Easter5A20.   Acts of the Apostles 6:1-7.   The Hellenists generally were the non-Hebrew members of the Christian community.  The Christian community looked after the needs of the widows but it seems that the distribution of goods seemed to favor the Hebrew widows more than the Hellenists.  The Apostles or the Twelve gathered the community to set up a special group chosen to care for the problem stated above.  We now call these men deacons.  The “number of the disciples in Jerusalem increased greatly,” building the church community in the days after Pentecost.

John 14:1-12.“Jesus said to his disciples:”  “In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places.”   I will “’take you to myself, so that where I am going you also may be. Where I am going you know the way.’ Thomas said to him, ‘Master, we do not know where you are going; how can we know the way?’ Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, the truth and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me.’”  Thomas does not comprehend the spiritual.  For him things are only earthly.  That is why later Thomas refuses to accept Jesus’ resurrection.  To a person who thinks only in terms of what this earth is all about, death is absolute, total termination and obliteration.  Jesus was always trying to lift his disciples’ way of thinking from the earthly and physical to the spiritual and heavenly.  I do not think the disciples understood fully until the Spirit came to build them into people that had a spiritual frame of mind.  Spirituality is drawing the daily breathe of our lives from the Holy Spirit. The “dwelling places” that Jesus is speaking about is that we will have an eternal life with him, the Father and the Holy Spirit.  Even in this world if we are children of God the Father, then we live in profound and intimate union with the person of God.  Our dwelling place is our life or our dwelling in Jesus who is also our way to heaven. Jesus goes to the Father to be our Advocate along with the Spirit, calling upon the Father that what we do in his name and will, we will do empowered by the Father.  The works that Jesus did, he will now do through us, by making us the instruments of his will on earth.

1 Peter 2:4-9.  God is building his spiritual house, his Church, that is to say his Christian community, with his people, as the living stones.  What enables us to be his living stones is our faith which empowers us to draw our spiritual life from Christ.  To those who choose to live in Christ, “you are ‘a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people of his own, so that you may announce the praises’ of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.”   The real Church is the people of God who use a physical building called the church to be the visible sign of the Holy Spirit’s invisible work in this world.

Easter17. Acts of the Apostles 10:34a, 37-43. Peter,appointed by Jesus to lead the Church, speaks, “God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power.” “This man God raised on the third day and granted that he be visible, not to all the people, but to us, the witnesses chosen by God in advance.” Here Luke, traditionally accepted as the author of the Acts of the Apostles, seems to see Jesus as man empowered by God but not God in himself. Apparently for Luke that would be a laterdevelopment. The Apostles are witnesses to all he did while he walked this earth, to his resurrection to full life again, able to eat and drink. Peter goes on to say: “he commissioned us to preach to the people and testify that he is the one appointed by God as judge of the living and the dead. To him all the prophets bear witness, that everyone who believes in him will receive forgiveness of sins through his name.” Both the Apostles and the prophets are witnesses to believing in him will bring one eternal salvation.
John 20:1-9. Jesus had foretold at various times that he was to suffer, be put to death and then arise. It appears that no one, not even Mary of Magdala nor the Apostles, took him at his word. The last line of this Gospel says, “For they did not yet understand the Scripture that he had to rise from the dead.” One commentary states that the Greek from which this gospel was translated indicates that it appeared that Jesus miraculously slipped out of burial cloths, leaving them empty of the body that had been in them, with the cloth that had covered his head, removed and placed in a separate place. The word tomb is mentioned in this gospel seven times, I believe, to indicate the empty tomb with the stone rolled back is a physical witness to the resurrection of Jesus. Peter’s authority and leadership is clearly accepted by John, since he waited for Peter, more important than he, to enter first. John goes into the tomb “and he saw and believed” that the tomb was empty.
Colossians 3:1-4. “Seek what is above,” “Think of what is above, not of what is on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.” After Jesus had told his disciples that he had to suffer and die and then Peter rebuked Jesus for thinking that way, then Jesus in turn rebuked Peter saying, “You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.” (Matthew 16:18) We are people who live in this world, not in heaven. This world can, and easily does, drown us in its way of thinking, feeling and acting. The Holy Spirit, who is far more powerful than our good intentions and will power, can enable us to have Jesus as our life. With Christ as our life, one day he will share his glory with us.
1 Corinthians 5:6b-8. “Let us celebrate the feast, not with old yeast, the yeast of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.” Yeast could be symbolically thought of as an evil, corrupting force; whereas being unleavened was thought of as growing in the purity of the “sincerity and truth” of Christ. If we dine on the lamb, that is the paschal lamb that is Christ, the bread of our meal must be unleavened, i.e. pure, not corrupted by the evil of this world (Exodus 12:1-15). We ought not to mix the sinful ways of this world with holy ways of God.

