Sunday's Sermon May 13, 2012 "Like a Mother's Love"

“Like a Mother’s Love”

Sixth Sunday of Easter Sunday May 13, 2012

Acts 10:25-26, 34-35, 44-48 * 1 John 4:7-10 * St. John 15:9-17

Introduction:  Only when we are united with Jesus in faith and love, like branches on a vine, can our lives be fruitful and God will give us everything that is good.

A reading from the Holy Gospel according to St. John

I have loved you even as the Father has loved Me. Remain in My love. When you obey My commandments, you remain in My love, just as I obey My Father's commandments and remain in His love. I have told you these things so that you will be filled with My joy. Yes, your joy will overflow! This is My commandment: Love each other in the same way I have loved you.

There is no greater love than to lay down one's life for one's friends. You are My friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you slaves, because a master doesn't confide in his slaves. Now you are My friends, since I have told you everything the Father told Me. You didn't choose Me. I chose you. I appointed you to go and produce lasting fruit, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask for, using My name. This is My command: Love each other.

P: This is the Gospel of the Lord. C: Praise to You Lord Jesus Christ!

Let’s be in a Spirit of prayer, Lord empty me of myself and let Your Spirit fill me and may the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be acceptable to You, God. Amen.

There was this story of a father of 5 girls who after a long wonderful life filled with joy and laughter was dying and one daughter got a note from him and instead of waiting until after his death to open it as it said on the outside of the envelope, she opened it and it read…”I love you. You were my favorite. Don’t tell the others.” When her dad passed away,  all the girls got together with their mother and opened their cards from their dad, then the mother said to the one who had opened it weeks before, “Please read your card”;  after trying to avoid reading it in front of her sisters out of embarrassment  she started reading, “I love you. You were my favorite…at which point the other 4 sisters chimed in … “Don’t tell the others.”  Yes, he had sent the same card to all 5 daughters!

You see their father and mother loved them so much they planned upon his death when they all got together the first thing was to have them all laugh instead of cry.  This thinking of others shows this father’s and mother’s love for their children.

While even the best of human love at times can be limited, God’s love for us is a divine love which surpasses our human understanding as Paul writes in Ephesians 3:19.

Love is sometimes very difficult to do especially when we are called to love those who we would rather not love. As followers of Jesus we are commanded to follow His example which if it was just left to our choice we would do something very different.

In our first reading, after Peter’s address the Holy Spirit descends and Peter announces that all will be baptized. The Jews who accompanied Peter wonder at their being baptized without their being circumcised. Earlier in chapter 10 Peter had a vision of eating “unclean” food and now that comes into focus. Peter and the early church is to extend the baptism of the Spirit from Jerusalem throughout the entire world. All creatures are clean now in the universal love of the resurrected Jesus.

What our First Reading today adds is the actual baptism of those non-Jews upon whom God has sent the Holy Spirit. God plays no favorites, shows no partiality. All are included in the “New Creation” brought about by the life, death and Resurrection of Jesus.  

Cornelius, the Roman centurion is, to the Jewish mind, as far from God’s embrace as Rome is from Jerusalem. Peter, remembering his vision of all the various foods, extends the inclusion offered by Jesus to the ends of the earth, including the hated Roman oppressors.

           

For area high school students coming up in a week or so are the final exams of the year. John’s Gospel reading comes from a familiar section from the “Last Discourse” of Jesus to His disciples. In these five chapters, thirteen through seventeen, John presents Jesus as the loving teacher reminding His students of all that He has tried to teach them and what will be on the final exam. He warns them also about dangers and traps which they will encounter on their way to that exam. There are some elements of the Ten Commandments, the Sermon on the Mount, and some wonderful images of Who Jesus says He is and who the disciples are to be.

What we hear today is a simple, straight-forward command, which if observed, will continue the personality and central characteristic of Jesus Himself. “Love one another as I have loved you.” Before saying this, Jesus tells them that He has loved them as deeply and intimately as the Father has loved Him. Remaining in this love will make keeping this one and only summation of all His teachings, possible and meaningful.

We are named “friends” and “chosen”. This is central to our following of Jesus. If we believe who we are; if we take our name seriously, then the actions of loving will follow. Jesus tells His disciples, and ourselves, that “you are a part of Me, as Vine, you are known, loved, and chosen to be fruitful.”  The “fruitfulness” is that for which Jesus came. The fruitfulness is ourselves, beginning with the disciples and spreading through the early church to all the ends of the earth, including you and me right here in Whiteland, Indiana.

