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The mysterious and powerful story of the encounter on the Emmaus road captivates our imaginations, comforts us in times of uncertainty and struggle, and challenges us how to live a faithful life. (Easter Three. Luke 24:13-35.) Sentence: They said to each other: “Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?” Luke 24:32   Collect: Loving Creator, Your beloved son returned to us and fell in step beside u

The risen Christ offers his disciples peace. And then immediately tells them that if they forgive anyone their sins are forgiven, if they retain anyone’s sins they are retained. It is worth noting that this is the newly risen Jesus who says this – the one who has much to forgive, including the feint hearted disciples in the room! (Easter Two. John 20:19-31.) I wonder if this means that when we pray for peace in the world, when we long for peace in our lives, that we are being

Christ is risen, he is risen indeed, Hallelujah! “We are a resurrection people and Hallelujah is our song”.  (Easter Day. Matthew 28:1-10.) One of the things we do come Easter, after a long and sober Lent, is we break out the hymns with Hallelujah in them! Hallelujah comes from the Hebrew and means God be praised! It is an expression of adoration and worship, of joyful celebration. It is sometimes a chorus of great and glorious certainty and sometimes, as Leonard Cohen remin

Every year we end up here, at the foot of the cross with all our sorrow, remorse, reluctance – all the myriad human responses to the death of Jesus, the one who was like us but more than. (Good Friday. John 18:1-19:42.)  Why, we ask ourselves, death, and death on a cross? What does death on a cross mean – for the world, then and now, and for us? How does such a death make things different or better amongst such a litany of sufferings going back in time, and we fear, forward i

By tradition Maundy Thursday is the beginning of the Three Great Days of Easter. And yet we begin in quiet and darkness, with humble rituals, and intimate actions that recall the last loving actions and teachings of Jesus with his disciples before the events of history took hold. This week, all around the world, many of the faithful of the Christian tradition, are hastening to make space and time for this ancient ritual mystery of suffering love and the victory of life. For m

Palm Sunday is the beginning of Holy Week and the time we hear of our Lord’s passion for us and remember the last week of his human life: the culmination of his life of self-emptying love and obedience. We enter into Jerusalem with our Lord and progress toward the last meal, the garden, the cross and the tomb. (Palm Sunday. Matthew 21:1-11 and 26:14-46; Isaiah 50:4-9a; Psalm 31:9-18; Philippians 2:5-11) Sentence: “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, tho