Easter4A20.    Acts of the Apostles 2:14a, 36-41.   Peter “proclaimed: “Let the whole house of Israel know for certain that God has made both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified,” “Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart.” Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized.”  “Those who accepted this message were baptized, and about three thousand persons were added that day.” Jesus in Luke 8:15 said, “But for the seed that fell on rich soil, they are the ones who, when they have heard the word, embrace it with a generous and good heart, and bear fruit through perseverance.” Among the people that heard the words of Peter there were many who were like the good soil that God had prepared to be open to Peter’s words, the good seed.  The Pharisees on the other hand were hard-hearted and rejected Jesus.  The gift who prepares us daily to be good soil till the day we die is the Holy Spirit.

John 10:1-10.  Jesus said, “I am the gate for the sheep.” “Whoever enters through me will be saved, will come and go out and find pasture.”  “I came so that they might have life and have it more abundantly.”   Jesus daily helps us to grow in holiness, the good soil.  He feeds us with the life that only he has, a share in his divine life, his holiness.  “The Pharisees did not realize” that he was calling them the thieves and robbers who used their position as religious leaders to feed themselves and not the flock.  In John 14:6 Jesus said, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”   By his suffering, death and resurrection he open the gate to heaven for all of us who follow him who is not only the gate but also the shepherd. (John 10:11)  He cares for us so much that despite the fact that he is gloriously almighty, each one of us is like a sheep who is dear to him, our shepherd.  The imagery of us being sheep is a call for us to be so humble and docile that we willingly and lovingly follow and obey him.

1 Peter 2:20b-25.  To be a follower of Jesus meant at the time of the first Christians to suffer and be ridiculed.  Our answer to that suffering then and now is to willingly suffer as Jesus suffered for us joining our suffering to his.  Jesus has shepherded us by offering himself up as the innocent lamb that was sacrificed for sinners.  “By his wounds we have been healed, for you have now returned to the shepherd and guardian of your souls.”

E4A.  Acts of the Apostles 2:14a, 36-41.  “God has made both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.”  That crowd accept the truth of the words of Peter and so, they asked, “’What are we to do, my brothers?’  Peter said to them, ‘Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.’”  To repent is to reject everything that is not of the Will of God.  To be baptized is to accept entry into the Church, the community of God, so that together, through the work of the Holy Spirit in the Church, we may become God’s holy people.  Being conceived into the human race is the vocation to become holy through both an individual and communitarian effort.

John 10:1-10.  “Although Jesus used this figure of speech, the Pharisees did not realize what he was trying to tell them.”  This sentence is key to understanding the comparison that Jesus draws between himself as the Savior who leads us out of the motivation for what is good for us versus the Pharisees who are leaders for what they can gain for themselves.  Jesus proclaims himself to be benevolent gatekeeper, gate and shepherd who has come to save us by giving us the abundance of eternal life; whereas, the Pharisees are thieves and robbers who steal, slaughter and destroy the good things that God does and has given to those who believe in him.  Jesus says of himself, “I am the gate.  Whoever enters through me will be saved.” In John 14:6, “Jesus said to Thomas, ‘I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.’”  It is only if we go to God the Father that we can have salvation and the only way to him is through Jesus.  In John 15:4-5, Jesus says, “I am the vine, you are the branches.  Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit, because without me you can do nothing.”  Without Jesus the work of the Pharisees is destructive.  In fact they block the way to God.

“The shepherd calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.  When he has driven out all his own, he walks ahead of them, and the sheep follow him, because they recognize his voice.”  Jesus’ followers develop a sense of personal closeness to him because they feel they belong to Jesus and Jesus feels they belong to him and so cares for them deeply.  “But they will not follow a stranger.”  Jesus’ followers have come to trust him, i. e., put their faith in him and in him alone.

