Easter

One of the limitations of celebrating the Resurrection of Jesus is that for so many people in the church, they still operate with a tri-part understanding of creation, even though they know that this is not the case in the physical universe or according to the laws of science and nature. So we still think…

Although we read the Passion story last Sunday during the Mass of Palm Sunday, that Gospel is always taken from one of the three Synoptic Gospel accounts, depending on the liturgical year. But on Good Friday, there can only be one Gospel that will be our guide and companion – the Gospel that shapes the…

We begin these sacred days of Easter with this encounter on the eve of Passover – as we remember the meal that Jesus celebrated with his disciples. The Gospel of John – which is our primary companion over these days – does not provide details about the elements of the meal itself – the bread…

One of the things that strikes me about the celebration of Pentecost, are its Jewish roots. When the disciples met in the upper room on that day, they almost certainly would have reflected upon the passages of Exodus 19 and 20 which detail the events around the arrival of the Hebrew nation at Mount Sinai,…

On this feast of the Ascension, we ponder the event of Jesus ascending into heaven as told in the Lukan literature – the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles. The other synoptic Gospels do not record the event at all, and John only hints at it by telling Mary of Magdala that…

Moving into the second week of this series, we need to look at the question of what happens in the moment of death and the personal judgement that each person receives before God. What are the possible options regarding our judgement, what are the possible destinations, and how long does the process of purification take…

With Revelation 21 being the second reading for the next two weeks moving into Ascension and Pentecost, it seemed like the appropriate time to begin a new teaching series on the Hope of New Creation. So over the next four weeks, we will explore the nature of Heaven, Hell, Purgatory, Paradise, Resurrection and the Last…

The image of the shepherd as a symbol for God’s leadership and pastoral care of his people occurs at various places across the Hebrew scriptures, most famously in the Shepherd Psalm, number 23. It has also taken a significant hold on the Christian imagination. Some of the most popular pictures of Jesus are those that…

The gospel that we have today is taken from the twenty-first chapter of the Gospel of John. It is another resurrection appearance, but this time, it is not in Jerusalem, but up in the Sea of Galilee. Seven of the disciples, led by the apostle Peter, decide to go fishing. While seven are described, only…

Although each of the Gospels is carefully crafted, the Gospel of John provides an extra layer of rich reflection which reveal the degree to which the beloved disciple as author has pondered deeply his own experience of the life and sayings of Jesus in the light of the experience of the early church and the…

I have been asked to provide links to the various video clips that were played at St Paul’s during the Holy Week and Easter liturgies. So here goes: Palm Sunday Dan Stevers, Son of Man: http://www.danstevers.com/store/son_of_man/ Holy Thursday No videos were used Good Friday, 10am Stations of the Cross Prelude – Dan Stevers, Scars: http://www.danstevers.com/store/scars/…

The scripture readings that are offered to us each year during the Easter Vigil are so rich and beautiful. It would be great to be able to spend time reflecting on each reading in turn – but tonight let us at least begin in the beginning and consider the wonderful poem that opens the strange…

St Luke in the first of his Easter stories (Luke 24:1-12) provides us with a story of two contrasting reactions to the discovery of the empty tomb. The women, who unlike the apostles, stayed with Jesus through his ordeal on the cross, and began their preparations for his burial on the afternoon of Good Friday,…

Mass of the Lord’s Supper – a reflection on the person of Jesus who spends so much of his life eating meals with all the wrong kinds of people. Tonight we are invited to allow this meal to transform – not only the bread into his body and the wine into his blood – but…

A short prayer on the cross offered at the conclusion of the Stations of the Cross. Play MP3 Recorded at St Paul’s, 10am service (1:47)Good Friday, Stations of the Cross

To gather each Good Friday for prayer around an instrument of Roman torture is still a very strange practice to have. To sing songs and come forward in procession to touch, embrace or kneel before this sign of brutality and terrorism… It can also be a very difficult exercise to reconcile the fragility and weakness…

To fully appreciate the significance of the celebration of Pentecost you need to remember the origins of the Jewish festival of Shavu’ot. Although according to the Book of Leviticus the festival celebrated a week of weeks after Passover (the fifty days) was a Harvest festival where the first fruits of the seven kinds of grain…

When Jesus is described by the scriptures as ascending into heaven and clouds cover him to hide him from the eyes of the apostles who are standing and watching this spectacle dumbfounded, we are left clinging to a whole series of unhelpful categories to try to deal with this. So much of this is as…

We often struggle with some very basic questions – like who are we? When we meet people for the first time, conversations invariably begin with a process of classification – so, what do you do? Where do you live? The Gospel today takes us to a much deeper place in our relationship with God. It…

Today we hear the final of the seven “I am” declarations that punctuate the Gospel of John – “I am the true vine.” This declaration is also unusual because it is the first time one that is explicitly relational: I am the vine; you are the branches. We should be in no doubt after hearing this declaration…

The image of Jesus as the Good Shepherd is one that has endured across the centuries of the Christian Church. The image of the young Jesus as the shepherd bringing home the stray or wounded lamb has been found on the walls of the catacombs, and a statue of the Good Shepherd has also been…

“In the name of Jesus, repentance for the forgiveness of sins would be preached to all the nations.” The readings this week again invite us to reflect on sin and repentance so that our hearts may burn with love. Jesus the just one, is the sacrifice that takes our sins away – not only ours,…

Have you ever been asked to do something that was so totally beyond you that couldn’t even believe you would be capable of doing the task? That is exactly how we should feel after hearing the gospel today. When Jesus speaks to the disciples gathered in the upper room, it is only right to feel…

Entering into the experience of Easter is always a profoundly moving event. I found this year to be no different – even though it was the first time that I have had the chance to lead the liturgies in a parish that I am responsible for which added its own stresses. The liturgies and encounters that…

When you think about God and how God offers a relationship with him, it seems to me that the word encounter is one of the more helpful ways of describing this relationship. Yet, when you look up the word encounter, you discover that it comes into the English language via the Old French word encontre,…

When it comes time to celebrate Trinity Sunday it can be tempting to settle in for another discussion on this abstract and irrelevant theological idea. Yet the readings that are offered for this Year A cycle give the clear basis for why the divine dance of love that describes the relationship between the Father, Son and…

When I was a kid it was uncommon for my parents to come and visit the school; in part this was because we lived on a farm and caught the bus to and from school almost every day; the exception was on Tuesdays which was mum’s shopping day and we could go home with her…

When we come to celebrate the Ascension of Jesus all manner of things can tend to get in the way. For a start, many people can overstate the literal details in the first reading today, from the beginning of the Acts of the Apostles, what with all the information of Jesus being lifted up into…

It can be the case that when we think about the early experience of the Church, that we compress it into a rather monochromatic history. In fact the disciples were probably more like us than we think. Even though Jesus gives them rather clear instructions that they are to wait in Jerusalem upon the Holy…

During Easter we read from the first letter of St Peter, and we come today to what is one of the most extraordinary declarations in scripture. Peter addresses a mixed community – young and old, men and women, gentiles and Jews, leaders and members – and to each person he reminds us that Jesus has drawn very…