Third Sunday of Easter

There is something very fleshy about Luke’s version of Jesus’ appearance to the disciples. When they thought they were seeing a ghost Jesus invites them to touch and see and then asks if they have something to eat. Jesus’ resurrection was not in some faraway place. He was flesh and blood. He ate with them and let them touch his hands and feet. Our resurrection, too, happens here on Earth. God cares about our bodies and our planet -especially those bearing wounds and scars. Where flesh and bone do not convince, Jesus asks for food. 

Second Sunday of Easter

Gregory Boyle in Barking to the Choir comments on ‘secular culture’ which is depicted as always being ‘hostile’ to Christianity. Boyle does not believe it to be true. He says, ‘Our culture is hostile only to the inauthentic living of the gospel.’ It seems more likely that that hostility to religious organisation is really saying that unless they see, they will not believe. So often when interacting with people who no longer identify as Christian, they say it is ‘because of Christians.’ Because of what they see, or don’t see in their lives.

Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion

Last Sunday some Greek pilgrims came to Jesus’ disciples saying: ‘We want to see Jesus’. One wonders what they were looking for. A healer? A miracle worker? One who take on the system? Whatever it was, Jesus responded by using the image of the grain of wheat that needs to die in order to live and give life. This image is lived out in the Passion story. A unique characteristic of our faith is the constant invitation to become part of the story of Jesus’ life and ministry on earth and of God’s ongoing love for the world. The entry into Jerusalem was not a parade but a protest in response to the militarism and oppressive dominance of the Roman Pontus Pilate who entered Jerusalem from the West. In our story, Jesus rides in on a donkey from the other side of town and the people hoping for an end to Roman oppression, thinking Jesus would be the one to bring it about.