Monday of Easter Week

Monday of Easter Week

Matthew 28:8-15

Today’s readings testify to the Resurrection of Christ. St Peter, along with his fellow disciples, is speaking to a crowd and speaking to them of Christ and is part of the first ever Christian sermon. The basis for his preaching and that of the apostles is clearly their own personal encounter with the Risen Lord. Like the sermons recorded in the Acts of the Apostles they are personal testaments to the death and resurrection of Christ. In the gospel, Jesus appears to the women and tells them to go and get the disciples and to tell them to go to Galilee where he will meet them. Galilee represented normality and everyday life for the disciples and it reminds us that we too will find Christ in the normality of our lives.

Jesus, of the resurrection;

stop us in our tracks.

Teach us to fish,

to trust,

to forgive,

to seek justice,

to recognize your grace,

to love,

to live the prayer, you taught us to pray:

Our father…

Resurrection

Resurrection

The rock split and a shaft of light shone into the darkness.

Only the angels witnessed the resurrection,

The power of the Spirit transforming Jesus into glory.

Mary Magdalene was the first to know, arriving early to find

The empty tomb, called to a new life when she heard her name

Spoken by the risen Lord, whose very breath was peace.

There was no revenge, now he was risen,

No lessons in power for those men who struck him

And flogged him. That’s what we would do, perhaps…

He simply forgave, and taught his friends the meaning of everything

He had said and done, and told them to wait

Until the Spirit powered them up to go out and tell the world:

Christ is Risen, his light spreads over all the earth.

He has forgiven every one of our sins and shown us the path to God.

Sing alleluia, praise the Lord

Good Friday

Good Friday

Because what he said and did was such a threat to the ways

of the religious authorities, they made sure he was condemned and flogged and taken out and nailed up onto a cross.

The disciples could not cope with the violence, the crowds,

only his mother and the women stayed, and the beloved disciple.

Roman crucifixion was a humiliation, a public mockery.

Jesus became human and went to the very depths of being human,

abandoned by God, tortured, and made a victim.

He did not fight back; he absorbed the violence of the human race.

And from his high place on the cross, outside the walls of the city, forgave us.

Lord, we do not know what we are doing,

help us to forgive and be reconciled,

never again to make victims.

Amen