This Sunday’s Gospel has two parts. The first part is a preface or prologue. In the prologue Luke notes that “many have undertaken to put together a narrative of the things which have been accomplished among us,” that is, among the disciples of Jesus and the Christian Community, which sprang from the work of Jesus and his disciples.

An important aspect of the theology of the Gospel of John is a theme of replacement/perfection. Some feature of Old Testament law, or custom, or ritual is replaced or perfected by Jesus or by the laws, customs, and ritual of first century Christianity.

Violence: We see it everywhere — in our neighborhoods, our schools, our communities, our world — and feel less able to avoid it. Along with the violence, we see images of people fleeing, sometimes walking for miles to escape intolerable situations.