Reflections for Easter

“It is finished.” Today we hear John’s account of Jesus’ passion. As usual he weaves in many, many details. I always feel that if John were writing today he would have produced a screenplay. Given there is such richness in John’s telling of the story it’s easy to overlook what isn’t there. His description of […]

We come again to our most sacred time of the year, and stand once more with those who have celebrated so many Easters before us, and even more people of God who have and continue to celebrate the Passover (Ex 12:1-8, 11-14). Our celebration connects back to the most ancient roots of a people freed

“We hear them speaking in our own tongues of the mighty acts of God.” Luke in the Acts of the Apostles gives us the most dramatic account of the coming of the Holy Spirit. There is wind and fire and speaking of foreign languages. The sound effects, the big diverse crowds, the intimate interior, the

Our lives revolve around clocks and calendars. Keeping track of what we have to do next is a major concern and sometimes a problem for us. Knowing what happened in the past is a matter of keeping straight what happened when, and to whom. The trouble is when we apply this approach to understanding the

Hopefully the message is getting through 🙂 It’s all about love!! So we hear more again this week from John – in fact some of it is repeating what should be familiar by now: Jesus says “remain in my love; keep the commandments; you are my equals not inferiors”. There are however two new elements.

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

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