Last Sunday Jesus and his disciples arrived by boat at what they thought was going to be a deserted place. Jesus is grieving the death of his cousin John. The disciples have returned from their mission of announcing the kingdom to the villages of Galilee. They are elated but exhausted. Instead, it is shortly before the Passover and rather than a deserted place, it is full of hungry people. So Jesus feeds them first with […]

The twelve “ones sent out” return from their successful mission, given in the Gospel last Sunday (see 6:7-13). Now, after an interlude during which the death of John the Baptist – slain for his faithful sharing in the mission of Jesus – has been reported (6:14-29), ‘the ones sent out’ return to Jesus (v. 30) and gather around him. But now they return, full of their own importance. Instead of recognising that all they did […]

Ready for a huge challenge? Jesus is on a mission, and he wants his followers to join him. The Gospel of Mark began with the announcement that this is the Good News about King Jesus, the Son of God. When Jesus began his ministry in Galilee, he announced “The kingdom of God is near!” Jesus began to call disciples – people who would follow him and learn from him. First, he called five followers – […]

Ready for some bible trivia? We read in the gospel of Matthew 2:23 that Jesus made his home in a town called Nazareth. This was to fulfil we’re told what “the prophets” had spoken, that “He will be a Nazarene.” Yet, the small village that Jesus grew up in, Nazareth, did not even exist during the period of the Old Testament. Matthew links the promise in Isaiah 11 that the Messiah would come as a branch that springs up […]

Do you remember the exact moment when you fell asleep last night? I’m not sure that I do, but I do know that the feeling of slowly drifting off to sleep is rather wonderful. In the Gospel today we have these two healing stories that the author Mark binds together so closely that you need to read them both together. The 12-year old daughter of Jairus, an important Synagogue official, is very sick, indeed she […]

John the Baptist is a great figure. His birth around six months before the birth of Jesus is worthy of celebration. John is an enigmatic figure – yet worthy of honour. He is a wild man with a deep passion for the way of God and a desire to see the kingdom of God break into the lives of his people. Today we first look at the example of his parents. Luke described them earlier […]

As Jesus has wandered around Galilee preaching about the Kingdom of God, he has been receiving very mixed responses and reactions. In the light of this, he begins to teach the crowds in parables about growth. The two that we have today are very similar and closely linked to the everyday experience of the people that he is speaking with – sowing seeds and growing plants. He wants the people to understand how amazingly wonderful […]

You know that things are not going well when everyone is so busy and that so many people gathered that Jesus and his disciples could not find time to eat. But perhaps it is a bit of a stretch to jump to the conclusion that the wider family of Jesus does – ‘he’s out of his mind!’ Mind you, Jesus is acting against all that common social wisdom suggests – then and now. He had […]

Think back to the last time that you celebrated with friends or family some significant occasion. Was it a special birthday, an engagement party, graduation or wedding? The desire to mark such a special occasion with a meal is a deeply human and spiritual instinct. So much happens when we gather together and are bound more tightly together by sharing the meal. While the meal feeds our bodies, it says something so much greater, and actually […]

The Church gathers the community together today and reminds us of the mission that we receive through our belief in the Trinitarian God. Like the disciples who had scattered during the passion of Jesus, we are gathered to worship – even if some distazo – the word that Matthew uses to describe the doubt of Peter as he sinks into the lake (Matthew 14:31) and the doubt of some of the disciples. Then Jesus approaches […]