SIXTH SUNDAY OF EASTER 5TH MAY 2024
OPENING SENTENCE-
The Lord has made known his victory in the sight of the nations.
HYMN
GREETING
Alleluia Christ is risen.
The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia.
Praise the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ
He has given us new life and hope
by raising Jesus from the dead.
COLLECT FOR PURITY
Almighty God
to whom all hearts be open
all desires known
and from whom no secrets are hidden;
Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts
by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit,
that we may perfectly love you
and worthily magnify your holy name
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.
SUMMARY OF THE LAW
Our Lord Jesus Christ said: The first commandment is this: “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is the only Lord. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength.”
The second is this: “Love your neighbour as yourself.” There is no other commandment greater than these.
Amen. Lord, have mercy.
CONFESSION
God is love and we are God’s children.
There is no room for fear in love.
We love because God loved us first.
Let us confess our sins in penitence and faith.
God our Father, we confess to you
and to our fellow members in the Body of Christ
that we have sinned in thought, word and deed,
and in what we have failed to do.
We are truly sorry.
Forgive us our sins,
and deliver us from the power of evil,
for the sake of your Son who died for us, Jesus Christ, our Lord.
ABSOLUTION
May the God of love and power
forgive you and free you from your sins,
heal and strengthen you by his Spirit
and raise you to new life in Christ our Lord. Amen.
GLORIA sung by Sue St Joseph
COLLECT
O God,
from whom all good things arise:
grant such grace to those who call on you,
that, by your inspiration,
we may ponder those things that are right,
and by your guidance, do them;
through Jesus Christ, our Lord,
who lives and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, world without end. Amen
FIRST READING ACTS 10: 44-48 read by David Kerr
While Peter was still speaking, the Holy Spirit fell upon all who heard the word. The circumcised believers who had come with Peter were astounded that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the Gentiles, for they heard them speaking in tongues and extolling God. Then Peter said, “Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?” So, he ordered them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Then they invited him to stay for several days.
SECOND READING 1 JOHN 5:1-6 read by Annette Beagrie
Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the parent loves the child. By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. For the love of God is this, that we obey his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome, for whatever is born of God conquers the world. And this is the victory that conquers the world, our faith. Who is it that conquers the world but the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?
This is the one who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ, not with the water only but with the water and the blood. And the Spirit is the one that testifies, for the Spirit is the truth.
HYMN
GOSPEL READING JOHN 15:9-17 read by Rev Janice Aiton
Hear the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to St John chapter 15 beginning at verse 9
Glory to Christ our Saviour.
As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.
“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father. You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name. I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.
SERMON
Yesterday I was with my sister Aileen in Glasgow to see the musical “Sister Act”. It is a marvellous entertaining story of nuns standing alongside one another in love, whilst protecting a singer, who having witnessed a murder, is in the convent for refuge. When I thought about it a lot of musicals have love as their main theme. Love is the central theme in Fiddler on the roof. In the musical “Fiddler on the Roof”
Tevye asks his wife Golde several times “Do you love me?” The song goes like this:
Tevye: “Do you love me?”
Golde: “Do I love you?
With our daughters getting married
And this trouble in the town
You’re upset, you’re worn out
Go inside, go lie down!
Maybe it’s indigestion.”
Tevye: “Golde I’m asking you a question… Do you love me?”
Golde: “You’re a fool”.
Tevye: “I know. But do you love me?”
Golde: “Do I love you?
For twenty-five years I’ve washed your clothes
Cooked your meals, cleaned your house
Given you children, milked the cow
After twenty-five years, why talk about love right now?”
Tevye: “Then you love me?”
Golde: “Do I love him?”
For twenty-five years I’ve lived with him
Fought him, starved with him
Twenty-five years my bed is his
If that’s not love, what is?
Tevye: “Then you love me?”
Golde: “I suppose I do.”
Tevye: “And I suppose I love you too.”
Our gospel passage today is all about love- Love for God and for one another. William Blake said: “We are put on earth a little space that we may learn to bear the beams of love.” We cannot give love away unless we have not experienced it, just as a radiator cannot give out heat unless it first receives heat. Jesus received first the Father’s love and so he was able to share that love with others. Jesus himself said: “As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you.” The love he shared so generously with his disciples and others was the love he had received from the Father, and from Mary, Joseph, and others.
