Easter Sunday B

Jeff Bagnall • 23 March 2024

The first reading is taken from the Acts of the Apostles, ( chapter 10, verses 34-43 passim), where we hear a speech made by Peter before a Roman Official about the resurrection of Jesus. The book of Acts is written as an history of the growth, spread and preaching of the early church chiefly through Peter and Paul. The book seems to be a sequel to the Gospel of Luke and also written by him. The custom at the time of writing such an account often included speeches by key figures written by the author. However, there are definite elements in the recorded preaching of Peter that reflect the use of an early source which may well have been Peter himself. You will notice that the way Jesus is described is less developed than the way even Paul writing in the 50’s described the nature of Jesus (as Son of God); at an earlier time it was said that God was with Jesus in all the things He did and after His death God raised Him to life with Himself and set Him up as judge of all. The opening remarks of Peter may reflect the change that he went through after encountering the attitude of Paul: from seeing the Jewish practices as essential to God’s favour to saying that God “accepts from every nation the one who fears him and does what is right.”

The short second reading from Colossians, ( chapter 3, verses 1-4 ) is addressed to a newly baptised Christian. After accepting the preaching about Jesus, a person could ask to become a follower of the Way of Jesus and be baptised and join the community of believers. Baptism was by total immersion and was a symbolic act of dying, being buried and rising anew; dying to a life of following the degrading values of money, pleasure and worldly success; putting all that behind one and rising (out of the water) to live with Christian values within the life of Christ now present on earth. The Christian lives with a new life that is visible only in the values that are followed and the sincerity of one’s life, but will be revealed completely at the end of time, when they expected Christ would come again in some way. We see here the use of a word probably coined by the writer of Ephesians (which we read on the 4 th Sunday of Lent) – a single word meaning raised together with (συνηγερθητε) urging us to live up to what we are and with the life we share in Christ!

In the gospel ( John, chapter 20, verses 1-9 ) we have a description of the realisation that Jesus is risen. There is always much to consider in the words of this fourth gospel; we notice for example the significant role of women and that other disciples are secondary to Peter. And it makes us realise something about the resurrection that otherwise might not have been documented, namely, that none of the followers of Jesus, men or women, really had any idea that he would be raised up to life anew after His crucifixion – they thought the body had been stolen and had not understood any prediction of this event. The resurrection is a mystery – it is about the life of Christ not just after death but in a new way entirely within the Godhead but also present within our world, in all that is positive and good in it. This is a belief that we too are unable to grasp fully; and it is not so much something that we have to understand as something that we have to live out as the disciples and the early Christians showed us: this is how Easter should impact on us!

See Jeff's jottings on "He's not here!"

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

27th Sunday in Ordinary Time - 2025 - Year C

by Jeff Bagnall • 25 September 2025

This is the only time on Sundays that we have a reading from Habakkuk. He was a prophet perhaps around the 7 th century BC, when the people were troubled by the surrounding more powerful nations. Of the three chapters in the book, we have a few verses from each of the first two ( 1:2-3, 2:2-4 ). At first the prophet expresses the heartfelt cry of the people, “How long, O Lord” is all this going on; a feeling common among most peoples at some time or other throughout all periods of human history, especially where there is an idea of a caring deity of some kind. The phrase is also used often in the psalms . But in the verses from chapter 2 that are added into our reading, we hear that God does have a vision of the future – sometime – and so we must hang on and remain loyal because, as it ends, “the upright man lives by his faith;” and this phrase is taken up in St Paul’s way of thinking and in later Christian teaching, where the word ‘faith’ is not just ‘loyalty’ but trusting in Christ and in Christ’s way of selfless service of others. In 1947 an ancient commentary on this book was found in a cave in the Dead Sea area ( see the video ), it referred the troubles to the invasion of the Romans into their land,

26th Sunday in Ordinary Time - 2025 - Year C

by Jeff Bagnall • 18 September 2025

The first reading is from a section of the book of Amos ( 6:4-10 ); it is introduced with the opening words of the chapter: “alas for those who are at ease in Zion.” Strong words against the city dwellers come from Amos, the country fellow – words and woes against the northern kingdom of Israel. We hear the third and last woe against the excessive luxury in which they are living although their prosperity is declining visibly; they seem to live for the moment and care little of the future, even their own. They are, unusually, referred to as a group under the eponymous name of Joseph; this could be because of the account of Joseph’s interpretation of the Pharaoh’s dream (Exodus 41) of seven years of plenty followed by seven of crop failure, and his wise management under the Pharaoh of storing up supplies for the future. The exile that will come will be the disaster that follows this decadence. In the second reading ( 1 Timothy 6:11-16 ) Timothy is addressed as a ‘man of God.’ Unlike the people of the first reading and in contrast to those addressed in this letter just before this section, Timothy is chosen and enabled by God to be a minister in the Christian community. Paul’s athletic imagery appears here also, saying “compete well,” that is, ‘run the race’ or ‘fight the good fight.’ The Christian at baptism made confession that “Jesus is Lord”, and Jesus made a similar confession before Pilate according to John’s gospel (18:37); Timothy was baptised but was also a leader in some way, and that meant not to be a covert Christian but to speak the truth even before accusers, as Jesus did before Pilate; the writer could be referring to either of these situations. The requirement to keep the commandments or ordinances is most likely not to the ten commandments of the Jewish religion but to the requirements of being a Christian or, more likely, the specific orders for acting as a minister. He must act as a servant of the King who will eventually appear, and he must be selfless in his work towards the kingdom of God. In today’s gospel reading from Luke ( 16:19-31 ) we have the parable often call that of Dives and Lazarus; but ‘dives’ is just the Latin word for rich man. In many ways the story is straightforward once we accept the different understanding of the afterlife that it portrays. However, whereas the rich man is anonymous, the beggar at his gate is named Lazarus. Luke is writing about 40 years after the resurrection of Jesus but still there are people who aren’t believers; and John’s gospel, uniquely, has the story of the raising of Lazarus which Luke’s readers may have known; but Luke’s point is not about accepting the truth of the resurrection, of Jesus or of Lazarus, because believing is more a way of living than accepting facts – of loving God and your neighbour as yourself, which the rich man in the parable didn’t do.