Pride and Humility

In Luke, chapter 14, verses 7 to 14, Jesus is teaching us about pride and humility.

Jesus was at the house of one of the pharisees to eat a meal. Jesus often had disputes with the pharisees but He still spent time with them; not as a pharisee Himself but being God’s Son on earth He was showing them God’s example and love. And whilst at this meal Jesus watched.

He watched and saw how the others at this meal behaved and how they strategically placed themselves to get the best seats in the house; that is the places which would grant them the most honour or, if you like, jostling for the Top Table.

In Jesus’s day, seating arrangements were very important in society as the most honoured person sat in a particular seat, then the next most honoured, then the next and so on. A wedding banquet was the most important occasion and where you got seated at such a party was indicative of your standing in the community. This made it the perfect example for Jesus to use to teach His lesson.

And, of course, if you were to take the most honoured place and the host wanted someone else to sit there you would be asked to move – which would be embarrassing and would make you feel great shame.

Not everyone has the same exact customs to denote social standing and highlight how important or honoured someone is. But, there are many occasions in modern life where one’s own sense of self importance, pride and high opinion of one’s self can be displayed.

Pride comes before a fall. Shame comes after self exaltation.

Instead of playing the self promotion game, work hard for the Lord and let God raise us up.

When sitting in that lower place we are not there to make ourselves noticed in order to try and get ourselves placed higher. Nor are we there to pout and show dissatisfaction with the aim to let others know we don’t belong there. On the contrary, there is something wonderful and joyful about being content in whatever place God allows us to have.

Joyfully embrace the lower place. If the Master moves us to a higher place think how much more satisfying it is to know that God has raised you up than if you raised yourself up.

When we seek to honour ourselves we will always be humbled.

Jesus was the perfect One to teach this lesson, because He fulfilled it perfectly. He (God’s Son incarnated as flesh) deserved the highest place but He took the lowest and was ‘granted’ the highest.

Jesus had also noticed that the pharisee had chosen guests from a sense of pride, lacking in love for others and only inviting those who could give something in return. So Jesus went on to warn the host about the danger of pride when choosing guests.

Jesus is not saying that we can never invite certain friends/relatives/associates. What He is saying is not to make a habit of only inviting the same clique of people all the time.

He is telling the pharisee, and us, not to only associate with people for what they can do for us. He is telling us not to put self at the centre of our lives. We are called to follow Jesus and His example was that of putting others in the centre of our living.

It is better to give than to receive.

It is a wonderful feeling to give a gift that can never be repaid. Such a feeling helps give us a small insight into the pleasure of God in giving the gift of His grace, mercy, salvation and blessing to His people.

We never lose out when we follow the pattern of God’s generosity. Jesus shows us that we need to live with an eternal perspective of life as He promises God provides us with full repayment at the resurrection of the righteous; when our lives are weighed up on the balance sheet and audited by He who knows our hearts and minds, our actions and our motivations.

So, in summary:

Practise and prioritise humility over pride in everything.

Our works should be for the glory of God not for the praise of others.

We should embrace a lifestyle of radical hospitality, welcoming all.

And we need to understand that God’s kingdom operates with a different set of values to the world’s values. It operates with God’s values.

Be prepared!

As I was reading the passage Luke chapter 12, verses 32 – 40, some words from The Lion King popped into my head:

“Even you can’t be caught unawares, so, prepare for a chance of a lifetime, be prepared for sensational news. A shining new era is tiptoeing nearer. And where do we feature? Just listen to teacher. Be prepared!”

There are many distractions in our world, many temptations and many things clamouring for our attention.

Where your treasure is there also will your heart be.

Jesus is calling us to prioritise and to focus on the things and activities that give eternal life. He is reminding us that we should be centering our lives on God. The world will not make this easy. There will be distractions in the world around us which may make this seem difficult. But (there’s always a but!) it is essential for our lives as Christians and if we don’t we will be caught unprepared!

