Author Archives: hlesbrown

Scripture Readings Sunday, April 11, 2021 Is there life after death? What a question! That this question has persisted even now is testimony to the hardness and stubbornness of the human heart. Haven’t we all heard statements like, “When you’re dead, that the end?” or “Nobody’s come back from the dead to tell us about it?” It’s as though the gospels and two thousand years of Christian experience never happened. Yet, all we really need to know about life after death is right here in front of us in this morning’s gospel. The disciples encountered the risen Jesus. It was Continue Reading →

Scripture Readings Sunday, April 04, 2021 Our bodily eyes are blind. All they do is register reflected photons and give our brain cells electrical impulses for it to digest. The eyes and the brain give us images. They give us impressions. They’re very good at what they do, but they can’t tell us what any of these images mean. They don’t speak to us. They leave us free to interpret these things any-which-way we want. Yet, in spite of all this, we trust our eyes. It’s much harder to trust our inner vision. May people dismiss what we “see” with Continue Reading →

Scripture Readings Saturday, April 03, 2021 What does it mean to be in “union with Christ?” After all, in tonight’s epistle, Saint Paul writes, “For if we have grown into union with him through a death like his, we shall also be united with him in the resurrection.” In other words, what happened to Christ will happen to us. But even that is not enough. The union that Saint Paul talks about joins us with Jesus in his death. Paul says, “We were indeed buried with him through baptism into his death.” I want you to think about what that Continue Reading →

Scripture Readings Friday, April 2, 2021 If there were only one theme that I want consistently emphasized throughout this entire Lenten season, it would have to be found in this passage from the Letter to the Hebrews: “And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfector of faith. For the joy set before him, he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”             We are tempted to see Jesus as our replacement – the Son of God Continue Reading →

Scripture Readings Thursday, April 1, 2021 This evening, we commemorate the Lord Jesus’s last supper with his disciples before embarking on the path that would lead him to Golgotha. As usual, Saint John has a unique perspective on this night. He presents us with his mystical interpretation of what transpired. He does this first and foremost by moving the dates. For Matthew, Mark, and Luke, the synoptic gospels, the Lord’s Last Supper was the Passover Seder meal – the Passover we heard about in today’s first reading. John moves the date so that the Passover would be celebrated two days Continue Reading →