12th May, 2012

Tomorrow is 6th Sunday in Easter

 

O Lord Christ, good shepherd of the sheep, you seek the lost and guide us into your fold. Feed us, and we shall be satisfied; heal us, and we shall be whole. Make us one with you.

Acts 10:44-48 | Psalm 98 (4) | 1 John 5:1-6 | John 15:9-17

1 JOHN 5:1-6

5Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the parent loves the child.2By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments.3For the love of God is this, that we obey his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome,4for whatever is born of God conquers the world. And this is the victory that conquers the world, our faith.5Who is it that conquers the world but the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?

6This 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.

The New Revised Standard Version (Anglicized Edition), copyright 1989, 1995 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

 

Study Notes

If you love a parent you love the parent's children. This does not necessarily follow in real life, but it does for our author. He is finding just one more way of stressing the importance of Christians loving one another. These are the commandments: loving God and loving one's fellow Christian. They are not heavy demands because their fulfillment is part of the dynamic of the relationship as the author has explained in the passage we looked at last week. We love because he first loved us - the one effects the other. Love begets love.  In 5:4 John swings back to the issue of right belief. In 4:1-6 he had used the language of victory in the context of not submitting to the false beliefs espoused by those in conflict with the author. The same image occurs in 2:12-14 in association with the 'young men' and is linked with the threat of the world (2:15-17) and associated with that is the comment about the antichrists who espouse false teaching about Christ (2:18-19). These links reappear in a new form in 6:4. Again we have victory over the world.

 

JOHN 15:9-17

9As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love.10If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love.11I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.12“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.13No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.14You are my friends if you do what I command you.15I 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.16You 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.17I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.

 

Study Notes

Though reference to love has been completely absent in verses 1 through 8, the repeated reference to it now gives love the center stage. Love is to be seen above all in the love of the Father as shown forth in the love of the Son. "God so loved..." (3:16). In the interconnected and unfolding message of John's gospel, it is as if every word and every passage mutually interpret one another. Using a modern analogy, you might imagine every word in the gospel linked to every other word in the gospel, so that "clicking" on one word necessarily explodes and expands into every other word as its commentary and frame of meaning and understanding. Prayer, too, is grounded in the mutual abiding relationship of Father, Son, and disciple community. "The Father will give you whatever you ask in my name (16). When this promise is linked immediately with the repeated reference to Jesus' command to "love one another," it is clear that "whatever we ask" defines and directs Christian prayer toward the fulfilling of the command to love for the other.

ACTS 10:44-48

44While Peter was still speaking, the Holy Spirit fell upon all who heard the word.45The circumcised believers who had come with Peter were astounded that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the Gentiles,46for they heard them speaking in tongues and extolling God. Then Peter said,47“Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?”48So he ordered them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Then they invited him to stay for several days.

Food and Facilitator Volunteers:

Study Notes

The two words above, which to me stick out as if they have neon lights attached to them, are “astounded” and “even.” Gentiles in are coming to faith in God in Christ, and the Christians of Jewish descent are “astounded” that the Holy Spirit of God is being given to “even” the Gentiles. They have no clue. They have no idea what God is doing, what God is capable of, or who God is able to reach. Instead of being open to the infinite possibilities of God they are closed-minded, thinking that the only way to God is a way that looks like the way that they came to God.As if God can’t be reached by other routes. As if their understanding of God is the only right way. The only possible way.