This passage from Luke is about vocation! It is not simply ‘be prepared and you will be saved’.

It is actually about being ready and alert, being aware and listening so that when God calls us to action we can seize the opportunity and spring into action, spreading the good news full of the energy of the gospel – healing, justice, love, grace, peace, mercy …

Those who are ready for the return of the Lord will be served by God. Remember the words of the hymn:

“This is my God, the Servant King.”

This gives the impression of being a contradiction but it does not mean that we stop serving God. Instead it is a promise of what will happen when you re-centre your life around God. The good news of Christ will serve you in your life so that you are not afraid.

Jesus promises that God has given everything so that we do not need to be afraid. He then goes on to talk about how God will serve us reminding us about the gift of life and creation, the gift of eternal life, the gift of the Holy Spirit in Baptism and the gift of Christ’s body and blood in Communion. This highlights how abundantly God showers gifts upon us, how abundantly He loves us and desires good for us. It echoes His covenant with Abraham.

So, how ready are we?

Are we ready to help others in need? Have we considered the issues of peace and justice going on in the world? Are we ready to be part of God’s solution?

Jesus is encouraging us to live with an expectation that God is always and already with us … and watching as God has always been. Jesus being incarnated as man was a reminder and embodiment of that reality and an example for us to follow.

This passage of priorities is a call to keep God’s priorities ahead of our own every day in all the choices we make. God’s list of priorities may seem long or challenging at times. It means accepting God’s forgiveness for our own sins and forgiving those who sin against us.

It means loving one another and loving our enemies. It means standing up to injustice when we see it, praying for and voting for and working for peace in the world.

It means living and shopping and consuming in ways that care for creation; eating and drinking and exercising in ways that care for the temples our bodies are meant to be.

Going back to just before Jesus gave us this list of priorities He says to us:

“Do not be afraid little flock, for it is the Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom”.

God wants us to be with Him in His kingdom. God’s kingdom is already here among us thanks to Jesus’s sacrifice and resurrection.

Being typical human beings we don’t see and experience it clearly because we’re looking the wrong way or wandering off on our own instead of following our God Guide.

But, like the pleasure we get giving someone a gift, God has immense pleasure in gifting us His kingdom, right here, right now as a foretaste of things to come, because of His grace. And God’s list of priorities is the key that opens the gate.

By being generous we can glimpse God’s kingdom. By sacrificing something, giving something freely and willingly to someone who needs it, enables us to experience and share in a measure of His kingdom.

By seeking out the least among us and giving them a hand we can feel the kingdom among us. By forgiving all who cross us we experience the peace of the kingdom – the peace that passes all understanding.

Converse with those with different opinions to yourself, send a note to someone who’d be surprised you thought of them, keep them in your prayers and God’s kingdom will be in your midst and theirs.

Be Ready

Be Alert

Be Prepared

Listen for God’s call and spring into action.

The Good Samaritan

The Good Samaritan is a well-known story. Is it really just a parable or was Jesus recounting something that actually happened?

It’s certainly feasible and likely enough to have been an actual occurrence. Let me tell you a real, modern day version:

We got in the car, turn the key in the ignition, and, you’ve probably guessed it, the car wouldn’t start. The battery had suddenly and unexpectedly died. RIP battery!

So, there’s us by the roadside with my husband holding jump leads and jumping up and down trying to flag down the cars that were passing to ask them for help.

So many cars just drove past …

… and then another past, slowed down, turned around and drove back to us. The driver had turned around so that his car was facing the right way to be able to link up the jump leads. He got the car started for us.

We didn’t know him, he didn’t know us, he was just passing through, seen someone in need of help and provided that help.

Willingly, for no reason other than seeing someone in trouble and knowing that they could help. A real good Samaritan.

Jesus told the parable in response to the questions from the lawyer. Now, the lawyer had asked Jesus a question to which he knew the answer and so Jesus answered him with a question, drawing out the answer to the lawyer’s question so that it was provided by the lawyer himself.