Love comes from God and all human love flows from God because God is the source of all love, since love is his very nature and being. This tells us something about God that God is love all the way through. All that God does or says is ultimately an expression of his love. when God acts in justice, it is an expression of God’s love. When God acts in anger it is God’s love defending itself and us from everything that would destroy the world and the people God made in love. God’s whole action towards creation is love as Psalm 145 says
“God is loving towards all he has made.”
You might ask, how can I be sure that God truly loves me? The ultimate proof of God’s love is in Jesus and his love shown for us by his death on the cross. “No greater love has a man than this that he lay down his life for his friends.” Jesus’ love for us was a costly sacrificial love and it is this love that we are invited to receive. There is a story about a king riding a coach on a rainy day. He sees a poor man walking on the road and desires to give him a lift and keep him out of the rain. But the poor man is rather cautious and asks: “What must I do to accept this ride?” The king replies- nothing, just accept it! The king’s response is half accurate, for once the love is accepted, a chain effect takes place. Having accepted the gift of love, you are then expected to pass it on. As Jesus received the love of the Father, he shared that same love with his disciples. So as his disciples we are to share that same love with others. We are to pass that love on and to do so we need to stay connected to Jesus and imitate his love.
Love is the evidence of three things in our Christian life, it is as Chris Wright an author wrote-evidence of eternal life in us; it is evidence of faith in us; it is evidence of the reality of God in us.
Let me look at love as the evidence of eternal life in us. John emphasises in his Gospel that we can know that we have eternal life. He wanted his readers to know for sure that they had eternal life. But how can you know if you have eternal life? You know you have eternal life when you see evidence of the love that God produces in your life. In our readings of 1 John this past while we read that “We know we have passed from death to life because we love one another. Anyone who does not love remains in death.”
Christian love then is a matter of life or death. So, it is when we respond to Jesus and put our faith in him, that we receive eternal life, but it is only when we love one another that we know we have passed from death to life, because we see the evidence of love. Our eternal life is received by faith but demonstrated by love. Love is the first fruit of the Spirit within us.
How do you know that a tree is alive? You look for the buds, the leaves and then the fruit. Where there is fruit there is life. but if no fruit then the tree is dead. How do you know if a believer or a church is alive? Look for the love. Where there is love, there is life. When Christians truly put love into practice, it is evidence, assurance that the life of God is present among them and in them. We cannot claim to love God or that God’s love is within us, if we do not help the needy when we have the ability to do so. So, in many ways what John is saying is not dissimilar from what James wrote about “faith without works is dead.” Love without practice is dead. John is saying if you believe in Jesus, then you will love. Believe in Jesus and loving go together. So, love for one another is not only the evidence of the life of God within us, but it is also evidence of the faith through which we came to receive that life in the first place.
John makes the claim that “No- one has ever seen God, but if we love one another, God lives in us, and God’s love is made complete in us.” It seems that John is implying that our love for one another makes visible the love of God. When Christians love one another in practical, sacrificial, costly ways then the love of God can be seen. The world should be able to look at Christians and how they live together and how they love one another and see something of the reality of God being demonstrated. Our loving is evidence of the reality of God within us.
Now of course, none of us are perfect, and all of us fail in all kinds of ways. That is why we often protect ourselves a bit when we say things like: “Don’t look at me, or the church, look at Jesus. Certainly, we should never boast, and we definitely do want people to focus on Jesus and not on us, but sometimes that can be a bit of a cop-out and an excuse for not even trying to obey Jesus’ command to love one another. For what John is saying is that anyone should be able to look at a Christian and Christian churches and see something of the reality of God in them through their loving of one another. In other words, through us they should see God’s love in action.
Love in action speaks of the reality of God within us and also within others. At the Lausanne Congress in Cape Town in 2010 a Messianic Jewish Israeli and a Palestinian believer stood and embraced one another on an international platform, this is love in action; this love makes God visible. It is a powerful witness to the reality of God and his love. Last May some 15,000 Palestinians and Israelis came together to ‘try to break the chain of revenge and hatred’- that is love in action.
Love in action is evident in our own church- it is great to see how people rally round and support those going through a hard time- love in action. It is wonderful to see how people encourage one another and celebrate the success of a fellow member –love in action. The sacrifices people make in terms of time and finance for the good of the church and for other charities like Bethany, First Base, Aberlour, Christian Aid, Women’s Aid, Ukraine and so on is all evidence of life and love.
