John 20:19-31

Why would the disciples be locked away on the first day of the week "for fear of the Jews"? What does this say about their initial response to the news of Jesus' absence from the tomb? What is the significance of Jesus' words in this situation? From Jesus' situation?

What is the significance of Jesus showing his hands and side? Why does this elicit joy from the disciples? What is the significance of Jesus' repetition of his initial saying? How does the mission and the Spirit related to this scene? What is the significance of Thomas' absence?

What does it tell you that the disciples were still in the house with doors shut a week later? What is the function of this resurrection appearance? How does it relate to the relationship between the disciples, then and now?

The final saying has the narrator speaking. Maybe sometime we could gather and talk about this saying. New research has come out the past few years that make this really interesting. But for tonight, let's keep our focus on the resurrection appearances in John.

What is it to see the "fullness of what there is to see" in Jesus in this scene? What is it to see oneself as a disciple who sees this fullness?

1 Peter 1:3-9

Why would this passage be read on the first Sunday following Easter? Who is it related to the baptisms that took place on Easter?

What here is the end or goal of human life? How is the resurrection of Jesus relevant to this end? How does this help one rejoice? Why would such joy be important?

How do "various trials" test the genuinness of one's faith/allegiance/loyalty? To what is this loyalty given? When is it affirmed? How does the local congregation play in to this affliction/affirmation? How does the end of the passage relate to the scene about Thomas from John?

Why is it important on the basis of the Johanine passage to see Jesus fully?

Genesis 8:6-16; 9:8-16

The OT reading is fun, because it shows the way the Noah story has functioned as a type of the church entered via the resurrection. Why would it be read immediately following the resurrection of Jesus? How does it help us see Jesus fully -- how do we find the meaning of this story in the resurrection of Jesus for our lives?

Benedict XVIth writes, "the overcoming of eath, its real, not simply its conceptual elimination, is still today, as it was then, the object and desire of the human quest.
The Resurrection of Jesus says that this victory is in effect possible, that death does not belong principally and irrevocably to the structure of the creature, to matter. Certainly it also says that to overcome the confines of death is not possible, definitively, by sophisticated clinical methods, through technology. This comes about through the creative power of the word and of love. Only thse powers are sufficiently strong to modify so fundamentally the structureof matter, to make it possible to overcome the barrier of death. Hence in the extraordinary promise of this event there is also found an extraordinary call, a vocation, a whole interpretation of human existence and the existence of the world" (Journey to Easter, p. 132).

How does the seeing Jesus fully in light of the resurrection event free us to be members of a concrete congregation in Mid-City and to be a people who love, particularly within our congregational, neighborhood, and multicongregational context?