Consequently, in a bid to justify asking the question in the first place, the lawyer asks for clarification on who classes as his neighbour. It is this that provokes Jesus into telling the good Samaritan parable.

There was a constant threat of bandits on the wilderness roads. And they did indeed beat people up and steal their possessions. Jesus’s audience, therefore, would not have been surprised by this scenario; it was after-all a part of their normal lives.

The audience may well have expected it to be the priest or Levite who’d help the victim, especially as they both have a calling to care for others.

Yet, they just pass by.

It is the one the audience would have least suspected to assist who gave the victim aid. Samaritans and Jews were not normally friendly towards each other. In fact, the Samaritans were hated by the Jews.

The victim’s own people passed him by. It was someone they would have considered an enemy who stopped and saved his life. Not only that the Samaritan provided for him whilst he healed and returned to health.

Jesus gave the lawyer, crowd, disciples and us the instruction to “Go and do likewise”.

But, like those cars that just drove straight past, how frequently are we the ones who pass the other by. The compassionate generosity of the Samaritan are the example for us to follow but so often we ignore the cries of the downtrodden, the disenfranchised, the forgotten.

The victim. ignored by his own people, reminds us what it feels like to be forgotten by others. The feelings of loneliness and forsakenness call for compassion and empathy for all experiencing it.

Whilst Jesus is the one telling the story, on a theological level God is both the one in the ditch as His children pass by, and the one who shows compassion and mercy to us when we are in need – the one who saved us through the cross.

This parable is a reminder that the call to care for others often goes unheard as we pass by the cries of those needing help.

Broken down car awaiting the ‘Good Samaritan’

The Feast of St Peter and St Paul

(2 Timothy 4:6-8,17-18, Matthew 16:13-19)

St Peter and St Paul do not have separate feast days and are celebrated together as foundation members of the church – they were instrumental in establishing and spreading Christianity They had complementary ministries with Peter often being called the Apostle to the Jews and Paul the Apostle to the Gentiles.

Peter, originally a fisherman, was chosen by Jesus to lead His church. Paul, originally a pharisee, persecuted Christians until his conversion on the road to Damascus. Their deaths in Rome solidified their connection and their importance to the early church.

In our Gospel reading, Peter is praised for his belief and faith in Jesus as the Son of the Living God. Peter had times of doubt and unfaithfulness but the first call in his following of Jesus was to grow in the faith that would sustain his life.

Jesus withdrew from the mainly Jewish region of Galilee to a place more populated by Gentiles as a kind of retreat or respite. Whilst there He asked the disciples who the crowds thought He was – not because He didn’t know but as an ice breaker to His next question; who do the disciples say He is. And, of course, Peter answered “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God”.

This question is asked of all who hear of Jesus, it is us, not Him, who are judged by the answer. If we really believe Jesus is who He said He is then that will affect the way we live.

Jesus presupposes that His disciples would have thought differently to the men of the crowds.

Jesus was a national reformer, a miracle worker, a prophet. He is the Christ.

Peter understood that Jesus was not just God’s Messiah but also God Himself. Jesus praises Peter for his bold and correct declaration. Jesus reveals to Peter that Peter had spoken by divine inspiration.

The name Peter means Rock. Peter was and would become a Rock. God was transforming his character into something solid and reliable.

“On this rock I will build my church”. Jesus is the cornerstone – the church’s one foundation. Peter was the first Rock among many Rocks. Interestingly, this is the first use of the word church in the New Testament. It came from a Greek word which just meant “group” or “called out group”.

Jesus prophesies the building of the church and claims ownership – “My church”. Jesus brings His people together, on a firm foundation, building them into something that belongs to Him and which is a stronghold.

“I will build, on this Rock, My church, the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it”.

Jesus promises that the forces of death and darkness cannot prevail against or conquer the church.

