Our Scripture passage for this week is found in the Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 28 Dear friends in Christ, The ascension of Jesus astonishes. Though it happens at a particular place, near Bethany, it exceeds ordinary perception. Jesus blesses the disciples and is ‘carried up into heaven’ in but four Greek words. Indeed, the scriptures…
The Gospel reading for this week is found in John 14: 15–21 Our Gospel passage for this Sunday opens with the emotional moment of Jesus trying to make something plain to his followers: all he asks of them is their embrace of the love he has lived among them as the goal for their own…
Our Gospel passage this week comes from John, Chapter 14: 1–14 The lectionary readings for this Sunday are full of instructions for the disciples about how to live as Jesus taught without his physical presence in their midst, and serve as a good guide for us, his disciples, too. Our Gospel reading is part of…
Our Gospel reading this week is found in John Chapter 10 One of the beloved images of Jesus in the Fourth Gospel is that of the attentive shepherd. Visual and musical presentations of the shepherding Saviour have long captured artistic imagination. Throughout this Gospel, John accumulates Old Testament metaphors for God and ascribes them to…
Our Gospel passage this week is found in Luke Chapter 24, at verses 13–25. Three weeks into the Church’s great fifty-day celebration of Easter, we are reminded that Easter’s dawn is a kairos (Greek – ‘right’, ‘critical’) moment. Our first reading and Gospel reading can be defined in this context. The unfolding story in Acts…
Although this Sunday is called the Second Sunday of Easter and is meant to be the joyous continuation of the Easter celebration, in many churches it can feel like Low Sunday. To be in worship on such a day can feel a bit like showing up at a party after most of the guests have…
‘Come and see’ is one of the main themes of John’s Gospel. It is a strong Easter theme as well. It links Easter to Christmas (the shepherds went and saw). Mary Magdalene came and saw that things were not as expected. The resurrection upsets all expectations, and the only way to apprehend it is to…
On this Sunday of the Passion, Palm Sunday, the momentum of the season draws us closer to the cross as we experience the united effect of two seemingly divergent events. The Liturgies of the Palms and of the Passion occupy the same stage, their dramas unfolding so near that we can hardly make the emotional…
This week we read from the Gospel of John, Chapter 11. We’re almost there. We have been on this Lenten road since Ash Wednesday: about 28 of the forty days of Lent. We are in the home stretch, you could say! And as we journey through, we sometimes fail to remember that every Sunday celebrates…
On the Fourth Sunday in Lent we read in the Gospel of John Chapter 9, about a man who has been blind all his life, but receives sight. Almost everybody fails the man born blind. Even his family backs away from him, and his parents put their own safety before his welfare. Maybe we can…
