According to Luke, Jesus lifted up his hands, blessed the disciples, then withdrew from them and was carried up into heaven. Luke says in Acts that as they were watching, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. He’d given instructions for them to wait in Jerusalem for what would happen next. The appearances to people over the past 40 days had been unusual to say the least: he was suddenly there in locked rooms, and disappeared as fast as he appeared. And yet he could eat, he wasn’t a ghost. He was like an angel. The scriptures spoke of angels appearing and disappearing, of looking like people, and of descending from and ascending to heaven. Their voices were sometimes heard coming from heaven. Heaven was ‘up there’, toward the stars. They knew that Elijah the prophet had spectacularly risen to heaven. ‘As they continued walking and talking, a chariot of fire and horses of fire separated the two of them, and Elijah ascended in a whirlwind into heaven.’ (2 Kings 2:11)Now the human form of the risen Jesus had gone for good. The disciples must wait. Of the four instructions Jesus gave his disciples, to come, to follow, to wait, and to go, I wonder whether this one is the most difficult. I don’t know about you, but if I’m waiting for someone to arrive or for a parcel, I can’t focus on anything. I’m put out. But waiting time isn’t for pacing up and down. Apparently, the Hebrew word used in the Old Testament for waiting was an active word. Waiting time is time to be used in preparation for what’s coming next. The disciples rejoiced. They remained together. With others, including the women, they constantly devoted themselves to prayer. They spent time in the temple worshipping God. They agreed on a twelfth disciple to replace Judas Iscariot. They came to Jesus in prayer, they followed him in fellowship, they waited for him before they could go for him. It was active waiting, not empty waiting.It seems to me that every day we’re alive Jesus wants us to be living in anticipation of the next time he will call us to go for him. He wants us to be prepared. And he wants us to be living every moment in close relationship with him and with other people, in fellowship, as the disciples did. This is healthy. We can have peace in our hearts, even when we’ve lost someone. We live with the hope of heaven for them and for us, if we believe in God. Some might think that they’re too old or frail for Jesus to call them to go for him, to share the good news of Christ with other people. Let me remind you that Moses didn’t see the burning bush until he was 80 years old. We never know when God will bring someone near to us who needs to hear what God will give us to say. Even the way we die in faith might inspire other people. To draw close to someone with that serenity of peace that comes from time spent in prayer is to draw close to God. As we wait for the next time God wants us to share the good news of his love: maybe today, maybe tomorrow, maybe next week, let us prepare ourselves in prayer, worship and fellowship as we come to him, and follow him. Let’s be ready to go where Jesus leads us. Amen.Julie Rubidge, Lay Minister
The Bible stories really capture the imagination, don’t they? We can see the man in our mind’s eye, lying there hoping to be cured for 38 years, but someone always got there first when the waters stirred. We can see Jesus turn up and have compassion on him.On a Holy Land trip a few years ago I visited the ruins of that pool with it’s 5 porticoes which have been exposed. It was a very special place. I spent some time there taking in the scene, going over the story in my mind.It’s significant that Jesus didn’t heal him without asking first whether it was what the man wanted.It’s significant that Jesus was ready to heal him on the Sabbath day, even though that would get him into trouble with the people who thought that their religious rules were more important than love.It’s significant that Jesus became the stirred, healing waters for the man.Jesus spoke about living water elsewhere in John, saying that those who are thirsty may come to him and drink - that it would become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life (John 4:14, 7:37, 38)There’s a spiritual dimension to water. It’s vital to healthy life in so many ways. How many of us love to sit beside a river or the sea, to contemplate and pray?It’s interesting that Paul and his friends, when they had travelled to the main city in Macedonia, went outside the gate by the river on the Sabbath Day, where they supposed there was a place of prayer. It’s significant that the women gathered there: that Lydia the businesswoman was receptive to the message of Jesus, was baptised along with her whole household, and prevailed upon them to stay.When people listen to God, it’s as if water has been added to sodium - there’s effervescence such that all kind of unexpected things happen, as they did in Jesus’s life and Paul’s, and Peter’s and all the saints. It does in ours too when we follow Jesus. It’s sad that so many people try to stand in the way, as the Pharisees did, thinking that they and their ideas are more important than the living guidance Jesus provides. But God’s love overcomes all obstacles.We know that following Jesus won’t all be plain sailing, there will be waves and storms, but we can hold fast to the promise that we will reach the other side safely as long as we listen, trust and love. Amen.Julie Rubidge Lay Minister