Jesus gave Peter the keys to the kingdom. Peter opened the doors of the kingdom to the Jesus (Acts 2:38-39). Peter opened the doors of the kingdom to the Gentiles (Acts 10:34-44). Peter was allocated special privileges but Jesus did not grant him the authority to pass the special privileges or authority to future generations.

Jesus gave permission and authority to the first generation apostles to make rules for the early church. This was a responsibility of the disciple group as a whole.

Jesus told His disciples not to tell anyone He was The Christ. He was pleased His disciples were coming to know who He was in truth, but He didn’t want His identity known before the proper time.

Before they could preach that Jesus was the Messiah, they had to learn what that meant.

The Epistle focuses on Paul’s impending death and God’s faithfulness. Paul’s life was a sacrifice and his death was a transition to be with the Lord. Faith is not faith in one’s own abilities bit in God’s faith planted within us which turns us, despite the upheavals and setbacks and failures of life into faithful workers in the vineyard. It speaks of conformity in Christ and is full of verses filled of hope.

Hope in the present, seeing the world with different eyes, with knowledge that Christ is present today. Hope from the certainty that God works through Him at all times, for the community, in the community, with the community.

“The Lord will rescue me from every evil attack and save me for His heavenly kingdom”. This is the prayer of one who relies solely on God and knows that it is not his work but God who will hold him, justify him and bless him. There is no other help but what God gives.

In this promise, we are all invited to pray.

The Spirit Of God

The union between the Father and the Son is such a live concrete thing that this union itself is also a Person. I know this is almost inconceivable, but look at it thus. You know that among human beings, when they get together in a family, or a club, or trade union, people talk about the ‘spirit’ of that family, or club, or trade union. They talk about its ‘spirit’ because the individual members, when they are together, do really develop particular ways of talking and behaving which they would not have if they were apart. It is as if a sort of communal personality came into existence. Of course, it is not a real person: it is only rather like a person. But that is just one of the differences between God and us. What grows out of the joint life of the Father and the Son is a real Person, is in fact the Third of the three Persons who are God.

This third Person is called, in technical language, the Holy Ghost or the ‘Spirit’ of God. Do not be worried or surprised if you find it (or Him) rather vaguer or more shadowy in your mind than the other two. I think there is a reason why that must be so. In the Christian life you are not usually looking at Him. He is always acting through you. If you think of the Father as something ‘out there’, in front of you, and of the Son as someone standing by your side, helping you to pray, trying to turn you into another son, then you have to think of the third Person as something inside you, or behind you. Perhaps some people might find it easier to begin with the third Person and work backwards. God is love, and that love is, from all eternity, a love going on between the Father and the Son.
C.S. Lewis Mere Christianity

Today¹ we are celebrating the feast of Pentecost. A regular feature of Pentecost tends to be a talk based on the Acts reading, Joel’s prophecy and tongues of fire.

And so, I am going to talk about our Gospel reading from John; where Jesus us reassuring the disciples that this is not the end of their relationship with Him. They would not be abandoned or left helpless as Jesus was going to the Father to send the Holy Spirit to be with them … and us.

Jesus said, “Believe in God, believe also in me”. This is a fundamental relationship of trust.

Jesus graciously left the gift of His peace. He said, “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give you”.

True peace is not derived from circumstances, people or things; true peace is derived from Jesus. His peace is peculiarly His to give as He purchased it with His precious blood. Jesus was the substitution for a perishing world. Jesus was commissioned to bring peace to mankind.

Jesus is The Way!

To know Jesus is to know both the way and the destination, which is communion with the Father. In order to complete His atonement for our sin Jesus had to leave and return to the Father. But Jesus leaving is linked to the role of the Holy Spirit – the Helper Jesus had referred to previously.

Jesus was returning to the Father to prepare a place for us.

Jesus is The Way, The Truth and The Life!

Jesus in His life, ministry, actions, everything that He did showed us GOd. Now it is time for Him to return to the Father, He promises the companionship of the Holy Spirit so that the disciples, and us, will be able to continue in Jesus’s way of doing things.

