May 12, 2024

Seventh Sunday of Easter

READINGS FOR THE COMING WEEK

• First reading
  • Acts 1:15-17, 21-26
• Psalm
  • Psalm 1
• Second reading
  • 1 John 5:9-13
• Gospel
  • John 17:6-19

The gospel from John:
Jesus spoke “I have made your name known to those whom you gave me from the world. They were yours, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything you have given me is from you; for the words that you gave to me I have given to them, and they have received them and know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me.

I am asking on their behalf; I am not asking on behalf of the world, but on behalf of those whom you gave me, because they are yours. All mine are yours, and yours are mine; and I have been glorified in them.

And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one. While I was with them, I protected them in your name that you have given me. I guarded them, and not one of them was lost except the one destined to be lost, so that the scripture might be fulfilled.

But now I am coming to you, and I speak these things in the world so that they may have my joy made complete in themselves. I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world.

I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but I ask you to protect them from the evil one. They do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.

As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sakes I sanctify myself, so that they also may be sanctified in truth.

May 9, 2024

Ascension

READING FOR THE DAY

Luke 24:44-53

The gospel from Luke:
Then he said to his disciples, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you–that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled.” Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, and he said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.

You are witnesses of these things. And see, I am sending upon you what my Father promised; so stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.” Then he led them out as far as Bethany, and, lifting up his hands, he blessed them. While he was blessing them, he withdrew from them and was carried up into heaven.

And they worshiped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy; and they were continually in the temple blessing God.

Sermon
Pastor Stevenson decided to speak on the lectionary for Ascension Day which was May 9. That Acts and Luke were both written by Luke has been generally agreed upon. Both books open addressing The-ophilus. In Greek, they are similar. They read like history, but our lesson this week is a shock. Acts only says that the Christ was taken up into a cloud. This flying up is mystical. To say he disappears is more modern. He is not abandoned. He tells his disciples to go far and wide to tell peoples about what they have witnessed. Better words than taken up for the ascension are hidden and revealed. God is hidden in a cloud. He is revealed in our churches. Pastor continues……….