Readings in St John's Gospel

Sin is the assertion of our own will as opposed to acceptance of God’s will;

Death becomes not a mere gateway to be passed through, nor the mere casting away of a perishable body, but a loss which is turned into gain, a giving up of life which is made the means whereby that life is received back again renewed, transfigured, and fulfilled” (Doctrine in the Church of England, p. 85)

It is probable that in most of us the spiritual life is impoverished and stunted because we give so little place to gratitude. It is more important to thank God for blessings received than to pray for them beforehand. For that forward-looking prayer, though right as an expression of dependence upon God, is still self-centred in part, at least, of its interest; there is something which we hope to gain by our prayer. But the back- ward-looking act of thanksgiving is quite free from this. In itself it is quite selfless. Thus it is akin to love.

Even if the Cross had had no results, it would still be His glory; for His death is the sealing of His victory.

From the dawn of history, even from that twilight where history, legend and myth are inextricably intermingled, there had been a Community conscious of divine commission. Its origin is recorded in the Call of Abraham, in whom all families of the earth should be blessed (Genesis xii, 1-3) If this story represents rather a tribal migration than an individual adventure, as some scholars think, that sharpens the point of our contention. When history begins, the commissioned community already exists. We trace God’s dealings with it as seen and interpreted by Prophets, with their deepening insight into the divine character and purpose. This shews them that the whole People is incapable of making that perfect response which the divine righteousness demands, and that the divine purpose can find fulfilment only in a Remnant. Then even this hope proves too high, and in the culminating intuition of the Old Testament an unknown Prophet perceives that the perfect response will be given and the divine purpose fulfilled by one individual, in whom the whole significance of Israel will be concentrated (Isaiah liii) So it came to pass.

The Tree that was planted on Calvary has shoots going out into all the world. By perfectly fulfilling the mission of Israel He released it from national limitations, so that from the Cross and Resurrection onwards the Chosen People is the community of those whose hearts have received the divine Word spoken in Him; from that time the Chosen People is the One Man in Christ Jesus

The true disciple still offers to the world a challenge, which it will take up if his faithfulness is active. Not all that the world hates is good. Christianity; but it does hate good Christianity and always will.

It is natural rather than strange that we should stand where He stood, if we abide in Him; and that sets us on the other side of a strongly marked dividing line running between us and the world.

The joy of Easter once truly experienced becomes a pervading atmosphere which the soul thenceforth breathes for ever.

This means that the essential act of prayer is not the bending of God’s will to ours - of course not - but the bending of our wills to His. The proper out- line of a Christian’s prayer is not “Please do for me what I want” but “Please do in me, with me and through me what you want.”

When we come into our Father’s presence, our Lord seems to say, we should be so filled with the thought of Him that we forget all about ourselves, our hopes, our needs, even our sins; what we want most of all and therefore utter first is that all men may know how glorious God is and reverence Him accordingly - “Hallowed be thy Name.” (How often we pray that? We say it every day; but do we pray it?) Our next desire is to be that everyone should obey Him, so that He is truly King of His own world - “Thy kingdom come”; then that His whole purpose of love may be carried out, unspoilt by the selfishness in ourselves and others - “Thy will be done.”  Only after this do we turn to ourselves, and when we do it is to ask for those things which are necessary if we are to serve God with all our hearts: freedom from harassing anxiety - “daily bread” or “the morrow’s bread”; and restoration to the favour we have forfeited - “forgive us our trespasses”; and no moral adventures, for there is plenty on the straight path of duty to test character and develop grit without our being “led” to the lairs of dragons - “lead us not into temptation”; and some evil has a grip upon us from which we cannot free our- selves - “deliver us” from that. And why? Is it because then we shall be good and happy? Not at all. It is because we are all the time concerned with God’s Kingdom, Power and Glory.

The Cross is the glory of God because self-sacrifice is the expression of love. That glory would be complete in itself even if it had no consequences.

Most of our prayers would be the better if they were completely free from any element of clamour or demand, and had more of the quality of a consultation in which we lay the needs of ourselves and of others before our Father that He may supply them as His loving wisdom suggests.

For it is not the difference of the supernatural from the natural that distinguishes Christ’s Kingdom; it is the difference between control of conduct by force and control of heart and mind and will by love and truth. His Kingdom is not from hence.

So often the message of the Lord reaches us through some experience or acquaintance reckoned at the time as ordinary and commonplace. Only afterwards, and in the light of results, do we realise what or who was really in touch with us through the apparently common- place event or person.

Yet the net did not break. The gift of God is always more than we can receive yet it never bursts the vessel which we can offer for its reception.