We can only understand and know the Holy Spirit if we know and understand the unity of the other two Persons of the Trinity – the Father and the Son. The Holy Spirit is often thought of as this bond of love between Father and Son.

Jesus describes the Holy Spirit a “another Advocate to be with you forever”. The love of the Father and His desire to be reconciled with His creation is what led to Jesus’s incarnation in the first place and is the reason for God sending the Spirit to us; God is our Advocate – the one who is by our side, no matter what, no matter which persona of the Trinity (Father, Son and Holy Spirit) it is.

The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Truth and will be in us – not just by our side.

This Spirit is in us, united with us, the way the Father and the Son are united in each other. This bond with the Spirit enables the Spirit to be our guide in life just as Jesus did the will of God His Father.

The Holy Spirit is our guiding light – our tongue of fire – if the Spirit dwells in us.

But because it is the guiding light for those in whom it dwells, the world cannot receive the Spirit. The world refuses to see the Spirit of Truth alongside them, tapping them on the shoulder with a call to repentance. They do not want to return to being God’s original and beautiful masterpiece. They only see their own gain and not the loveliness of God.

If we can see it in Jesus, if we can see that the Holy Spirit is by our side and in our lives. If we can recognise the real truth and call upon our God to help us do the things He would have us do, then we will know the presence of God within us and His guiding light before us – our tongue of Spirit fire.

8th June 2025 ↩︎

Father’s Day …

… originated in the United States in the early 20th century. In 1909, Sonora Smart Dodd, a woman from Spokane, Washington, proposed the idea of a day to honour fathers after hearing a Mother’s Day sermon. She wanted to recognize her father, who raised her and her siblings after her mother’s death.

As we enter into the month of June, Father’s Day is approaching and this gives us the opportunity to address why God is often referred to as Father.

Whilst referring to God as Father was less frequent prior to the birth of Jesus, God is referred to as Father in the Old Testament where He is called the Father of the nation of Israel. In the Gospels, when Jesus speaks about and prays to God He typically refers to Him as His “Abba, Father”. Teaching His disciples how to pray, Jesus said, “When you pray, you say, Our Father …” Jesus gave to us the right and privilege to come into the presence of the majesty of God and address Him as Father.

He transformed the meaning of the word for His time to call His people (Jews and Gentiles) to a true relationship with a caring, personal God, as scripture affirmed. It also puts an emphasis on God’s role as the source of all life, love and authority, similar to an ideal image of a father’s role in a family. It shows God’s interest in humanity, His care for His children and His ultimate power, providing, protecting and loving.

Galatians 4:4-4 “But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship. Because you are his sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Abba, Father.”

We don’t just call God Father because of Him being our creator but also because of the revelation given to us in Christ; which acknowledges a particular relationship with Him. God is also addressed as Father because He is His people’s redeemer and because we have been joined to Christ by adoption. Jesus died the death we deserve so that we might be joined to Him and adopted into God’s family.

“And by him we cry “Abba, Father.” The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. And now if we are children then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his joy.”

Do You Want To Be Healed?

John 5:1-9

This short but potent passage from John contains themes of healing, restoration and the transforming power of faith. It symbolises humanity’s need for divine intervention and the opportunity of spiritual renewal through encountering Christ. The pool represents the need to seek God’s grace and trust in His ability to heal both physically and spiritually.

The man in this passage had been unable to walk for 38 years and had given up hope that he could be healed.

From John’s brief account and if we were to read on further we can ascertain that this inform man was old (well over the life expectancy of the time), a dependant who was unable to care for himself, he liked to complain and put the blame on others, he was an unrepentant sinner who was ungrateful and disloyal.

Jesus’s healing of this man would have been at the direction of God the Father and is an example of God’s complete and utter grace.

God saves sinners.

God saw us in our hopeless, helpless condition and rescued us. He gives hope to the hopeless and help to the helpless.

