Early in the Upper Room discourse recorded in John chapters 14-17, Jesus reassures his disciples that he is not abandoning them by returning to the Father. Rather, it is "better" for them because he and the Father will send another paraclete, the Holy Spirit!! The spirit of all truth, the comforter, the guide, the counselor, the teacher. The Holy Spirit is an active, personal spirit present with us as believers always.

In the upper room the night before his passion, Jesus reassured his disciples (and through them, we also) that after his ascension and return to the Father we would not be alone. And as we anticipate the day of Pentecost, we can rest assured that Jesus has provided for us, that we have the Holy Spirit as comforter, advocate, counselor and guide in our lives.

Jesus said, "Peace be with you," God's peace. We need to take that to heart and really mean it.

The Gospel accounts of the Resurrection of Jesus contain varied observations and details, just as we might expect from different witnesses whose perceptions and memories would not be identical. In a sense, this is actually verification of their verisimilitude. Four identical accounts would look cooked up rather than genuine.The Resurrection of Jesus is one of the most thorughly atteseted events of the ancient world, with multiple eye witnesses and evidence of facts that are not in dispute. Jesus of Nazareth was a real person who was executed by the Romans, died on the cross, and was buried. The morning when several women went to the tomb to anoint his body they found it empty, Jesus was not there. Jesus's followers who had been cowering in fear went into the world boldly proclaiming he had risen from the dead and that hundreds of people had seen him. They stuck to this without wavering, even under pains of torture or death. People will sometimes believe things that are not true, but they will not go to their death for what they know to be a lie.

Saint Peter told us to be prepared at all times to give an answer, a defense, for the faith and the hope that we have in Christ (1 Pet 3:15). We do this with confidence, yet not defensively or aggressively, but with gentleness and respect. Our confidence lies with the trustworthiness of scripture, which gives us factual accounts of real people, places, and events. Almost like journalism, as C. S. Lewis observed.

Paul's sharp letter to the Galatian churches he planted, coming within a year or two of the first of his missionary journeys, was a pastoral rebuke for their drift away from the Gospel and back toward a system of religion aimed at obligating God rather than receiving the free gift of salvation in Jesus Christ. He used the analogy of the slave woman Hagar and her child, Ishmael, versus the free woman Sarah and hers, the child of the promise, Isaac. The tendency we have to rest on Christ "plus" something else for our position with God is an error serious enough for Paul to pronounce it a different Gospel and those holding such views as accursed. Article 18 of our Articles of Religion makes the point bluntly, "Those who presume to say that every person shall be saved by the rule of life, religion or sect that he professes, provided he makes diligent efforts to live by that rule and the light of nature, must be regarded as accursed. "

During Lent the Sunday collects provided by the church lead us through reflections on spiritual growth and our own spiritual condition preparing for Easter. Father Andrew lays out this rich history and insights from today's collect and the scriptures compiled for today's readings. God's will for us is our sanctification.

Matthew's account of the testing of Christ by Satan in the wilderness, just after the triumph of Jesus's baptism, gives a powerful message for us. Jesus turns to the word of God in scripture to rebuff and resist the temper.

Jesus of Nazareth was the greatest teacher the world has ever known. To solve the problem of passing on deep truths to people of all types, Jesus used a common teaching tool known as aparable.The goal of a parable is to compare one thing to another—with one of the objects being an important spiritual lesson and the other being an event from everyday life. Parables have one point to make.Like Aesop’s “fables,” which really are parables. The point, “moral,” is clearly stated for us. Jesus is often a bit more subtle.For instance, Jesus compared His own relationship with His people to the relationship of a shepherd with his sheep(Luke 15:1-7). He compared someone who teaches the gospel to a man planting a seed (Matthew 13:1-9), and He used such words as salt and light to describe the influence of a Christian (Matthew 5:13-16).Why parables? To make thetruth accessible to those for whom it is meant and hidden from those for whom it is not.Matthew20:1-16Today’sparable is that of the owner of a vineyard who hires workers from morning untilthe end of the day. Those hired first, who have worked all day, expected to bepaid more than the latecomers, but the owner doesn’t do that. He pays them allthe same, the amount promised from the first to the last.This parable teaches us what we receive from God we receive purely from his grace and lovingkindness. We do not, we cannot, obligate God.

The prophet Malachi speaks to us of the day of the Lord and the coming of the Messiah