Alleluia. Christ is Risen! He is risen indeed. Alleluia!Lord, direct our thoughts, and teach us to pray. Lift up our hearts to worship you in spirit and in truth, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.‘May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face to shine upon us, that your way may be known upon earth, your saving power among all nations. Let the peoples praise you, O God; let all the peoples praise you.’ (Psalm 67:1-3)Hymn: Dear Lord and Father of mankind...Acts 16:9-15Let us pray: Most merciful God, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, we confess that we have sinned in thought, word and deed. We have not loved you with our whole heart. We have not loved our neighbours as ourselves. In your mercy forgive what we have been, help us to amend what we are, and direct what we shall be; that we may do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with you, our God. Amen.May the God of love bring us back to himself, forgive us our sins, and assure us of his eternal love in Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.Prayer for the day: Risen Christ, by the lakeside you renewed your call to your disciples:help your Church to obey your command and draw the nations to the fire of your love,to the glory of God the Father. Amen.John 5:1-9Please see the Message from the Minister.Hymn: Have faith in God, my heart...Let us kneel before God in prayer, asking for his cleansing love to be known to all people. We pray for St Peter’s Church, that your will be done, and for our work to be blessed; We pray for our world, that all of its creatures will thrive, and for peace in Ukraine; We pray for our friends, families and community, that we may share in the love of Christ; We pray for people who are sick or suffering, that they will know healing and strength; We remember the departed, and pray for all who mourn.Let us join in the words of the Lord’s prayer, whoever and wherever we are: Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name; thy kingdom come; thy will be done; on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory for ever and ever. Amen.May the love of the Lord Jesus draw us to himself, the power of the Lord Jesus strengthen us in his service, the joy of the Lord Jesus fill our hearts; and may the blessing of God Almighty who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit rest upon us and and be with us always. Amen.Let us go in peace to love and serve the Lord, in the name of Christ. Amen.
We are still in the season of Easter, when we continue to reflect on the meaning and significance of the resurrection. What did it mean for the disciples and what does it mean for us? Our readings for today give us some strong clues.In Acts, Peter has just had a vision in which a sheet descends from heaven filled with all sorts of creatures – the kinds of animals and reptiles and birds that the Jews were forbidden from eating. Peter then hears a voice telling him to kill and eat the creatures. He is horrified and protests that he has never broken the strict purity laws forbidding him to eat such things! The next message astounds him: the voice tells him not to call anything unclean that God has made clean. Immediately three men arrive, and the Holy Spirit prompts Peter to go with them to a man’s house who has been told that Peter will come to him with a message by which he and his family will be saved. When Peter gets to the man’s house and begins to tell him about Jesus, the Holy Spirit falls upon the man, just as it had fallen on the disciples on the day of Pentecost. Peter remembers how he and the other disciples had been baptised with the Holy Spirit, and he thinks, “If God gave these people the same gift that he gave us, who was I to think that I could oppose God?”In that moment Peter understood that the gift of God’s Holy Spirit was not intended for the Jews alone, but for everyone. No longer was there to be a ‘them’ and ‘us’ but everyone was included in the love of God and in the work of Christ’s salvation and redemption. This was a revelation about a new way of seeing other people – and God!Now to the Gospel of John, and back to the last time Jesus had supper with his friends, before his arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane. As he walks with his disciples towards the garden, he gives them his final teachings – the most important things for them to know. He tells them that he will soon be going away and he gives them a new commandment – “Love one another. As I have loved you so you must love one another.” This supersedes and sums up all the other laws. The disciples, and by extension, all Christians, are to focus on keeping the supreme law of love – certainly much simpler, but not at all easy! In fact, if we are honest with ourselves, we know that by ourselves we cannot live up to the standards of love. We need the continual and on-going help of God’s Holy Spirit to live as God’s children. For Jews, this was a huge shift from living on the basis of trying to keep the religious laws, to the basis of relying on the Holy Spirit by faith. For anyone who has ever tried to ‘work’ themselves into God’s good books, this shift demands that they think about God in a new way and also that they pay attention to their motivation for all that they do. It is because of the resurrection we can trust that the power of love is stronger than anything else. We can trust that Jesus fulfilled his earthly mission as the Messiah and that he returned to his eternal spiritual position within the Holy Trinity. We can also trust that the same Spirit that raised Christ from the dead now lives in us. The resurrection gives us the hope and surety that what God promises is true, and that God’s truth will prevail. The Revd Christina Rees
