Easter
Shepherd, Healer and Guard
11 May 2014
The image of God as the Good Shepherd was a significant part of the worship of Israel, and so it was natural that the image of Jesus would also be one of the most enduring images. To understand what Jesus is saying in this tenth chapter of the Gospel of John, we need to understand three…
Journey and Encounter on the Road to Emmaus
4 May 2014
Discipleship, Easter, Radio Program, Seasons, Teaching
In the final chapter of the Gospel of Luke, chapter 24, there are three stories about resurrection appearances of Jesus: all of them take place on that first day of the week – the first Easter Sunday, and all of them take place centred on Jerusalem. In this well-known story of the road to Emmaus we…
Identity in the Merciful Messiah
27 April 2014
In the program Grand Designs, host Kevin McCloud walks with people who are transforming often old buildings into new and beautiful designs. I had a little experience with this when I was in Nowra Parish and the old parish hall, which for many years was used by the school as classrooms, but had been laying…
New Life #StartingToday – Easter Sunday
20 April 2014
When Jesus makes his triumphant entry into Jerusalem on the day that we call Palm Sunday, the crowds acclaimed him as the Messiah and welcomed him with great joy. But the first three gospels record him doing something very strange as his first act of coming into the city – he goes into the Temple…
Revealing New Creation
29 April 2013
Easter, New Creation, Seasons, Teaching
Finally in the season of Easter we arrive at the end of the story with the final two chapters of the book of Revelation being the centrepiece of the liturgy this week and next (the second reading is in the middle/centre of the liturgy of the word). The vision that St John receives in Revelation…
Church rescued
21 April 2013
Bible, Easter, Seasons, Teaching
After these things I looked, and behold, a great crowd that no one was able to number, from every nation and tribe and people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, dressed in white robes and with palm branches in their hands. Rev 7:9 [LEB] Two weeks ago I mentioned that our…
Loved by the risen Son
14 April 2013
Discipleship, Easter, Seasons, Teaching
The final chapter in the Gospel of John is simply fascinating – on so many levels. The fact that the beloved disciple, the author of this gospel, whom tradition has always named as John, the brother of James and son of Zebedee, clearly finishes the gospel at the end of chapter 20 is curious in…
Revealing mercy
8 April 2013
Bible, Easter, Seasons, Teaching
I love going to the movies. There is something great about being in a dark theatre, waiting for the curtain to open and the movie to ‘roll’ so that you can be transported into another world. One of the most memorable experiences of this is almost twenty years ago, during my first trip overseas. It…
New day knowing
31 March 2013
Discipleship, Easter, Seasons, Teaching
The one thing that each of the Gospel accounts of the resurrection of Jesus begin with – is that it happened on the first day of the week. Now in Jewish reckoning, the seventh day of the week was the Sabbath day (Saturday) – the day when the Lord rested from the work of creation,…
Remember and believe
31 March 2013
Discipleship, Easter, Seasons, Teaching
I remember a day when I was bushwalking in the coastal range down the South Coast, and I had been walking for a while just below the ridge-line – so I was unable to actually get a view of the breath-taking coast-line. At one stage I saw a rocky outcrop that was just above the…
Seated at the right hand of the Father
20 May 2012
The Feast of the Ascension can strike us a quite bizarre affair – especially to one who grew up on a diet of science-fiction and imagined that Jesus somehow managed to add flying and living outside of the atmosphere to his walking-on-water and multiplying food – as well as raising the dead and getting through…
Love beyond walls
13 May 2012
Discipleship, Easter, Season of Growth, Seasons, Teaching, Year B
In the first century, the standard expression of the Jewish faiths was strongly influenced by the Pharisees, the most populous of the many forms of Jewish sects that were active at the time. Unlike other groups which were often on the fringes of Jewish society or groups such as the Sadducees which were deeply embedded…
Children of the Shepherd God
29 April 2012
Easter, Season of Growth, Seasons, Year B
I am sure that if many parishioners ever bother to listen to the first line of the second reading today, they either choose to ignore it or doubt that it can actually be true. It is a rather extraordinary claim: ‘think of the love that the Father has lavished on us, by letting us be…
Resurrected body
22 April 2012
Easter, New Creation, Seasons, Teaching
One of the lovely things about the Gospel today (Luke 24:35-48) is that it deals with the nature of the resurrected body of Jesus and demonstrates that the disciples did not share the same drug-induced hypnotic experience, or simply remember the warm and fuzzy experiences of Jesus invoked by a vision of his ghost,…
A questioning journey from doubt to faith
14 April 2012
Easter, Season of Growth, Seasons, Year B
Although in the debate on Monday night on the ABC1 TV program QandA between Richard Dawkins and Cardinal Pell, it seemed that doubt and questioning of faith was a very recent and modern phenomena, if you study the scriptures and Christian tradition carefully such doubts and questions are immediately apparent.The passage from John’s Gospel…