Jesus cares about people even when problems make them feel hopeless or sad.

Jesus healed the man and he was able to walk again.

Jesus brushes off the excuses of the lame man. Don’t make excuses – work around them.

We wait too long to ask for healing. Instead seize the moment and ask God to work in your life. It’s not easy to live with illness and hope for healing.

Spiritual healing may occur without physical healing. A positive outlook in the face of our own disease or injury, and as our bodies age, is a miracle in itself. We have to do our part to maintain good health. Small changes to improve our health is part of the healing process.

God helps those who can not help themselves.

God helps those who see their inability to save or help themselves, who turn from self to the saviour and trust in God.

All the healings Jesus performed remind us that God saves sinners.

Without God it is impossible for man to save himself.

We need God to give us feet to walk in His ways, we need to receive eyes to see His truth and have strength to walk in obedience to Him.

This is a picture of God’s initiative in salvation and He saves us by His grace.

Jesus saw the man. He knew him. He spoke to him.

God sees us. God knows us. He then speaks to us.

Jesus came to give us life abundantly.

Boring and Mundane

Advance warning – my story of faith is not dramatic! I know I am not the only one here who has sat in a church meeting where the minister has asked for people to give testimony or to talk about finding the light and thought “but I’ve always believed”. The reality is my story is ordinary and mundane.

I had a Christian family and learnt about Jesus from an extremely young age. I’ve belonged to and been part of church my whole life.

And, having explained that I have no dramatic Hollywood style event to entertain you with, I could stop here …

…or I could, which is what I’m going to do, continue anyway and tell you more – including why it is that ordinary mundane testimonies can be a blessing to us.

Being a Christian and following a Christian life is difficult – and it’s supposed to be. Remember that old adage that implies that something’s worth is measured by how hard you had to work for it. God, through His grace and His Son Jesus Christ, has given us the most valuable gift of all; but to follow in our Lord’s footsteps takes hard work and perseverance.

We are called to faithfulness. We are persecuted, we suffer, we face trials tribulations. temptation and false teachers trying to send us off track.

When times are difficult we are tempted to give up and many do fall away. The epistles remind us to persevere, to put on God’s armour. to stand firm and to ensure in following Jesus Christ.

Remaining steadfast, staying on the narrow path and being faithful teach the need to focus on persevering, to continue to put our trust in God and to not falter.

The well known poem about the footsteps in the sand really is true. God never leaves us. Whilst people fall away and leave Him; He does not abandon us.

When I give my burdens to Him I feel a physical lightness and literally feel the weight removed from my shoulders as He takes the load for me.

When times are easy, I feel His presence walking beside me and we enjoy the journey together.

If things are more difficult I feel His hand in mine.

In times of great trial He is supporting me or carrying me if you like.

And in times of great sorrow I feel His arms around me as He embraces me with His great love and comfort.

This is certainly a great blessing and in return I pray that God will continue to fill me with His love so that it can overflow through me to others.

We are called to carry each other’s burdens, encourage and bring back the wanderers. We are called to follow Christ’s example to aspire to God’s standard and to repent of all – however mundane – that makes us guilty of not reaching that standard.

God told us to pass His teachings to our children. Having parents, teachers, ministers and peers who did this points to God’s continued faithfulness as does having been preserved in the faith. God catches me when I stumble.

He has blessed me and kept me. He has blessed you and kept you.

So let us sing of His great love for evermore and make His faithfulness known through all generations and let us give thanks to God.

Tell Us Who You Are

The Jews asked Jesus whether He was the promised one from God.

In his writings, John has told us that this event took place during the Jewish Festival of Dedication. This festival is also called Hanukkah or the Festival of Lights; and it takes place in remembrance of the purification, or cleansing, of the Temple, in 164 BC, after the desecration committed by a king of Syria called Antiochus Epiphanes in 170 BC.