Two weeks ago Jesus told His disciples about the “shepherd” laying down his life for his friends. Love is not always felt, but is expressed in deeds especially the generous surrendering of greeds, envies, demands, expectations. We think about the mother in Henryville who gladly gave up both of her legs instead of having one of her children injured by the tornado that devastated that town a couple of months ago.

I was watching a special program on the Weather Channel the other evening. It was a look-back over the past year, when we had a more-than-usual number of tornadoes across the country. A commentator referred to those devastating weather events as "Acts of God." In effect God was blamed, once again, for killing innocent people and destroying millions of dollars of property! While nature often shows the wonder and power of God – a sunset over the ocean, Spring flowers and tiny hummingbirds – I can’t name a killer-tornado as an "God’s act."

But, as a believer, I can recognize a powerful "act of God" – God took flesh in Jesus and Jesus gave His life for us. As the gospel says today, "There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for a friend." God’s power was demonstrated for us by: Jesus’ joining us in our human journey; not avoiding pain, but accepting it as one of us and giving His life to prove how much God loves us. Now that’s what I call an "Act of God!" Like a mother’s love in protecting her children from a tornado, like a shepherd laying down her life for the sheep, I find her loving action that day an act of God.  

“Loving” is easier to talk about than execute. We think of human love that needs to be earned, we live life with this method of loving: “we do this and get that”.  Over the past 20 years especially many parents gave their children things instead of their presence as they were growing up to earn their love.

When it comes to the love of God we have to begin with the understanding that we cannot buy God’s love. He gives His love as a gift and it cannot be earned. The disciples were asked to receive their being loved by Jesus as the Father loves Him. Remaining in that love will result in remaining as “sent” and “loved” Christians.

So, we don’t have to come here to church to pray in order to please God; to earn God’s love and goodwill; to wear God down with lots of prayers so that God will favor us and give us what we pray for. We don’t pray and serve God to earn God’s love. Jesus’ life and death make it very clear: God already loves us, what more must God do to convince us? Jesus is a very powerful message that all can read, loud and clear: we didn’t love God first and God returned the favor and now loves us back. Rather, God loved us first and Jesus is proof positive of God’s love for us – if we have any doubts.

The real issue is: since God already loves us and has given such powerful evidence of that love, what should we do to show we got the message? How can we respond and show that our lives are transformed by that love; for love transforms the beloved? You can always tell when someone is in love, they radiate love. They are cheerful, kinder, and more patient.

If we asked Jesus what we must do in response to the love God has shown us in him, he says to us today, "Keep my commandments." Jesus isn’t talking about not violating the 10 Commandments. He is telling us, "Don’t worry about doing something negative. Instead do something positive: love one another.

Today we are reminded that God Himself writes the same note to every one of us since the world began to the baby that was born this second, “I love you. You are My favorite. Now go and tell ALL the others!” Have a wonderful Mother’s Day!

Sunday Sermon May 6, 2012 "The Branch Office"

“The Branch Office”

Fifth Sunday of Easter Sunday May 6, 2012

Acts 9:26-31*1 John 3:18-24* St. John 15:1-8

Introduction:  Only when we are united with Jesus in faith and love, like branches on a vine, can our lives be fruitful and God will give us everything that is good.

A reading from the Holy Gospel according to St. John

"I am the true grapevine, and My Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch of mine that doesn't produce fruit, and He prunes the branches that do bear fruit so they will produce even more. You have already been pruned and purified by the message I have given you. Remain in Me, and I will remain in you. For a branch cannot produce fruit if it is severed from the vine, and you cannot be fruitful unless you remain in Me.

"Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in Me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from Me you can do nothing. Anyone who does not remain in Me is thrown away like a useless branch and withers. Such branches are gathered into a pile to be burned. But if you remain in Me and my words remain in you, you may ask for anything you want, and it will be granted! When you produce much fruit, you are My true disciples. This brings great glory to My Father.

P: This is the Gospel of the Lord. C: Praise to You Lord Jesus Christ!

Let’s be in a Spirit of prayer, Lord empty me of myself and let Your Spirit fill me and may the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be acceptable to You, God. Amen.

