5th Sunday of Easter Year A
Lectionary Readings
Acts 7 v55-60 The stoning of Stephen.
1 Peter 2 v2-10 A living stone and a holy nation.
John 14 v1-14 Jesus, the face of the Father.
Do we need a visual aid to explain a mystery?
In the hymn, popular with children of all ages, ‘Our God is a great big God’, the writer tries to explain, (using words and images that we can understand), just how ‘big’ ‘big’ is.
The writers of the lectionary readings set for this coming Sunday are also trying to explain a mystery; to put into words and pictures, the link between us and God. To explain how God’s love for us works out in practice, in a world that rejects kingdom values in favour of man-made ones.
In the passage from Acts, the Temple leaders, chief priests and Pharisees want to protect their view of how the scriptures should be interpreted, by rejecting the teachings of Jesus, now being proclaimed by his followers. One of whom, Stephen, dares to tell the established leaders that God has raised Jesus from death and shown him to be telling the truth, God’s truth, about the way life could and should be lived in accordance with God’s word.
The leaders act to protect their power, status and wealth by stoning Stephen to death. Stephen, following the example of Jesus to the end, asks God to forgive them.
Peter in his letter is reaching out to new believers, young in the faith, harassed by those who do not yet understand that God has done something new, through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.
In Peter vision, God’s new Temple (the place where God dwells among his people) is not made of physical things but spiritual things. The newly baptised are new creations, filled with God’s spirit, now ‘living stones’. These living stones are brought together to build a new Temple with Jesus the cornerstone (rejected by the world but returned to its rightful place by God) as its foundation.
This vision of how God views and treasures those who follow Jesus, is Peter’s way of encouraging them to see themselves as God’s holy people, channels of God’s love, doing God’s will in the real world of here and now.
The gift of the Holy Spirit ‘indwelling the hearts and minds of believers’ is the new covenant that Jeremiah spoke of, that Jesus promised his followers, that God poured out at Pentecost and continues to do today. (Jeremiah 31v33), (John14 v16), (Acts2 v2-4).
In John’s Gospel, he tries to help us understand how we might cope with the enormity of God revealing himself to us in the person of Jesus.
John points to what Jesus has said and done, the words and actions of God through the person of Jesus, as God’s way of showing us his ‘face’. To know Jesus is to know God.
Jesus is the ‘visual aid’ we need to help explain the mystery of God to others. A creator God who loves his creation, all of us, for ever, through birth, life on earth, death and beyond.
Questions to ponder.
- Are you happy with the way things are in the world today?
- Do you have the courage of Stephen to speak truth to power?
- Could you do so, if like Stephen, you allowed the Holy Spirit to use your voice?
- Does Peter’s view of you as a ‘living stone’ (a person in whom the Holy Spirit is working in and through) help you in your daily discipleship?
Thanks to Mike Peck for submitting these reflections