Tag Archives: Jesus

The table

Posted on September 1, 2019 by Rosalind C Hughes

Ironically, while we are deciding where to seat him, Jesus is busy setting the table himself. And his invitation is clear:
Come to me, all you who are weary, and I will give you rest.
Come to me, you who are thirsty, and I will give you living water to drink.
Come, eat of the bread of life, and I will raise you up. Continue reading →

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Love will tear us apart

Posted on August 18, 2019 by Rosalind C Hughes

The divisions that Jesus describes are growing pains, signs of the emergence of the kingdom of God. Discipleship stretches our souls to love more deeply, to forgive more recklessly. Discipleship should change us, stretch us, and there will be friction as we rub up against the tolerance of the structures that have formed us. These are the signs of the kingdom, Jesus tells us, so do not be afraid. God is willing and waiting to restore all things in God’s mercy, risking everything alongside you on the Cross, transforming its hard lines into new life through the Resurrection. Continue reading →

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Take up your mat

Posted on May 26, 2019 by Rosalind C Hughes

Jesus does not help the man to get to the water. Jesus does not need to buy into the system that has kept this man down for thirty-eight years. Jesus is the living water, and he has power to heal the man, and he does that; but he does more. He tells the man to take up his mat, and walk home. Continue reading →

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Why have we come here? Good Friday 2019

Posted on April 19, 2019 by Rosalind C Hughes

We come not to glory in his death, but out of fear of our own; and not only, nor even the death of our bodies, may they never endure such pain as his; but the death of our souls, the diminishing returns of our humanity, the erosion of love and the weary wearing away of compassion. On the cross, we see the destitution of our humanity, what it has come to, that we would sacrifice Christ to keep an unquiet peace, and pile on the death of God to weight the scales of injustice. We see where it could all end up, if we would prefer instruments of death to a way of life that makes us vulnerable to the demands of love and of mercy. Continue reading →

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Maundy Thursday: the end of love

Posted on April 18, 2019 by Rosalind C Hughes

Love is a decision. It is our choice to make, and we cannot make the excuse that someone else destroyed it, if Jesus washed Judas’ feet, and healed the ear of the servant sent to arrest him, and restrained the angels from coming down from heaven to frighten the hell out of Herod and that weasel, Pontius Pilate, letting love be his gospel, and his end. Continue reading →

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People want answers

Posted on March 24, 2019 by Rosalind C Hughes

What is our role, as the church, as Christians, when we are faced with the questions that arise after a disaster, asking where is God when trouble happens, and what it means when God is or is not seen to intervene? What is our line? Continue reading →

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Hungry for God

Posted on March 10, 2019 by Rosalind C Hughes

If we could turn stones into bread to feed the food insecure, the child whose father goes without to turn away her crying hunger, the mother who works night and day to provide for them; if we could turn beach sand into bread rolls, wouldn’t we do it? Continue reading →

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Bright cloud

Posted on March 3, 2019 by Rosalind C Hughes

There are those bright clouds in which we recognize God’s presence already among us, working in us and through us as we struggle to do the right thing, even when the way is obscure and foggy, even when we are terrified, even when we confronted with anger, grief, failure. The way of the cross is not an easy road, but it does lead to deliverance, to freedom from unclean spirits, eventually to resurrection. Continue reading →

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How to love your enemies

Posted on February 24, 2019 by Rosalind C Hughes

Love your enemies, says Jesus. Let God take your anger and turn it into something beyond your imagining – just as Jesus turned the horror, the terror, the death of the cross into the astonishment of the Resurrection. Continue reading →

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Mere mortals

Posted on February 17, 2019 by Rosalind C Hughes

Consider the vision of God’s kingdom that Jesus offers: a world in which the poor have power; where the bereft are comforted. Where profits are harvested as food for the hungry, with ploughshares beaten out of pistols. Where the name Pulse has not been perverted to echo with death and anger, but resumes its resonance of life, and love. Where Aurora means the halo of light around the moon, giving glory to God with all the heavenly bodies, and we no longer ask, do you mean the one in Colorado, or the one in Illinois? Where the south side of Chicago is simply the sunny side of the street. Where the Tree of Life grows green in the Garden of Eden. A kingdom where the name Parkland conjures up, not the valley of the shadow of death, but a quiet place, green pastures beside still waters. Continue reading →

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