Remember the TV commercial from the 1970’s "How do you spell relief?" The answer of course was "R-O-L-A-I-D-S"

On occasion in the ‘70s, when schoolchildren were asked to spell the word "relief", they would respond with "Rolaids".

The problem is that our culture always wants to know “How do you spell relief?”  For Christian disciples we spell relief…B-E-L-I-E-F!  Christian spirituality is a living with the tension of the upward call of Jesus to our downwardly self-centered natures. Jesus put His followers in such tensions almost every time He spoke. Paul knew it well when writing about the good he would want to do, he does not, and what he would rather not do, he does.

Faithfulness to these tensions is how we spell “belief” especially in how Jesus spells it in sharing with us His presence in just a few moments in communion.

Movements containing new ideas and identities can be found frightening by those who fear what is new. The “Way” was such a threatening group. They believed that their leader, Jesus of Nazareth, Who had been crucified, was raised from the dead and ascended into Heaven. This movement was gaining followers and miraculous events had been occurring through their preaching the good news.

Saul was a righteous and zealous Pharisee Jew who seemed disturbed by this “Way”. He was very well known to the point of his being notorious. He had been trying to halt the movement of these “Christ-Way” people. He in turn was knocked to the earth and spoken to by this very Risen Christ. His resulting conversion was personal, but he had some mending to do.

What we hear in our reading from Acts today is his knocking on the door of official entrance into the company of disciples. The original group was not so sure that Saul, now known as Paul, was to be trusted, because of his past. Barnabas becomes his sponsor and speaks up on Paul’s behalf. Paul, by his actions, had proved that His faith in Jesus was real. He even would have people want to kill him when he spoke of the Risen Jesus.

The “Way” was growing in faith and in numbers. Paul was an instrument of that spreading as he went off from Jerusalem to tell of the relief of the Holy Spirit and the power of the Resurrection.  

The Gospel we hear today is from the famous verses taken from the heart of John’s presenting Jesus giving His last discourse to His apostles. We hear one more of the “I am” statements, characteristic of John’s presentation of Jesus. As with the other “I am” references, Jesus is telling His listeners who they are as well. He also gives an image of our Father. There is much identifying then in today’s readings. Paul finds out who he is and we find out a bit of who we are.

We are the receivers of life and the producers of “fruit” as long as we remain in Him who has remained in us. What we do will flower from remaining faithful to who we are. We are more than what we do, of course, but doing is more than a revelation of ourselves.

Paul was grafted onto and into the Vine. By Baptism, we too have become grounded in Jesus as well. Paul had to live with his earthliness, his past, his violence. Many of the great saints have had to live beyond their histories. The community had to receive Paul who had been a block to the “Way” and then instead of being in the way, he was on the “Way”. He learned of the redemptive mission of Jesus, not like the other disciples, at the feet of Jesus. Paul became a disciple by learning, by getting knocked off his own feet by the Lord’s pruning voice.

We learn from our mistakes - well we try. We learn and grow from them if we allow ourselves to be humble and realize our need to do better.  I like to say there is only the humble in heaven…the arrogant choose to go someplace else. 

How do we become a good branch…a humble disciple?  We first come to sense that our lives are not fruitful; the way Jesus encourages life to be. Let’s take a look at the life of Paul. Being apart from Jesus means not being a part of Jesus as Vine. Being apart from Jesus usually results in our not being the branch the gardener planted on this earth at this time.

Jesus had to meet Saul in order that Saul could meet himself. From this learning experience, Paul became an Apostle, that is, one who is sent. His fruitfulness blossomed after he accepted who he was. The original disciples had to accept him as well, because of his having become alive in the Spirit and his own truth.

Once Paul accepted his call, his life did not seem successful in the eyes of the world but in God’s eyes Paul became who God wanted him to be. It took a Damascus road experience to change Paul’s heart to becoming a servant of the real Messiah.  

St. John was addressing his gospel to a community practiced in the Christian faith and also suffering the consequences of discipleship. Many, like the blind man who had received his sight from Jesus, were thrown out of their synagogues and cut off from family, friends and community because of their new sight. John isn’t just addressing individual situations, but the experience of his community. The Church is not supposed to get along with the world around it. Instead, like Jesus and the prophets before Him, we must speak out for the rights of the unborn, poor, outsiders, prisoners and the created world.

