When the people returned from exile they rebuilt... but things were not the same as they had been.  A new community needed new foundations, just like the new Temple would.  Some of the people who remembered how things had been before wept while those who didn't remember shouted for joy.  Such is the way of change.

Jillian helps us discover through that Jesus' new commandment that love is actually all around.

As we gathered around the Lord's Table we heard the words Jesus spoke after the Last Supper in John 14:1-27.  They were words of comfort, words of trust, and words of peace.

At the end of John's Gospel, Jesus' reinstatement and renewal of Peter after he had denied even knowing Jesus 3 times is a painful conversation, but a conversation full of hope for all of us.  Jesus' instructions to Peter; feed my lambs, tend my sheep, feed my sheep, and the renewal of the invitation to 'follow me', are a manifesto for the church and for each and every one of us.

After a long and unsuccessful night fishing a man on the shore suggests the disciples throw their nets out the other side.  It turns out the man is Jesus, but he's different.  He's changed.  What would our equivalent be?  Where might we try something different?  Where might we cast our nets?  And where do we still meet the Risen Christ in our lives?

It's Resurrection Sunday!!! Easter Day.  The Lord is risen!!!  The tomb is empty... Love has won.  It's a story of faith.  Their faith and ours.  Where will you encounter the risen Christ?

Love... Agape.  The kind of love God has for us and wants us to have for each other.  Compassionate, tender and unconditional.  And really hard to live out!

Romans 12 tells us what it look likes to live a life of love.  But it's hard... really hard.  And that's what makes it so important that we try our hardest and perhaps consider just how loveable we are.

Philia, the love between friends.  As we continue our journey through Lent Yvonne Hamilton helps us to reflect on what it means to love our friends by reflecting on how the friends of the paralysed man act in their quest to help their friend see Jesus.