5th Sunday of Easter 2025 St Andrew’s Milngavie
Today we continued to celebrate the festival of Easter accompanied by John .
Today also marks the end of Christian Aid Week. Envelopes are still available at church, alternatively you can donate online.
Ascension Day Thursday 29th May 7pm – this year The North West Regional Council of the diocese will be gathering at All Saints, Jordonhill for the festival. Everyone is invited to attend, it is also an opportunity to meet Bishop Nick, our new bishop who will be present.
Saturday June 14th –a church walk is planned from Gourock to Kilcreggan by ferry, more details available nearer the time.
This Week
Tuesday 10am – Prayer Group in the Garden Room
Thursday 10am – Said Holy Communion followed by coffee in Friendship House.
Readings for next Sunday – Sixth Sunday of Easter – Acts 16:9-15 Revelation 21:10,22-22:5 John 14:23-29
Today’s readings – John 13:31-35, Rev 21:1-6, Acts 11:1-18
I always rather enjoy a time travelling story.
We have had a few recently in the book group. The author Matt Haig wrote about a group of people who seemingly lived for centuries. Recently, we read another book whose protagonists’ life expectancy also spanned the centuries. Obviously, one doesn’t need to understand exactly how these situations come to pass it’s all part of the story.
It a bit like the film The Shining, one of my favourites, I’ve seen it several times and yet still don’t really understand it as various ghostly figures from the past appear at odds times. The story is weird, the concept slightly strange and therefore beyond total comprehension.
During the season of Easter our Sunday Scripture features readings from the book of the Acts of the Apostles, as we discussed last week, but we also have readings from the book of Revelation – like the stories I’ve mentioned most people find the book of Revelation a mystery, slightly strange and hard to understand as such. The main point to grasp is that it is a mystery, not to be understood in the detail but in the whole.
It describes the revelation of Christ to St John the divine in a vision. It’s full of imagery and symbols, poetic in language and expression. The reading this morning is a vision of heaven, it speaks of a new Jerusalem, new beginnings where pain and tears will be no more.
“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away…… I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God…….. God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them……..He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” Revelation 21:1…ff
It’s a beautiful image of heaven, of new beginnings…
Central to all our Easter readings is the concept of love and the best expression of God’s love for us is the resurrection, the ultimate new beginning.
Today in the gospel Jesus instructs his disciples
“I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this, everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love one for another.”
When Jesus gave this commandment to love, it wasn’t at a random time in his ministry: it was the night before he was crucified. It was his final teaching to the disciples before he died, so, he wasn’t going to waste time telling them things that aren’t important. Instead, he goes to the heart of the Christian faith and is saying to them, “Before I die, this is what you really need to know: love one another…”
This great new commandment can be very challenging for us and at times may seem beyond our grasp, we all know about tough love. But we can be assured that when this commandment is given to disciples, they probably felt the same as we do. They certainly don’t seem to understand a word Jesus is saying but despite this Jesus is love for his disciples is utterly real. He knows the kind of people he has chosen, then and now. They are ordinary, fallible. To these people, Jesus entrusted and continues to entrust himself and his message. They are worthy because they are loved.
And that is us!
Knowing that we are loved and trusted by God is the beginning of fulfilling this new commandment. We do not have to generate this love ourselves, because it is given to us. As Christians we are taught that God is love, and so we know it, not because we are better at loving than anyone else, but because we know that God has loved us and trusted us, even when we fall short, err and stray.
This is divine love, mysterious perhaps at its core but a love that will sustain us through the difficulties and uncertainties of our earthly life until we arrive upon a higher shore into the Holy Mysteries of God’s Kingdom, the ultimate new beginning. Amen.