This past week there was a story that received a great deal of international attention. In China, the Communist government put under “house” arrest the blind pro-life advocate Chen Guangheng, he escaped and went to the United States embassy in Beijing until he was released just prior to the arrival of the Secretaries of State and Treasury for their annual summit.

We must pray not only for Chen and his family that they might be free from Communist oppression but we must pray for the church in China. Pray for this branch that produces fruit in a garden where the government wants to dictate the type of fruit that grows. The church in China lives under a system which allows state sanctioned so called “Christian worship” where anything said from the leaders of the worship must first be approved by government bureaucrats.  The church in China is a branch office just as the church in the United States is a branch office to the universal Church which is the body of Christ on earth.

While the Church’s situation in Communist China might seem hopeless, Christianity is all about hope. Hope for our present life and hope in the life to come. Let us remember another seemingly hopeless situation. It was just over thirty years ago when the church in Poland spoke out and organized against the Communists. Freedom loving people around the world prayed for the people of Poland and what occurred? The actions of the United States and other western governments along with the actions of the Polish Pope at the Vatican helped bring about the fall of the Communist government in Warsaw and instill democratic reforms which led to the election of Lech Walesa as president. Prayer does work even in the most hopeless circumstances. The power of the Holy Spirit does bring about miracles large and small.  The Holy Spirit is what allows us to be fruitful branches connected to the Vine of Christ. 

How could John’s community and our own community possibly be able to live up to the vocation Jesus is calling us to be – fruitful branches? It has to do with "remaining" in Him. What could that possibly mean and, if it is as important as it seems, why didn’t He spell it out for us so we could know exactly what we must do to "remain" in Him and be fruitful?

I think each of us might draw up a list of what "remaining” in Jesus, the true vine, might mean. Individually we "remain" in Jesus through prayer, reading Scriptures, service to others, stillness, and meditation. Each of us can add to this general list of ways we "remain" in Christ and "bear much fruit." We don’t have to limit the specific ways we live out our discipleship for, as Jesus said earlier in John about the Spirit, "the wind blows where it will".  

One thing is for sure. It doesn’t sound like Jesus expects us to claim our discipleship and then settle into a “routine” life. There is no routine Christian life, when the source of our life is the blowing wind of the Holy Spirit!

The heart of this gospel passage is WHO is at the heart of it. This account, like the entire gospel, who is at the heart is Jesus. Jesus tells those sitting around a table at the Last Supper that they are "already pruned," so that they will bear much fruit. Isn’t that a freeing message? Doesn’t that encourage risk: go out and bear much fruit and don’t be afraid, for we are in Christ and Christ is in us!

We remember Jesus promised His followers "those who eat My flesh and drink My blood abide in Me and I in them." He also told us that we can remain in Him if we remain in His word, "If you live according to My teaching, you are truly My disciples". His word lives in us and we live in His word.

Just like the disciples Jesus is addressing, we are also sitting around the table. We too are in close relationship with the Lord, not because of our own doing but because we have received and are receiving the gift of His Holy Spirit being within us and within the church gathered in His name. It is no wonder that at the core the celebration of Communion is a prayer of gratitude and an expression of joy and thanksgiving.

Each one of you is assigned to this branch office. Let us have productive week ahead. And if satan and his world seem to be causing us a little indigestion this coming week; remember how we spell relief … B-E-L-I-E-F!

Sunday, April 29, 2012 Sermon "Jesus Knows You!"

“Jesus Knows YOU!”

Fourth Sunday of Easter Sunday April 29, 2012

Acts 4:5-12 * 1 John 3:1-2 * St. John 10:11-18

Introduction:  The image of a Shepherd and his sheep is not familiar to all of us, but we can understand this: Jesus has given His life for us; as our risen Lord He leads and unites us, not by force but by a personal knowledge of and love for each of us.

A reading from the Holy Gospel according to St. John

"I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd sacrifices His life for the sheep. A hired hand will run when he sees a wolf coming. He will abandon the sheep because they don't belong to him and he isn't their shepherd. And so the wolf attacks them and scatters the flock. The hired hand runs away because he's working only for the money and doesn't really care about the sheep.

"I am the good shepherd; I know My own sheep, and they know Me, just as My Father knows Me and I know the Father. So I sacrifice My life for the sheep. I have other sheep, too, that are not in this sheepfold. I must bring them also. They will listen to My voice, and there will be one flock with one shepherd.