During this Festival of Lights there would be great illuminations in the Temple and in every Jesish home as a reminder of the light of freedom coming back to Israel – the freedom won to worship God. It is significant that Jesus chose this time to say “I am the light of the world, I alone can light men into the knowledge and presence of God”.

The location of this event was Solomon’s Porch. Now the first court in the Temple precincts was the Court of the Gentiles and along two sides ran the Royal Porch and Solomon’s Porch. These were rows of magnificent pillars, almost 40 feet high and roofed, where people walked to pray and meditate. Rabbis walked there teaching their students the doctrines of faith.

This was where the Jews chose to ask Jesus whether He was the one promised from God.

Some of those asking would have been genuinely wanting to know but others were trying to trap Jesus. Jesus did not fall into the trap, simply saying He had already told them who He was.

There is a saying that actions speak louder than words.

Every miracle performed by Jesus testified that the Messiah had come.

Jesus’s words, the authority with which He spoke, the way He explained the scriptures and put His teaching in their place, showed that God was speaking in Him.Both the words and deeds of Jesus were a continuous claim to be the anointed one of God.

The sheep of a shepherd knows his call.

Jesus is the good shepherd.

He knows His sheep, who follow Him when He calls.

And, to those who accept Jesus, He promises eternal life that would know no end and that is secure.

Jesus promised that for those who accept Him as Lord and Master and become members of His flock, the littleness of earthly life would be gone and His flock will know the splendour and magnificence of the life of God. Jesus promised that death would not be the end but the beginning with the glory of indestructible life.

And security. Jesus promised that nothing can snatch His sheep from His hand.

This does not mean that there would be no sorrow or suffering but that in sorrow and at the darkest hour they would still be conscious of the everlasting arms underneath and about them.

Even in a world crashing to disaster they would know the serenity of God.

God’s promise is true. His arms are around us, embracing us in His love. I say this from my own experience of feeling God’s loving arms when times are tough.

It is God who gave Jesus the sheep. Both Jesus and His sheep are in the Father’s hand. We are secure in God’s power.

The bond of unity is love. Proof of love is obedience. We are one with one another if we are bound in Christ obeying the words of Christ and following His example. Jesus was one with God because He loved and obeyed Him perfectly and He came to this world to make us what He is – one with God.

He Is Risen!

Listening to the readings again on Easter Sunday with the women going to the tomb to prepare Jesus’s body reminds me of something I read recently about Mary – Jesus’s mother.

It is interesting, is it not, that Jesus’s mother – arguably His greatest disciple, a woman of tremendous faith, who stayed by Him to the bitter end, is not listed amongst the women going to attend to Jesus’s body.

And this poses the theory that the first person Jesus appeared to may well have been His mother and that this is why she was not among those going to the tomb at dawn. Such an appearance would be part of completing her participation in the essential parts of the paschal mystery.

Mary suffered above all others in the suffering and death of her son. Christ kept the commandments. He honoured His heavenly Father, His earthly father and His mother, so it makes sense that he’d visit her first.

If a son lived far away and his mother was told he’d died but he was actually alive and healthy and he returned to the area, it would highlight that he was not a good son if he visited his friends first and his mother last.

Jesus was the perfect son. So, why would He not visit His mother first. There’s also her faith, which, despite the apostles losing theirs at Jesus’s passion, Mary had in abundance. Scripture tells us that the Lord shows Himself to those who have faith in Him. And, of course, she loved her son so much and scripture tells us that those who love Him will be visited by Him.

How joyful she must have felt at seeing her son alive once more.

There is a special kind of joy at Easter. It’s not just the spring flowers springing up into life or the longer days. What it is is a deep, radiant joy born from our Lord’s victory over sin and death so that we might have eternal life with Him.

Jesus leaves the darkness and rises to new life. Through God’s grace, this gives us the gift that, no matter what our past was, we have permission to leave it behind and embrace the hope and joy of new lives in Christ. His sacrifice and act of intermediary reconciliation grants us forgiveness of our past sins, our present sins and our future sins.