Speak Lord: Source of all that is good

Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ
has been begotten by God;
and whoever loves the Father that begot him
loves the child whom he begets.
We can be sure that we love God’s children
if we love God himself and do what he has commanded us;
this is what loving God is –
keeping his commandments;
and his commandments are not difficult,
because anyone who has been begotten by God
has already overcome the world;
this is the victory over the world –
our faith.

Who can overcome the world?
Only the man who believes that Jesus is the Son of God:
Jesus Christ who came by water and blood,
not with water only,
but with water and blood;
with the Spirit as another witness –
since the Spirit is the truth.

Second reading for the 2nd Sunday of Easter
1 John 5:1-6

In his death water and blood poured from the side of Jesus, and in his last breath he breathed out his Spirit.

These events, these gifts, symbolise the gifts that make us one in Christ.

• Baptism that first incorporates us into the Risen Lord.
• Eucharist, whereby the Lord shares himself, his Body, his Blood, that we might continue to live by him.
• And the Spirit of God, the Spirit of the Father and the Son, whereby, also, God lives in us and we in him.

Thus enlivened we are ready to take on the world, the fallen world, that struggles and strives to find its way, itself. We are privileged to tender to the world from Christ its life, its purpose and end.

Stained Glass, St Mary Magdalene, Albrighton. (c) 2016, Allen Morris.

 

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