"The Father loves Me because I sacrifice My life so I may take it back again. No one can take My life from Me. I sacrifice it voluntarily. For I have the authority to lay it down when I want to and also to take it up again. For this is what My Father has commanded."

P: This is the Gospel of the Lord. C: Praise to You Lord Jesus Christ!

Let’s be in a Spirit of prayer, Lord empty me of myself and let Your Spirit fill me and may the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be acceptable to You, God. Amen.

Back in 1978 while I was in college I was a disc jockey one summer in Joliet, Illinois at a pop music station. I played a song by the group ABBA released the year before….the title of that song was “Knowing me, Knowing you.” The secular message of the song was about two people breaking up. But even back then I was a little different since I was in the college seminary and at hope that summer, I found that song title and the name of the group had a very biblical meaning. For you see Abba, knows me and knows you!

Jesus and His disciples read Hebrew in the synagogue, but in everyday speech and preaching used a closely related language, Aramaic. In Biblical Hebrew ab is "father." But in Aramaic abbā is a word derived from baby-language. As the Rabbis said, a small child "learns to say abbā (daddy) and immā (mummy)." In the pre-Christian era the usage of the word broadened so that "... Abbā as a form of address to one's father was no longer restricted to children, but also used by adult sons and daughters. The childish character of the word ("daddy") thus receded, and abbā acquired the warm, familiar ring which we may feel in such an expression as "dear father."

While nowhere in the entire devotional literature of ancient Judaism is abbā a way of addressing God, in Jesus' teaching and practice, such an expression was the norm. It is very likely that in all Jesus' teaching about the Father -- "my Father," "your Father," etc. -- that the warm, intimate Aramaic word abbā was the word Jesus actually used. Jesus introduced us to God as our Father in a way unheard of in the Old Testament or in Judaism.

You may be struggling just now. Your relationship with your own father may have been distant, perhaps non-existent. Worse, your own father may have sinned against you through harshness, lovelessness, abandonment, or perhaps even physical or sexual abuse. For sons as well as daughters, coming to terms with our own fathers is essential to our psychological health and maturity, but is sometimes oh so hard, sometimes nearly impossible from a human standpoint.

I would guess that father-child relationships were no less hard in Jesus' own time, when some fathers may have assumed it as their legal right to do what they wanted with their wife and children, they were his property. So why does Jesus teach so strongly, so incessantly, about His Father, about our Father? If this metaphor could be rendered useless by human sin, why would Jesus risk it?

I would suggest two reasons. First, theologically, the Father-Son metaphor, better than any other, describes the relationship of Jesus to God, and Jesus' own divine nature. Those in our generation who repudiate the Father-Son metaphor tend to drift from a belief in the Trinity towards a peculiar kind of unitarianism. But secondly, I believe that Jesus is trying to heal and bring wholeness to both men and women who have been wounded by their human fathers. Jesus is trying to help you and I know a Father who loves us and will not do us harm, a Father who will not slap us around, but will encircle us in His arms and let us feel His love, a Father who will not let you go. My dear friend, Jesus wants to reintroduce you to His Father, to your Father, so that you might be whole -- spiritually and emotionally. Reclaim your birthright to know and enjoy and love Abba as your Father.

Jesus knows you. He died for you. He was resurrected for you and He sits at the Father’s right hand and will come again … for you!

You will recognize His voice if we take the time to reduce the "idle chatter" coming at us from the outside and misguiding us from what our true inner voice is saying to us. A voice which is trying to keep us focused and on center.

There weren’t cell phones and television, nor the latest "iPad with WiFi +4G" in Jesus’ day. But they were a lot like us. They also had a lot of worries and competing voices to distract them. People in every generation need a voice they can trust, to inspire them and set the pattern of their lives, someone they can rely on. Using the image of a caring and guiding shepherd, Jesus presents Himself today to us as that trustworthy voice. He said to them and says to us, that we need to be attentive to His voice and separate it from all the other voices that tug on us and draw us here and there. His voice, He says, will keep us together and also guide us on our journey. Using the image of the gospel today: His voice will guard our coming in and going out.

