4th Sunday of Easter 2026 - Year A

Jeff Bagnall • 21 April 2026

The first reading repeats the introduction from last week so as to make sense, for there follows a continuation of the previous words spoken to the crowd by Peter. The people have been moved by the accusation of putting Jesus to death, and they want to know what they can do. Peter calls upon them to be baptised. As John the Baptist seems to have preached to his listeners, Peter begins with the need for repentance and the need for baptism. You could feel sorry for the past but this repentance means ‘change your attitude to life.’ Baptism is a washing symbolic of starting with a clean sheet; here it is for starting a new life caught up in the life of the risen Christ. In his life our past is transformed; those baptised will have the forgiveness of past sins. The words translated ‘forgiveness of’ could equally well be translated as ‘release from,’ meaning a freedom from the debilitating affects of past sins. Those baptised will share in the Spirit of Christ, the Holy Spirit of God. God wants people of all kinds to come into this communion with Him.

The First letter of Peter is written in good Greek and unlikely to come from the pen of Peter himself, but whether or no it is a work inspired by God written in the first century and accepted into the Christian Bible. It has a great deal to say to us. Our reading presents us with food for thought, a high ideal and an enormous challenge. It tells us that when we undergo suffering even though we are doing good deeds, this shows God’s favour for us. Indeed this is actually what being a Christian involves – following Christ’s example, who Himself suffered for our benefit and as an example for us to follow. The writer has in mind a prophetic poem (maybe of the 4th century BC) from the book of Isaiah (chapter 53). The suffering of Christ has often been seen as a sacrifice to appease God for sin and folk’s falling short of expectations, and this imagery was drawn ultimately from the Jewish sacrifices and sin-offerings, for it is not at all easy to find ways of making some sense of Christ’s suffering (and even of any innocent’s misfortune). But God is not like a human self-opinionated superior person, who requires compensation when offended in any way; not like us when we seek what can only be called revenge for any damage done to us or even to our belongings or property! Jesus came to show us a better way to live our lives, a very challenging way reported in Matthew’s account of the Sermon on the Mount (Mt 5:38-48): we shouldn’t be wanting “an eye for an eye,” for revenge and treating evil with force doesn’t bring freedom and joy to the world. As we celebrate the resurrection of Christ from death, after a painful and totally unjust execution, we need to learn that the way to the higher life, to sharing in the life of Christ, is not so much a bed of roses, as of thorns. There is a deep and inner joy in following the difficult path of the life of Christ, which we should and could take part in. And at this time we celebrate this joy of the new and higher way of living.

The Gospel is helpful after the challenge of the second reading. For we easily and often fall short of the ideal and go astray. But we need to think of God as a shepherd. In those days the shepherd would spend most of his life with his flock, leading them to good pasture, gathering them into a safe place and staying with them throughout the night for their protection. This image of God has been deservedly very popular over the last two and a half millennia; many people know and love the psalm and hymn that we had for our responsorial psalm after the first reading; in John’s gospel this image is expanded and Jesus is God the shepherd, and it is through Him, as through a gate, that we can not only share His way of life, but benefit from his help and protection.

see Jeff’s Jottings – Listen to Judas

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Jeff Bagnall was a lecturer for many years at Craiglockhart College teaching RE to many future Catholic Primary teachers.

3rd Sunday of Easter - 2026 - Year A

15 April 2026

In Luke’s Acts of the Apostles, today’s first reading is the first sermon from Peter after the resurrection. The literary style is not that of a Galilean Jew, but the content is believable as a very early expression of the initial preaching about Jesus. In this first century account of the beginnings of Christianity, Peter is a key figure in the growth of the early church, together with Paul, the missionary to the Gentiles. It is significant that it is a Jewish audience in Jerusalem that Peter is addressing. Jesus is referred to as the Nazarean and there is uncertainty whether this means a man from Nazareth or one specially dedicated to God, as for example, Samson in the Old Testament, called a Nazirite. The understanding of Christian beliefs develops over time, so Peter speaks about God working through Jesus where we might be clear that Jesus is Himself God; but he does see Jesus as the fulfilment of the hopes of the Old Testament and quotes Psalm 16 verses 8 to 11, which was a song originally about someone faithful to the Lord, maybe king David, being looked after by Him; (it is used for the responsorial psalm this day). In the sermon Peter accuses the Jews of engineering the death of Jesus in an anti-Semitic way; this attitude was decried by the Church most noticeably in the 20th century in the Second Vatican Council initiated by Pope Saint John XXIII, with the words: “Furthermore, in her rejection of every persecution against any person, the Church, mindful of the patrimony she shares with the Jews and moved not by political reasons but by the Gospel’s spiritual love, decries hatred, persecutions, displays of anti-Semitism, directed against Jews at any time and by anyone.” (The Church and non-Christian religions, Nostra Aetate, Oct. 1962). But for us the positive message from Peter’s sermon is that the Spirit of God is now poured out into creation because of the resurrection of Jesus destroying the deadliness of death and the power of evil in our lives. The second reading is part of an address to early Christians, probably Gentile converts. It is about what it means to be a Christian, noting that it is brought about by Christ – the writer uses the word ‘ransomed’, but no words can really capture the mystery of it. The mystery is that the final age has been initiated thanks to the work of God in Christ, through His life and death. The imagery of the sacrificial lamb which is used is derived from the bloody sacrifices of the Jewish Temple which at the time of this letter had been destroyed. And those addressed are living like people in exile and are urged to conduct themselves reverently in this situation; this reflects how the Jews were when they were in exile in Babylon, they had to work at it to keep themselves true to their calling. So, though we are elevated in our being through the work of God in Christ, we are for the time being in this world and must live here in a way becoming of our status.

Palm Sunday - 2026 - Year A

20 March 2026

Fr Donald Senior CP has written a whole book about the passion. In the Preface he makes this important statement: “Pain touches every human being … Suffering is both individual and communal… The struggle to understand the origin and meaning of suffering is as long as human history. It is not surprising, therefore, that the suffering and death of Jesus should have such a prominent place in the Gospels.” (The Passion of Jesus in the gospel of Matthew, Preface).