Convention

Go deeper, Jesus tells Peter in 5th chapter of Luke’s Gospel. Peter doesn’t want to go deeper. He thought he had already gone deep enough the previous night on the water and hadn’t brought back a thing. Not a minnow, not a mussel -- nothing. He figured he would hear some razzing from his colleagues and some complaining from his wife – but from Jesus? He is a carpenter now moonlighting as a rabbi; who may understand life, hope and freedom in a new and inspiring way – but doesn’t know squat about fish.

The Episcopal Address for the 135th Annual Convention
of the Episcopal Diocese of Newark
Saturday, January 31, 2009
The Rt. Rev. Mark M. Beckwith

1 Cor 12:12-27 Luke 4:14-21

The first verbal message of Easter in the Gospel of Mark is actually a commandment – do not fear. When the women arrived to anoint the body of Jesus on that first Easter morning, they found that the stone had been rolled away. Jesus was gone; and the women were told that he has been raised. “Do not fear”, an unknown young man tells them. But they were out of their minds with fear – they could not absorb all that they felt and heard and seen. And they left the tomb afraid.