Reflection for the Fifth Sunday of EasterScripture:‘Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe[a] in God, believe also in me. 2 In my Father’s house there are many dwelling-places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?[b] 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also. 4 And you know the way to the place where I am going.’[c] 5 Thomas said to him, ‘Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?’ 6 Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. (John 14 1-6)Reflection: He may be known as ‘doubting Thomas’, but perhaps ‘honest Thomas’ or ‘courageous Thomas’ would be nearer the mark! Thomas, the one disciple who had the courage to say what everyone else was thinking but didn’t dare say. And, because he had the courage to confess his ignorance, we were given these words of life: ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life. We are all - each one of us - at one time or another just like Thomas: ‘We don’t know the way’ But if we have the courage, just like Thomas, to ask the awkward questions and to share how we feel with Jesus it means that we give ourselves the chance to get to know the way: Jesus is the way, the truth and the life.Lyn Hayes
Reflection for the Third Sunday of EasterScripture:'But Peter, standing with the eleven, raised his voice and addressed them: ‘Men of Judea and all who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and listen to what I say… Let the entire house of Israel know with certainty that God has made him both Lord and Messiah, this Jesus whom you crucified.’' (Acts of the Apostles 2.14a,36)Reflection: This is Simon the fisherman, nicknamed ‘Rock’ by Jesus, the same Peter who was so close to Jesus but was afraid to admit it when Jesus was on trial for his life. Now he has become the bold speaker who will not be silenced. Why? Because he has been convinced that the death of Jesus the man had not been an end but a beginning. The new Peter is himself compelling evidence for the resurrected Jesus. By their transformation, he and Jesus’s other disciples and followers lived out God’s power to release any or all of us from our personal demons.Jesus, crucified and risen, shows us we are loved with “a love stronger than death”.David Harmsworth
