7th Sunday of Easter 2024 St Andrew’s Milngavie
Today we celebrated the 7th Sunday of Easter. Once again everyone was in good voice accompanied by John.
Christian Aid Week 12th -18th May
Envelopes are available in church for donations. There will be a collection for CA outside Tesco on Thursday 16h May – Liz Macdonald would appreciate any offers of help with this – even if it’s just for an hour. Please let Liz or me know if you can help.
Harry has very kindly offered to produce a monthly church newsletter. Any contributions to the publication will be warmly received – stories, pictures, articles, any thing of interest, please send to me and I can forward them to Harry.
This Week
Tuesday 10am – Prayer Group in the Garden Room.
Wednesday 2.30pm – Book Group Jan’s
Thursday 10am – Said Holy Communion followed by coffee in Friendship House
Thursday – Chirstian Aid Collection outside Tesco
Saturday 18th May – Church walk – visit to Inchmahome. Meet at the Port of Mentieth 11am with a picnic lunch. Booking of the boat is required so we need to have some idea of numbers, please let me or Tim know if you would like to come.
Sunday 19th May – 4pm Milngavie Choir Concert St Joseph’s . Tickets available on the door
Readings for next Sunday Whit Sunday Pentecost Acts 2:1-21 Romans 8:22-27 John 15:26-27,16:4b-15
Today’s readings – Acts 1:15-17,21-26, 1 John 5:9-13, John 17:6-19
This week has been a week of heavenly splendour. On Thursday we celebrated the Ascension of our Lord to the heavenly host. On Friday we had a glimpse of that heavenly host with a spectacular display of the Norther Lights. Today our gospel points us to heavenly glory through divine supplication.
Every year on this seventh Sunday of Easter, which is the last Sunday of Easter before Pentecost, our gospel reading from John is a beautiful inspiring prayer, offered by Jesus for his disciples, and for all “those who will believe in him through their word” which, of course, is us. John 17:20. Here in John’s gospel Jesus prays for us.
It is such a gift and blessing to be prayed for and to pray for others. Indeed, prayer is a remarkable gift, because it opens us up to God’s love, and invites God to help us, and those for whom we are praying. It is a long and beautiful prayer, but it can be a little confusing.
So, let’s set it in context. The prayer occurs right before Jesus is arrested. We hear him say in this prayer: “I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you.”
So, Jesus knows that he is going to the Father, but his disciples are not. He will no longer be with them in the same way, which leads to this prayer. “While I was with them,” he prays, “I protected them in your name that you have given me … But now I am coming to you.”
This is reminiscent of when children first leave home, we say lots of prayers, entrusting them to God, knowing that we will no longer be with them. Praying that God will protect them. We’ve taught them, prepared them, as best we could. But now, it is time for them to be on their own.
To me, this is what Jesus is doing here, as he gets ready to go to the cross and ultimately to return to heaven. It is time for his disciples to do this without Jesus right there with them. At least physically. So, he prays to protect them.
I find this passage from St John’s gospel so beautiful and moving – Jesus before his death is praying desperately for his friends, for those he loves and for those who will love him. And he does this in the same passionate way we pray for our loved ones, and we can imagine Jesus still praying for us in the same way as he sees the way we live today – the challenges we face and the world we live in.
In fact, for the last few Sundays of Easter all our gospel readings have been taken from St John’s gospel – wonderful passages relating Jesus’ final conversations with his disciples, words that reveal Jesus’ true relationship with God and us and the true distinctiveness of his divinity. Words surrounded in mystery and love.
Last week he promises us the gift of the Holy Spirit as he commands us to love and serve each other, earlier in the gospel we are urged “Do not let your hearts be troubled, do not let them be afraid” John 14:1
Today Jesus prays for his disciples, he says, “Holy father protect them in your name …. the glory that you have given me I have given them, So that they may be one, as we are one” John 17:11
But what do we really mean by glory? I believe to answer that question we need to look at the significance of the cross. Through the horror of the cross Jesus rose to new life, he overcame all that was bad. The cross is a sign of victory over death and suffering. And that marks the distinctiveness of Christianity, it’s what makes Christ distinctive.
Jesus was more than a person who spoke the word of God, healed people, helped and encouraged them. Through the cross he transformed them and became our saviour in the true mystical sense of the word. Jesus did not speak of being crucified, he spoke of being glorified.
It is the Christian belief that we will share all the experiences of Christ. If we share Christ cross in our own suffering, we will also share his glory.
In the second letter to Timothy, it says, “If we have died with him we shall also live with him; if we endure, we shall also reign with him” 2 Timothy 2:11-12
And we recall the well known words from Corinthians 1 Corinthians 13:12 “for now we see in a mirror dimly but then we shall see face to face” The joy we have now is only a foretaste of the joy which is to come.
It is Christ’s promise that if we share his glory and his sufferings on earth, we shall share his glory and triumph when life for us on earth is ended.
From Jesus’ prayer for his disciples which we heard this morning, he went straight out to the betrayal, the trial and the cross. He was not to speak to his disciples again. So, it is incredible to think that before those terrible hours, his last words were not of despair but of glory.
So may we take this glory to our hearts and let it become our glory.