The Fifth Sunday of Easter Year B

The Fifth Sunday of Easter

Acts 8.26-40
1John 4.7-21
John 15.1-8

The writings of John, both in the Gospel and the epistles, are bafflingly determined not to come down on one side or the other of the ‘chicken or egg’ question. Which comes first, love of God or love of our neighbour? Which is more important, being or doing? Are we saved by grace or by works? Instinctively, temperamentally, most people come down on one side or another, and hear only those parts of the good news of Jesus Christ that seem to reinforce what is natural to us. Some people instinctively hear the message contained in Jesus’s first public statement in Luke’s Gospel: ‘good news to the poor, release to the captives, sight to the blind, freedom for the oppressed’ (Luke 4.18–19). Surely this is the heart of Jesus’s message, they argue, and Christian witness to Christ is most faithful when it is actively doing things to improve life for society. Other people instinctively see that all of Jesus’s activity arises out of his times of silence and prayer. His ministry starts not as he stands up and speaks, but as he wrestles alone in the desert...

Taken from Lectionary Reflections – Year B by Jane Williams