1 Peter 2:20b-25.  “Beloved: If you are patient when you suffer for doing what is good, this is a grace before God.  For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example that you should follow in his footsteps.”  In the English language we say that verbs have an active and a passive voice.  In the active voice the subject acts, in other words, is the one who performs the action spoken of by the verb.  In the passive voice the subject receives the action spoken of by the verb.  When we speak of Jesus’ Passion, we are saying that he received the action spoken of by the verb which was torture and death, i. e. that he willingly received the suffering that was dealt to him.  In this reading from Peter (“If you are patient”) the word patient means that we willingly receive the suffering that is dealt to us.  Living life in ‘the good times and in the bad’ for one another is commonly recognized as what life here on earth is all about.  To Christianize suffering is to say that the cause for suffering is a grace from God, an opportunity to give ourselves to God’s Will as Jesus did in the Agony of the Garden (Matthew 26:38-42), when he asked that the cup of suffering that was about to be his, pass him by but God the Father rejected his plea.  It is the nature of all living things to seek what feels good and avoid what feels bad.  It is supernatural, spiritual to seek to fulfill the Will of God, no matter how it feels.  “The spirit is willing; the flesh is weak.” (Matthew 26:41b)  How much more merit there is to do God’s Will when it is difficult and against what we naturally would like to do.  The Shepherd gave himself for the sheep; should not the sheep be obedient to the Shepherd even unto death?

 

Easter3A20.   Acts of the Apostles 2:14, 22-33.   “Jesus, the Nazorean, was a man commended to you by God with mighty deeds, wonders, and signs, which God worked through him in your midst.”  “This man,” “you killed;” “but God raised him up, releasing from the throes of death.” David “foresaw and spoke of the resurrection of the Christ.” “God raised this Jesus; of this we all witnesses.” The once fearful Peter, hiding in the Upper Room but now burning with the fire of the Holy Spirit, fearlessly announces that the once dead Jesus is now the risen Messiah.

Luke 24:13-35.   How wonderful is this narrative of Jesus and his two disciples on the way to Emmaus.  Later the followers of Jesus were known as the people of the Way.  The Way is the journey we make daily with Jesus to heaven.  When we lose sight of this, we become wanderers in the darkness.  Not realizing that they are talking to the risen Jesus, Jesus’ companions to Emmaus tell him that Jesus was put to death on the cross.  They were despondent because they had hoped “that he would be the one to redeem Israel” from the Romans.  Yet they were astounded because “some women from our group” “reported that they had indeed seen a vision of angels who announced that he was alive.”  Jesus responds, “How slow of heart to believe all that the prophets spoke!”  In speaking this to the disciples, Jesus was speaking to the whole of his followers who were so preoccupied with the thought that Jesus would deliver Israel from the Romans that they could not comprehend that his self-sacrifice on the cross and resurrection had already redeemed them not from the Romans but from sin.   Jesus was frustrated at their inability to comprehend that the redemption had just happened.  He had just redeemed them from what matters eternally.  There would be others who would oppress the Jews politically besides the Romans, such as the Moslems and the Nazis, but they could not harm them eternally as sin could.  The many appearances of the resurrected Jesus would help his followers to understand that God’s Will is different from humans’ will.  The material, physical nature of this world is only the context of our salvation but not the goal.  The goal of our life here is to take us beyond our world here and not to win wars. First our minds must understand what God’s plan is. Then our hearts must burn with the desire to accomplish God’s will.   Only the indwelling of the Holy Spirit can make our hearts burst into the flames of a spiritual fire that moves us to devote ourselves to accomplish his will.

1 Peter 1:17-21.  Peter writes, “Beloved: If you invoke as Father him who judges impartially according to each one’s works, conduct yourselves with reverence during the time of your sojourning (here on earth), realizing that you were ransomed from your futile conduct ”  “with the precious blood of Christ as of a spotless unblemished lamb.”  Realize through the day as we go about our daily routine that our souls have been purchased at a great price, so precious are we to him.  May each day be an opportunity to hold him preciously in our hearts.