Resurrection Sunday
8 April 2012
Although we profess and declare that Jesus Christ is risen, and that through the resurrection, death has been defeated – sometimes it can feel like nothing much has in fact changed. Just this morning the news announced the discovery of a the dead bodies of around 100 young men killed in Syria – many showing…
Come Holy Spirit
11 June 2011
Easter, Season of Growth, Seasons, Year A
This feast is a demonstration of the unique Christian understanding of grace and salvation. Before this day, although the disciples knew of the reality of the resurrection of Jesus and the fulfillment of the many prophecies from the Hebrew Scriptures, they were still huddled together in fear – until the Spirit comes – then they…
Signs of the Spirit
28 May 2011
Easter, Season of Growth, Seasons, Year A
As we move through the Easter season, the liturgy today moves in its focus from looking back to the events of Easter, to looking forward in anticipation of the gift of the Holy Spirit poured out upon the Church at Pentecost. All the readings today provide insights and guidance concerning the life in the Spirit…
Chosen race and royal priesthood
22 May 2011
Easter, Season of Growth, Seasons, Year A
During Easter we have been reading from the first letter of St Peter, and we come today to what must be 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…
The road from Emmaus
7 May 2011
Bible, Easter, Seasons, Teaching
This powerful resurrection story is well known and often repeated. It shows the creative power of Luke’s narrative and has intrigued saints and scholars over the centuries. One saint who has a wonderful commentary on the story is St Bede the Venerable, the famous 8th century English historian and doctor of the Church. He brings…
Peace be with you
1 May 2011
Easter, New Creation, Season of Growth, Seasons, Teaching, Year A
‘Peace be with you’ – this is the greeting that Jesus proclaims to the disciples when he appears to them – even if they are locked behind closed doors for fear of the same fate falling on them as has just happened to Jesus. But the peace that Jesus promised, and the peace that he…
Living on the third day
24 April 2011
Easter, New Creation, Seasons, Teaching
Welcome to the third day – the day when everything is different because of that day – which John calls the first day of the new week, when the tomb was empty. On Friday we waited in silence and we mourned and lamented. We so often live our whole lives on Friday. We are shocked…
Resurrection Day (Vigil)
23 April 2011
Easter, New Creation, Seasons, Teaching
The Easter Vigil provides us with the opportunity to be immersed within the story of our salvation and the continuing work of God – from creation to redemption. So it is only appropriate that we make Alleluia our song as we celebrate the day of Resurrection and become builders of the new creation.Play MP3Recorded at…
Betrayal, lies and grace
17 April 2011
The Palm Sunday liturgy crams an amazing array of emotions into an hour – from the jubilation of the triumphant entry into Jerusalem to the heartbreak and desolation of betrayal, sleep, violence, cowardice, lies, false witness, racial abuse, denial, pride, anger – the reality of so much human sin on display. It is precisely into…
Roll the stone away from the stink
9 April 2011
This most powerful healing story – perhaps the ultimate miracle with the raising of a man four-days dead – begins so simply with a description of the fact that a man called Lazarus was ill. Most of our English biblical names have come to us via the Latin Vulgate translation. In the original Hebrew, Lararus…
The same power
16 May 2010
Easter, New Creation, Seasons, Teaching
Ascension Sunday (Year C) | Eph 1:15-23; Luke 24:46-53; Acts 1:1-11 I had my washed car yesterday – at one of those automatic car washes. When the weather is a bit warmer, I like taking it through the do-it-yourself section, so that I can play with the power hoses! It is amazing the difference that…
It seems good to the Holy Spirit
9 May 2010
Sixth Sunday in Easter (Year C). In Acts 15 we have a quite extraordinary moment in church history. At issue is how a Jewish community, gathered in worship at a Jewish synagogue around a Jewish Messiah, in the midst of a Jewish nation, keeping Jewish festivals and rituals – how does it welcome non Jews…
Everything is spiritual in the city of God
2 May 2010
Easter, New Creation, Seasons, Teaching
Fifth Sunday in Easter (Year C). Sometimes we get caught in the idea that there are spiritual moments in our lives (when we are in Church; praying; reading Scripture; listening to music or whenever) and all the rest is just secular and to some extent doesn’t count. But that’s not the story of the Scriptures….
Every nation, tribe, people and tongue
25 April 2010
Easter, New Creation, Seasons, Teaching
Fourth Sunday in Easter (Year C) – Commemoration of Anzac Day. In the reading from the book of Revelation, John the Divine has this vision of an immense crowd – impossible to count – of people from every nation, tribe, people and language who have all been through the persecution / tribulation and have had…
Called to follow in the light of the Son
18 April 2010
Easter 3C – John 21 In this final chapter to John’s Gospel – probably written later than the rest of the Gospel – John provides a magnificent summary of the Christian life. He starts with the disciples returning to Galilee and with Peter in the lead, they head back to their old way of life…