5th Sunday of Easter – 28th April 2013 – The Message

Theme – New – The One who sat on the throne said, “Behold, I make all things new

Alleluia I give you a new commandment, says the Lord: love one another as I have loved you. Alleluia

1. People who are glorified in this world are the winners & achievers, but we know that most often their success is based on the toils of the weak.
2. But in Christ, the glorification is from the Cross – complete opposite of what our world minds tells. He did it the weaker way.
3. God wins when He appears to lose, He is not glorified when He punishes us. He is glorified when He restores hope to the sinners. That is why the highest point of Christ’s glorification is at the cross.
4. Irony of the Cross – Joy in suffering -John 9
5. Cross stands for Christ victory – At this point Christ refers to His disciples at this point not brothers but little children at the last supper. He feels He must dictate His last testament. What He was to say was dear to Him. Repeated 3 times in todays Gospel & also in John 15:12 & John 15:17
6. The commandment of Christ is a gift & a prize. We don’t get to heaven by merit but by Grace. Note that when we keep Christ commandment we just do good to ourselves.
7. When we keep Gods commandment the world will be a great place to live.
8. Lev 18:19 but what is new about Christ commandment. It is because we are to love as He has loved us. So the measure of love is Jesus – he loved His enemies, sinners, the wicked.
9. Christ is asking us not to discriminating in loving people. We don’t even love ourselves enough. It is the reason sometimes we contemplate suicide – hating ourselves.
10. On the Cross He ask God to forgive us for we don’t know what are doing.
11. We are to go out into the world & love as He has loved us.
12. Jesus is the 1st & last to found a community based on Love as He measures it.
13. It is by love to one another as He has loved us that people recognize that we belong to Christ, as was done in Antioch by their love for each other. By our fruits we will be known as belonging to Christ

FIRST READING
Acts 14:21–27

After Paul and Barnabas had proclaimed the good news to that city and made a considerable number of disciples, they returned to Lystra and to Iconium and to Antioch. They strengthened the spirits of the disciples and exhorted them to persevere in the faith, saying, “It is necessary for us to undergo many hardships to enter the kingdom of God.” They appointed elders for them in each church and, with prayer and fasting, commended them to the Lord in whom they had put their faith. Then they traveled through Pisidia and reached Pamphylia. After proclaiming the word at Perga they went down to Attalia. From there they sailed to Antioch, where they had been commended to the grace of God for the work they had now accomplished. And when they arrived, they called the church together and reported what God had done with them and how he had opened the door of faith to the Gentiles.

SECOND READING
Revelation 21:1–5a

Then I, John, saw a new heaven and a new earth. The former heaven and the former earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. I also saw the holy city, a new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, God’s dwelling is with the human race. He will dwell with them and they will be his people and God himself will always be with them as their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there shall be no more death or mourning, wailing or pain, for the old order has passed away.”

The One who sat on the throne said, “Behold, I make all things new.”

GOSPEL
John 13:31–33a, 34–35

When Judas had left them, Jesus said,
“Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him. If God is glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself, and God will glorify him at once. My children, I will be with you only a little while longer. I give you a new commandment: love one another. As I have loved you, so you also should love one another. This is how all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

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