Fifth Sunday of Easter • Year A

Historical Collect

O God, you make the minds of the faithful to be of one will. Grant that your people would love what you command and desire what you promise, that, among the manifold changes of this world, our hearts may be fixed where true joys are to be found; through your Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen. (Gelasian Sacramentary, 7th Century)

Thematic Collect

Living God, your Son, Jesus Christ, is the way, the truth, and the life. Grant us the grace to follow him and live lives of servanthood and truth; through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

The Common Thread

“Is that the way you were raised?” parents sometimes wonder aloud. We too, as children of God, are being raised in a very specific way. We are to grow up into the salvation God has given, “work[ing] out our salvation with fear and trembling” (Phil 2:12). The Catechism says it a little differently: that we are to “fear, love, and trust God above all things.” There is no other way to grow up in the faith, for God in Christ is that way. We grow into our salvation by living in him, being fitted in this life for heaven where we will be with him in the place he has prepared for us. This is the sure hope of his children, a confident expectation because it is based on the truth who is him who keeps faith forever. 

First Reading • Acts 6:1–9; 7:2a, 51–60

Here we see how the apostles were as devoted to teaching the word as the early disciples were devoted to their teaching (Acts 2:42). Surely the apostles felt for the widows who were being neglected, but rather than deal with the problem directly, they found a way to meet both needs. They devoted themselves to the ministry of God’s word and to prayer, and made sure the responsibility for the daily distribution of food fell to others. They did not even choose who would do so. The result was that the widows were fed and so was the rest of the Church.

Psalm • Psalm 146:1–10

The readings cause us to think a little differently about how the Lord gives food to the hungry. Of course, we think in terms of physical food, like the daily distribution in Jerusalem. But we should now be thinking in terms of Gospel food, or pure spiritual milk. This will also cause us to think more widely about what it means for the Lord to provide justice for the oppressed, set prisoners free, and open the eyes of the blind. These are not only physical things.

Second Reading • 1 Peter 2:2–10

The dairy section at the local supermarket is nothing like the old dairies used to be. One used to go the local dairy (unless it came to you) and select various sizes of glass containers of whole milk with the cream visibly separated near the top. They also carried buttermilk and, if a kid was lucky, that dairy might also carry chocolate milk. Nowadays, the dairy section of even the smallest grocer contains whole milk, 2%, 1%, ½%, and skim. Most stores are also carrying organic milk in all of these varieties. Toward the end of the year, one will also find eggnog, and now there is also chocolate eggnog.

For all of this milk, there is one variety missing from the shelves.

The figurative spiritual milk that Peter mentions “is nothing but the Gospel” (Luther’s Works, Vol. 30). We must be sure we long for the pure Gospel and do not take away or add anything to it. It must be the whole, pure Gospel of Christ. If so, we may be sure to taste and see that the Lord is good.

Gospel • John 14:1–14

A baby cries when she is hungry, and her mother feeds her. The mother may say some soothing words as she feeds the child, such as, “My, you were hungry, weren’t you? But don’t I always feed you? Calm down now and drink.” Soon the child is fed, satisfied and sleeping peacefully.

God must feel the same way toward us, for Jesus says, “Let not your hearts be troubled.” Our hearts are troubled when we lack faith, when we do not quite believe God will take care of us. In the Gospel reading, we learn that Jesus has taken care of the most extreme need — the needs of the life to come. We may therefore depend on him for everything else we need in this life.

We may also depend on him for the needs of ministry. “Ask,” he says, and he will enable the one who does not cry, who is not troubled, who believes, to do “greater works” so that the Father will be glorified.