If our foundations of faith are built in a way that allows for questions, which embraces the challenges of faith, which has room for mystery and the unknown, then when the inevitable period of exploration comes there's a well-worn roadmap to follow. Young people who are taught to question and to think for themselves can use the time of exploration when they're older to establish an adult faith which puts into practice those tools of questioning that they've learned through childhood. And even if their faith tradition then comes to be very different from what they had as a child this is usually an exciting time of growth.

Fr Sam Rossiter-Peters explains the importance of us to begin by questioning ourselves, by wrestling with our assumptions, and asking if what we believe about the church and about God is really because God has led us there, or because we're a bit personally uncomfortable with the alternative. Of course, we want to be faithful to Scripture and theology, but faithfulness means probing, challenging, examining, not just the words, but the spirit behind what we're reading. Because although it sounds straightforward, love one another as I have loved you, can be taken in lots of different ways.

I realise that I've said to enough of you enough times, this is probably my favourite piece of scripture, that this sentence has lost any kind of meaning. That said, this morning's gospel is my favourite piece of scripture. I love it, because of how tender Jesus is with the disciples.

That phrase, children, you have no fish, do you? Always sounds in my head, like a gentle and loving parent, lamenting with their child over a hurt, like a scraped knee. Since becoming a parent myself, that tone, which Jesus uses a few times throughout the Gospel of John, making it probably my favourite gospel, apart from the other three, means even more to me. It reminds me of the tone that I use, particularly with my daughter when I go into her room during the wee hours of the night, because she's woken up crying.

Fr Sam Rossiter-Peters explains the Easter message, that there is redemption even through the worst moments of our lives, the worst mistakes we've made. As with Peter, Jesus doesn't deny that bad things happen and he doesn't need us to either. To be redeemed, we need to have something to be redeemed from.

This idea that in the face of guilt and despair we can look to Jesus for hope is the very heart of the Easter message. We don't usually, or often at least, attribute despair to Satan, but most of us have known that sense of crushing weight, the weight of realising that we've done something wrong. We've felt that moment at some point in our lives, the rising tide when an old mistake comes back and the guilt fills us.

Fr Sam Rossiter-Peters explains that Jesus has won forgiveness for us in his wounds of crucifixion, so we don’t need to stand accused of our guilt. The disciples may have felt shame when they first met Jesus after the resurrection because they had run away, but his first words to them were ‘peace be with you.’