That describes our lives doesn’t it? We are on a journey. There are very few periods in our lives when things are smooth and unchanging. We journey through childhood into adulthood. We journey through changes in jobs and careers into retirement and more jobs and careers. We enter into and, sometimes, out of relationships. We pass through periods of health and then illness and, we hope health again. And of course there is the inevitable journey we take from youth, to adulthood, to old-age and then death. All along these journeys we make choices: some are well made, others we wish we could take back and do all over again.

There are a lot of voices out there that can only distract and scatter us. They really don’t care how or where we end up or whether we’re going around in circles. Perhaps we’ve paid too much attention to them at times in our lives. They don’t have our best interests at heart as long as we: buy what they’re selling; choose what everyone else chooses; live with the same values as those around us (the least common denominator); and don’t stand out from the crowd.

There’s a lot to maneuver through life. There are a lot of big and small decisions to make along the way, some of which can alter our lives and have long-term effects. The question is: what and who will help us make these decisions? Where do we turn for clarity and consistency? The voice of the Shepherd, Jesus tells us, wants to gather us. He wants to give us rest from futility and wasted energies. His voice can help us keep our wits about us in a misguided world.

Jesus is inviting us again to be more attentive to Him because He has invested His life in us. He wants to help us along life’s journey: our journey towards God; our journey to become more trusting; our journey to become more patient with ourselves and others; our journey to become less controlling; our journey to put the past behind us and start afresh and our journey to become more forgiving.

Today we remember the Good Shepherd. The shepherd imagery speaks of loving and responsible care; providing guidance, protection, comfort, nurture and safety.

There’s lots of darkness around us these days: unemployment, war, racial and economic divides, fear for our children and their future, violence, loss, heck even Russian “Airborne Assault Forces” will be arriving in Colorado next month for joint terror-war exercises with U.S. soldiers, according to U.S. officials and Russian military personnel cited in media reports. The Kremlin’s Defense Ministry and the U.S. Department of Defense both said it would be the first time in history that American and Russian airborne special operations troops would be training together on U.S. soil. Now did you ever think in your wildest dreams that would ever happen? 

Those in the land often turn to our elected shepherds for help. May God give them wisdom and perseverance that they may truly serve God and guide God’s people.

We also pray for all the shepherds around the world sitting in the pews this Sunday morning: parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts, spouses, friends and teachers. They too bear the responsibility and burden of leadership for those in their charge. May they be blessed with God’s ample shepherding graces today.

May all of us who are nourished by the Good Shepherd at this Communion, hear again God’s call to be good shepherds and, like Christ, be willing to give our lives for the sheep in our care.

Scriptures for Sunday, April 29, 2012

Great Harvest Church Readings

  Fourth Sunday of Easter April 29, 2012

Acts 4:5-12 * 1 John 3:1-2 * St. John 10:11-18

Introduction:  Peter professes without fear his faith in the risen Christ, in whose Name he has saved a crippled man from his disability. It is the Name by which we are all saved.

A reading from The Acts of the Apostles

The next day the council of all the rulers and elders and teachers of religious law met in Jerusalem. Annas the high priest was there, along with Caiaphas, John, Alexander, and other relatives of the high priest. They brought in the two disciples and demanded, "By what power, or in whose name, have you done this?"

Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, "Rulers and elders of our people, are we being questioned today because we've done a good deed for a crippled man? Do you want to know how he was healed? Let me clearly state to all of you and to all the people of Israel that he was healed by the powerful name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene, the man you crucified but whom God raised from the dead.  For Jesus is the one referred to in the Scriptures, where it says,

'The stone that you builders rejected

  has now become the cornerstone.'

There is salvation in no one else! God has given no other name under heaven by which we must be saved."

L: This is the Word of the Lord.  C: Thanks be to God. 

***************************************

Introduction That we are God's children is not just a beautiful thought but the deepest reality, because we are united with Jesus, God's beloved Son. Only when we shall see God will we be capable of understanding this.

A reading from the first letter of St. John

See how very much our Father loves us, for He calls us His children, and that is what we are! But the people who belong to this world don't recognize that we are God's children because they don't know Him. Dear friends, we are already God's children, but He has not yet shown us what we will be like when Christ appears. But we do know that we will be like Him, for we will see Him as He really is.   L: This is the Word of the Lord.  C: Thanks be to God. 

Introduction:  The image of a Shepherd and his sheep is not familiar to all of us, but we can understand this: Jesus has given His life for us; as our risen Lord He leads and unites us, not by force but by a personal knowledge of and love for each of us.

