You might also be interested in looking at Tom's lectionary blog.

Pentecost Sunday A: "The art of animation"
Acts 2.1-21, 1 Corinthians 12.3b-13, John 20.15-23

In what we call the movies the appearance of movement may be an illusion, but the technology of animation can nevertheless illuminate something important about the life of the church.

A movie consists of a series of still, inanimate frames.  Viewed in rapid succession, they blend into a single image that seems to move.  I used to make movies like this with a series of drawing on the pages of my school books, starting out with a dot that became an egg that hatched to produce a chicken. I flipped through the pages and the sequence came alive. It’s amazing what you can find to do with books when you are supposed to be studying them. The same basic technique I used is used in producing something like Snow White or Who Framed Roger Rabbit? or Toy Story, but my method was infinitely less expensive. 

The word “animation” means putting life into something that is lifeless.  The Latin word “anima” means “life”. So the art of animation is the art of giving life to what once was still, lifeless, inert.

The word “anima” can also refer to a breeze or a breath, moving air.  So in the story from John’s gospel, which takes place on the evening of Easter day, the risen presence of Jesus breathes upon a frightened remnant of his followers.  They are huddled in a locked room, inert with fear.  Jesus animates them. “As the Father sent me, so I send you,” he says.  John seems to be saying that the resurrection of Jesus and the animation of the disciples are the same thing.  Jesus comes alive as the disciples come alive, born again as those who, like Jesus, bear the presence of God to the world.

continued. . . .