Easter17.   Acts of the Apostles 10:34a, 37-43.  Peter, appointed by Jesus to lead the Church, speaks, “God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power.” “This man God raised on the third day and granted that he be visible, not to all the people, but to us, the witnesses chosen by God in advance.”  Here Luke, traditionally accepted as the author of the Acts of the Apostles, seems to see Jesus as man empowered by God but not God in himself.   Apparently for Luke that would be a later development.  The Apostles are witnesses to all he did while he walked this earth, to his resurrection to full life again, able to eat and drink.  Peter goes on to say: “he commissioned us to preach to the people and testify that he is the one appointed by God as judge of the living and the dead.  To him all the prophets bear witness, that everyone who believes in him will receive forgiveness of sins through his name.”  Both the Apostles and the prophets are witnesses to believing in him will bring one eternal salvation.

John 20:1-9.  Jesus had foretold at various times that he was to suffer, be put to death and then arise.  It appears that no one, not even Mary of Magdala nor the Apostles, took him at his word. The last line of this Gospel says, “For they did not yet understand the Scripture that he had to rise from the dead.” One commentary states that the Greek from which this gospel was translated indicates that it appeared that Jesus miraculously slipped out of burial cloths, leaving them empty of the body that had been in them, with the cloth that had covered his head, removed and placed in a separate place.  The word tomb is mentioned in this gospel seven times, I believe, to indicate the empty tomb with the stone rolled back is a physical witness to the resurrection of Jesus.  Peter’s authority and leadership is clearly accepted by John, since he waited for Peter, more important than he, to enter first.  John goes into the tomb “and he saw and believed” that the tomb was empty.

Colossians 3:1-4.  “Seek what is above,” “Think of what is above, not of what is on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.”  After Jesus had told his disciples that he had to suffer and die and then Peter rebuked Jesus for thinking that way, then Jesus in turn rebuked Peter saying, “You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.” (Matthew 16:18)  We are people who live in this world, not in heaven.  This world can, and easily does, drown us in its way of thinking, feeling and acting.  The Holy Spirit, who is far more powerful than our good intentions and will power, can enable us to have Jesus as our life.  With Christ as our life, one day he will share his glory with us.

1 Corinthians 5:6b-8.  “Let us celebrate the feast, not with old yeast, the yeast of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.”  Yeast could be symbolically thought of as an evil, corrupting force; whereas being unleavened was thought of as growing in the purity of the “sincerity and truth” of Christ.  If we dine on the lamb, that is the paschal lamb that is Christ, the bread of our meal must be unleavened, i.e. pure, not corrupted by the evil of this world (Exodus 12:1-15).  We ought not to mix the sinful ways of this world with holy ways of God.

 

East2A20.  Acts of the Apostles 2:42-47.   The newly established community of Christians “devoted themselves to the teaching of the Apostles and to the communal life, to the breaking of bread and to the prayers.”  “They would sell their property and possessions and divide them among all according to each’s needs.” Their intense focus on being wholly and thoroughly devoted to cultivating their spiritual life in Christ seems to me to offer the paragon, the ideal of Christian life for all ages to come.  However, there has been some controversy as to whether or not they were expecting Jesus to come quite soon and so they deposed themselves of only the material things  they needed up to the time that Jesus would take them to heaven.  What is known is that Paul often appealed to his converts (Acts of the Apostles 24:14; Romans 15:25-28; 1 Corinthians 16:1-3; 2 Corinthians 8:1-15; 2 Corinthians 9:11-13) “to make some contribution for the poor among the holy ones in Jerusalem.” (Romans 16:26b)

John 20:1-9.   Fear is the natural reaction to the perceived threat of danger.  In this earthly life we are always in danger of spiritual harm.  When we live each day in the almighty Lord there can be no reason for fear because he is always saying to us, “Peace be with you.”

