Seventh Sunday of Easter Year A

The Seventh Sunday of Easter - Year A
(Sunday after Ascension Day)

Acts 1.6–14
1 Peter 4.12–14; 5.6–11
John 17.1–11

‘When his glory is revealed.’ The ascension gives us a glimpse in advance of the great truth which will one day be unveiled – or rather, the glorious Person who will one day be revealed. It is as though the universe is throbbing with the secret knowledge that Jesus, the Messiah, is its true Lord, a knowledge that cannot yet be spoken, that would not be understood. To be a Christian is to be privy to this secret, to have it indeed engraved into one’s life; because the other side of the secret is the Christian call to suffer. The transformation of suffering is a further key part of the meaning of the ascension.

The ‘suffering’ that comfortable Western Christians endure often seems small in comparison with that which our brothers and sisters still face day by day in (for instance) the Sudan...

Taken from Twelve Months of Sundays Year A by N T Wright

Published by SPCK