Book: 1 2 & 3 John

The image of Jesus as the good shepherd can speak of tough life-on-the-line love, not just cuddling lambs.

If we want to understand how Jesus saves us and what Jesus saves us from, we are going to have to abandon the most widely taught explanation.

The more challenging life in this world becomes, the more opportunity for Christians like us to live out the love of God by loving our neighbours.

We mostly don’t see ourselves as either terrible sinners or as gloriously Christ-like, but in the resurrection we are called to fully imagine both as world-changing truths.

When God is moving to do something new among us, it almost always seems scandalous, immoral and offensive to many, and is just as likely to involve those who are regarded as morally suspect.

Tonight we farewelled Peter from our congregation as he moves north, and he shared his reflections of what his time in this church has meant to him.

In his own demonstration of self-sacrificial love, Jesus has shown us what God is like and called us to love God and one another by loving likewise.

By lifting us out our enthralment to evil and death, Jesus sets us free from all that corrupts us and opens us to share real life with him.

When we expected to be shamed as we have shamed others, we are shocked and saved by the unexpected mercy of the crucified and risen Jesus.

We are not added to a particular church flock in order to be in the “right” group, but in order to learn, with Christ, to love others and lay down our lives for the world.

We shall be ourselves when we are able to surrender ourselves to Christ and say ‘not my will, but yours’.

With every step we take towards God’s economy, we will become more powerful in our witness to God’s saving action and love for the world, and be filled ever more deeply with God’s good grace.