Then he says to his disciples, “Receive the Holy Spirit,” who helps them to mature in holiness themselves as well as to enable others to be holy.  In Matthew 5:48, Jesus says, “So be perfect (holy), just as your heavenly Father is perfect (holy).”  In the synoptic parallel to that verse Jesus says in Luke 6:36, “Be merciful (loving), just as [also] your Father is merciful (loving).”  Jesus enables his disciples to be instruments of the Spirit in the Spirit’s task to bring holiness to those who live by the life of the Holy Spirit within them by giving his disciples the merciful power to forgive sins.  However, to those who reject the life of the Spirit, the disciples can retain their sins, since they have rejected the mercy of God.    In John 14:1a Jesus said, “Do not let your hearts be troubled. “ (Be at peace)  Then in John 14:4 Jesus said, “Where [I] am going you know the way.” Thomas, forever the everyday day realist of this down-to-earth world, said in John 14:5, “Master, we do not know where you are going; how can we know the way?”  Jesus was speaking of the spiritual way and not of an earthly road trip.  In today’s gospel Thomas thinks as any ordinary down-to-earth person thinks, ‘When you’re dead, you’re dead.  That’s all there is and there is nothing else.  When the once-dead Jesus and now-alive Jesus tells Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands and bring your hand and put it into my side,” Thomas’ rock hard earthliness comes crashing down.  In this stunningly quick turn of events, he has learned that the spiritual is more real than the material.  In 2 Corinthians 4:18b Paul said, “For what is seen is transitory, but what is unseen is eternal.”  We ourselves can learn from an inner spiritual life that the Holy Spirit gives us that what is more vibrant and fulfilling is not what is seen in the outward visible world.  We can come to the realization that what feels real in the outer world will soon fade away and disappear  but what is real and true forever comes from our relationship with the invisible Christ.   “Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed.”

1 Peter 1:3-9.   From Christ we have “an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you who by the power of God are safeguarded through faith, to a salvation that is ready to be revealed in the final time.”  “Although you have not seen him, you love him; even though you do not see him now yet believe in him, you will rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy, as you attain the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls.”

 

Easter17.   Acts of the Apostles 10:34a, 37-43.  Peter, appointed by Jesus to lead the Church, speaks, “God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power.” “This man God raised on the third day and granted that he be visible, not to all the people, but to us, the witnesses chosen by God in advance.”  Here Luke, traditionally accepted as the author of the Acts of the Apostles, seems to see Jesus as man empowered by God but not God in himself.   Apparently for Luke that would be a later development.  The Apostles are witnesses to all he did while he walked this earth, to his resurrection to full life again, able to eat and drink.  Peter goes on to say: “he commissioned us to preach to the people and testify that he is the one appointed by God as judge of the living and the dead.  To him all the prophets bear witness, that everyone who believes in him will receive forgiveness of sins through his name.”  Both the Apostles and the prophets are witnesses to believing in him will bring one eternal salvation.

John 20:1-9.  Jesus had foretold at various times that he was to suffer, be put to death and then arise.  It appears that no one, not even Mary of Magdala nor the Apostles, took him at his word. The last line of this Gospel says, “For they did not yet understand the Scripture that he had to rise from the dead.” One commentary states that the Greek from which this gospel was translated indicates that it appeared that Jesus miraculously slipped out of burial cloths, leaving them empty of the body that had been in them, with the cloth that had covered his head, removed and placed in a separate place.  The word tomb is mentioned in this gospel seven times, I believe, to indicate the empty tomb with the stone rolled back is a physical witness to the resurrection of Jesus.  Peter’s authority and leadership is clearly accepted by John, since he waited for Peter, more important than he, to enter first.  John goes into the tomb “and he saw and believed” that the tomb was empty.

Colossians 3:1-4.  “Seek what is above,” “Think of what is above, not of what is on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.”  After Jesus had told his disciples that he had to suffer and die and then Peter rebuked Jesus for thinking that way, then Jesus in turn rebuked Peter saying, “You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.” (Matthew 16:18)  We are people who live in this world, not in heaven.  This world can, and easily does, drown us in its way of thinking, feeling and acting.  The Holy Spirit, who is far more powerful than our good intentions and will power, can enable us to have Jesus as our life.  With Christ as our life, one day he will share his glory with us.

1 Corinthians 5:6b-8.  “Let us celebrate the feast, not with old yeast, the yeast of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.”  Yeast could be symbolically thought of as an evil, corrupting force; whereas being unleavened was thought of as growing in the purity of the “sincerity and truth” of Christ.  If we dine on the lamb, that is the paschal lamb that is Christ, the bread of our meal must be unleavened, i.e. pure, not corrupted by the evil of this world (Exodus 12:1-15).  We ought not to mix the sinful ways of this world with holy ways of God.

