Reflection for Sunday 18th May 2025

The Fifth Sunday of Easter

Genesis 22.1–18, Acts 11.1–18, John 13.31–35

The Cost and Glory of Love

There are few stories in Scripture as arresting as Abraham being asked to sacrifice Isaac. For many of us, it touches a nerve: what kind of God would ask this? But we cannot separate the test from the trust. Abraham is not blindly obedient — he is radically faithful. He believes that God can be trusted even when nothing makes sense. And in that faith, he becomes the father of a new covenant.

In John’s Gospel, we’re given a different sort of sacrifice. Jesus says, “Love one another as I have loved you.” That love — as we know — will lead to the cross. This is not sentiment, not shallow kindness. It is love that costs. Love that lays itself down. Jesus’ glory is revealed not in triumph over enemies, but in humility, suffering, and gift.

The command to love as Jesus loved is, frankly, impossible without grace. It pushes us beyond what we are comfortable with. It asks us to welcome those we might naturally avoid. It calls us to a holiness that does not shrink into private piety, but stretches outward — daring to love, daring to trust, daring to believe that even the broken can be made whole.

That’s the lesson Peter learns in Acts. In Acts, Peter is challenged by the Spirit to welcome Gentiles, to baptise those he once thought unclean. “Who was I,” Peter says, “that I could hinder God?” The early Church is learning — sometimes reluctantly — that God’s love moves faster than their rules. It’s a reminder to us, too, not to place limits where God has placed grace. This week, let yourself be stretched. In love. In trust. In openness to the Spirit’s leading. And know this: when love costs, it is not in vain. It is how Christ is made known.

Blessings and prayers,

Emma