The Holy Gospel according to St. John

"I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd sacrifices His life for the sheep. A hired hand will run when he sees a wolf coming. He will abandon the sheep because they don't belong to him and he isn't their shepherd. And so the wolf attacks them and scatters the flock. The hired hand runs away because he's working only for the money and doesn't really care about the sheep.

"I am the good shepherd; I know My own sheep, and they know Me, just as My Father knows Me and I know the Father. So I sacrifice My life for the sheep. I have other sheep, too, that are not in this sheepfold. I must bring them also. They will listen to My voice, and there will be one flock with one shepherd.

"The Father loves Me because I sacrifice My life so I may take it back again. No one can take My life from Me. I sacrifice it voluntarily. For I have the authority to lay it down when I want to and also to take it up again. For this is what My Father has commanded."

P: This is the Gospel of the Lord. C: Praise to You Lord Jesus Christ!

Thought for this Sunday from Lutherans for Life :>)

 From our friends at Lutherans for Life: April 22 – Third Sunday of Easter – What an “aha” moment it must have been for the disciples when Jesus “opened their minds to understand the Scriptures” (Luke 24:45). They realized the connection. The Scriptures were all about Him! What an “aha” moment when we realize that Jesus is all about us! We can trust in Him no matter what our circumstances.

Scripture Readings for Sunday, April 22, 2012

Great Harvest Church Readings

  Third Sunday of Easter April 22, 2012

Acts 3:13-19 * 1 John 2:1-5a * St. Luke 24:35-48

Introduction:  In his preaching, Peter bears strong witness that Christ was raised from the dead. He asks his hearers to turn to Christ and to let Him make them new.

A reading from The Acts of the Apostles

For it is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—the God of all our ancestors—who has brought glory to His servant Jesus by doing this. This is the same Jesus whom you handed over and rejected before Pilate, despite Pilate's decision to release Him. You rejected this holy, righteous One and instead demanded the release of a murderer.  You killed the author of life, but God raised Him from the dead. And we are witnesses of this fact! "Friends, I realize that what you and your leaders did to Jesus was done in ignorance. But God was fulfilling what all the prophets had foretold about the Messiah—that He must suffer these things. Now repent of your sins and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped away. L: This is the Word of the Lord.  C: Thanks be to God. 

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Introduction When we follow the commandments of love of Christ, we are true to the risen Christ and we grow in God's love.

A reading from the first letter of St. John

My dear children, I am writing this to you so that you will not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate who pleads our case before the Father. He is Jesus Christ, the one who is truly righteous.  He Himself is the sacrifice that atones for our sins—and not only our sins but the sins of all the world.

And we can be sure that we know Him if we obey His commandments. If someone claims, "I know God," but doesn't obey God's commandments, that person is a liar and is not living in the truth.  But those who obey God's word truly show how completely they love Him.   L: This is the Word of the Lord.  C: Thanks be to God. 

Introduction:  Jesus appeared to His doubting disciples to strengthen their faith that He was raised from the dead. Then He sent them out as He sends us - to bear witness to His forgiveness and new life.

The Holy Gospel according to St. Luke

Then the two from Emmaus told their story of how Jesus had appeared to them as they were walking along the road, and how they had recognized Him as He was breaking the bread. And just as they were telling about it, Jesus Himself was suddenly standing there among them. "Peace be with you," He said. But the whole group was startled and frightened, thinking they were seeing a ghost!

"Why are you frightened?" He asked. "Why are your hearts filled with doubt? Look at My hands. Look at My feet. You can see that it's really Me. Touch Me and make sure that I am not a ghost, because ghosts don't have bodies, as you see that I do." As He spoke, He showed them His hands and His feet.

Still they stood there in disbelief, filled with joy and wonder. Then He asked them, "Do you have anything here to eat?" They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and He ate it as they watched.

Then Jesus said, "When I was with you before, I told you that everything written about Me in the law of Moses and the prophets and in the Psalms must be fulfilled." Then He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures. And He said, "Yes, it was written long ago that the Messiah would suffer and die and rise from the dead on the third day. It was also written that this message would be proclaimed in the authority of his name to all the nations, beginning in Jerusalem: 'There is forgiveness of sins for all who repent.' You are witnesses of all these things.

P: This is the Gospel of the Lord. C: Praise to You Lord Jesus Christ!