 

Easter1A20.   Acts of the Apostles 10:34a, 37-43.  “God appointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power.  He went about doing good and healing all those oppressed by the devil, for God was with him.  We are witnesses of all that he did.”  Peter goes on to say,   “He commissioned us to preach to the people and testify that he is the one appointed by God as judge of the living and the dead.” Peter and the Apostles are proclaiming that Jesus is the Messiah, the Savior from God himself.   As Isaiah 42:1a & b proclaims, “Here is my servant whom I uphold, my chosen one with I am pleased, upon whom I have put my spirit.”

John 20:1-9.   Mary of Magdala came to the tomb early in the morning, while it was still dark.  Mary did not understand that Jesus had arisen; she was in the dark.  She ran to the men, assuming as had often happened that grave robbers had stolen Jesus’ body.  When Peter and John arrived and saw that the linens were still there; and, if the grave robbers had been there, that is what they would have stolen because of its worth to them, the Holy Spirit helped John to remember that Jesus had  spoken of his resurrection.  “He saw and believed;” even though “they did not yet understand the Scripture that he had to rise from the dead.”  The earthly vault, the tomb, was powerless to keep Jesus locked into death.

Colossians 3:1-4.  “Think of what is above, not what is on earth.”  We also are able to break out of earth’s tomb of worldly human ways of thinking so to be joined by the power of the Holy Spirit into Christ’s resurrection into heaven.

1 Corinthians 5:6b-8.  This world leavens our lives “with the old yeast, the yeast of malice and wickedness.”  Leave that buried in the tomb of the death of this world to come alive to God’s living spirit of sincerity and truth.

 

Easter17.   Acts of the Apostles 10:34a, 37-43.  Peter, appointed by Jesus to lead the Church, speaks, “God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power.” “This man God raised on the third day and granted that he be visible, not to all the people, but to us, the witnesses chosen by God in advance.”  Here Luke, traditionally accepted as the author of the Acts of the Apostles, seems to see Jesus as man empowered by God but not God in himself.   Apparently for Luke that would be a later development.  The Apostles are witnesses to all he did while he walked this earth, to his resurrection to full life again, able to eat and drink.  Peter goes on to say: “he commissioned us to preach to the people and testify that he is the one appointed by God as judge of the living and the dead.  To him all the prophets bear witness, that everyone who believes in him will receive forgiveness of sins through his name.”  Both the Apostles and the prophets are witnesses to believing in him will bring one eternal salvation.

John 20:1-9.  Jesus had foretold at various times that he was to suffer, be put to death and then arise.  It appears that no one, not even Mary of Magdala nor the Apostles, took him at his word. The last line of this Gospel says, “For they did not yet understand the Scripture that he had to rise from the dead.” One commentary states that the Greek from which this gospel was translated indicates that it appeared that Jesus miraculously slipped out of burial cloths, leaving them empty of the body that had been in them, with the cloth that had covered his head, removed and placed in a separate place.  The word tomb is mentioned in this gospel seven times, I believe, to indicate the empty tomb with the stone rolled back is a physical witness to the resurrection of Jesus.  Peter’s authority and leadership is clearly accepted by John, since he waited for Peter, more important than he, to enter first.  John goes into the tomb “and he saw and believed” that the tomb was empty.

Colossians 3:1-4.  “Seek what is above,” “Think of what is above, not of what is on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.”  After Jesus had told his disciples that he had to suffer and die and then Peter rebuked Jesus for thinking that way, then Jesus in turn rebuked Peter saying, “You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.” (Matthew 16:18)  We are people who live in this world, not in heaven.  This world can, and easily does, drown us in its way of thinking, feeling and acting.  The Holy Spirit, who is far more powerful than our good intentions and will power, can enable us to have Jesus as our life.  With Christ as our life, one day he will share his glory with us.

1 Corinthians 5:6b-8.  “Let us celebrate the feast, not with old yeast, the yeast of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.”  Yeast could be symbolically thought of as an evil, corrupting force; whereas being unleavened was thought of as growing in the purity of the “sincerity and truth” of Christ.  If we dine on the lamb, that is the paschal lamb that is Christ, the bread of our meal must be unleavened, i.e. pure, not corrupted by the evil of this world (Exodus 12:1-15).  We ought not to mix the sinful ways of this world with holy ways of God.