So, when Christians show love, it proves that you have eternal life and a saving faith. When we share love with one another, it makes visible the reality of God. The image of God is at its best and brightest in us when we love. So, let’s abide in Jesus and live out joyously his commandment: “Love one another as I have loved you.” Amen
NICENE CREED
We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty maker of heaven and earth,
of all that is, seen and unseen.
We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only Son of God,
eternally begotten of the Father,
God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made,
of one substance with the Father.
Through him all things were made.
For us and for our salvation
he came down from heaven;
by the power of the Holy Spirit
he became incarnate of the Virgin Mary,
and was made man.
For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate;
he suffered death and was buried.
On the third day he rose again
in accordance with the Scriptures;
he ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory
to judge the living and the dead,
and his kingdom will have no end.
We believe in the Holy Spirit,
the Lord, the giver of life,
who proceeds from the Father.
With the Father and the Son,
he is worshipped and glorified.
He has spoken through the Prophets.
We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.
We acknowledge one baptism
for the forgiveness of sins.
We look for the resurrection of the dead,
and the life of the world to come. Amen.
PRAYERS
O Holy Spirit, Giver of love
fills us with life afresh
that as you love, so may we love
and do what you would do.
Help us Lord,
to love one another
God, you are love,
and all of us are held in your infinite love.
Strengthen all that restores us in your image
and make us worthy of our calling
as your sons and daughters.
Help us not to create you in our image
but instead clothe us with Christ-like qualities
of love, kindness, forgiveness, gentleness and mercy.
Help us Lord,
to love one another
God, your love is patient and kind,
may the church clear way any barriers
which prevent your love flooding it.
Wash away all that is selfish and negative,
control our tongues and our cruel thoughts
and help us to build strong loving foundations.
Help us Lord,
to love one another
God, your love is forgiving and restoring.
Your love is a love that keeps no record of wrongs
but always hopes and trusts.
We pray for those people
who are riddled with guilt or failure,
that you will remind them
of your forgiving and renewing presence
and of your unconditional love.
Help us Lord,
to love one another
God, love is your gift to us,
we give thanks for those
who have so freely shared your love with us.
We give you thanks for our families and friends
and pray for all who are in any way deprived of love
that you will draw significant others into their lives,
offering them the richness of your love.
Help us Lord,
to love one another
God, love is your mark of healing and grace.
We think of all the people known to us suffering
with frailty, weakness, illness and depression.
Lord, you know them all by name,
draw near with your calm and peace.
Touch them with your power and gentleness.
May you be present in their darkness and pain,
and as deep calls to deep, bring them inner quiet and hope.
Help us Lord,
to love one another
God, love is your word
we pray for those who doubt your promises
in difficult times of bereavement,
unemployment, unrest and suffering.
We ask that you enfold them in your love,
fill them with your strength and peace,
and restore their trust in your living presence and word.
We remember those, who mourn, today, the loss of a loved one.
Help us Lord,
to love one another
God, your love is a generous love,
inviting us to care and share with others.
We remember our brothers and sisters
in different parts of the world,
struggling with natural disasters, civil war,
poverty, oppression, and corruption.
We pray especially for the Middle East
and ask that they will receive
all the medical supplies they need,
and more importantly an end to the war.
We think of Yemen,
struggling with poverty and starvation
and ask that they will receive food and aid.
We remember Afghanistan, Syria, Sudan, Iran, and Iraq
asking for peace and stability.
Help us Lord,
to love one another
God love is your call to us,
asking us to deny ourselves
take up our cross and follow you.
Help us to surrender all to you in love,
and allow you to influence and direct our lives
that we might grow more like your children
in faith and love.
Help us Lord,
to love one another
God you are love,
We lift to you our families
and those whom we hold dear
thanking you for all their love.
May we cherish that love
and may we never take your infinite love, O God, for granted.
Merciful Father accept these prayers
for the sake of your Son Jesus Christ our Lord
who taught us to say together,
Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
Forgive us our sins
as we forgive those
who sin against us.
Do not bring us to the time of trial
but deliver us from evil.
For the kingdom, the power and the glory are yours, now and for ever. Amen.
HYMN
BLESSING
God the Father,
by whose glory Christ was raised from the dead,
strengthen you to walk with him in his risen life;
and the blessing of God Almighty, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit
be among you and remain with you always. Amen
DISMISSAL
Go or stay in peace to love and serve the Lord.
Alleluia! Alleluia!
In the name of Christ,
Alleluia! Alleluia!
