with their own particular preconceptions and expectations. It is perhaps striking that nowhere are these differences more apparent than at the end of