fourth sunday of lent
Sabbath Keeping
“If you are a Christian in your
heart, put the nurture of your spirit above everything else. When you look after your heart diligently,
you will find keeping silence about others easy.” —Thomas á Kempis
Opening Prayer
Gracious Father, whose blessed Son
Jesus Christ came down from heaven to be the true bread that gives life to the
world: Evermore give us this bread, that he may live in us, and we in him; who
lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
(BCP 219)
John 3:13-21
No one has gone up to heaven
except the one
who came down from heaven,
the Son of man;
as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert,
so must the Son of man be lifted up
so that everyone who believes
may have eternal life in him.
For this is how God loved the
world:
he gave his only Son,
so that everyone who believes in him
may not perish
but may have eternal life.
For God sent his Son into the world
not to judge the world,
but so that through him
the world might be saved.
No one who believes in him
will be judged;
but whoever does not believe
is judged already,
because that person does not believe
in the Name of God’s only Son.
And the judgement is this:
though the light has come into the world
people have preferred
darkness to the light
because their deeds were evil.
And indeed, everybody who does
wrong
hates the light and avoids it,
to prevent his actions
from being shown up;
but whoever does the truth
comes out into the light,
so that what he is doing
may plainly appear as done in God.’ NJB
John 6:32-33
In all truth I tell you,
it was not Moses
who gave you the bread from heaven,
it is my Father
who gives you the bread from heaven,
the true bread;
for the bread of God
is the bread
which comes down from heaven
and gives life to the world. NJB
practicing
the story
This may seem strange, but give it
a try anyway. Find a piece of bread and bring it back to wherever you are right
now. Eat the bread and make observations. Take note of every observation—taste,
texture, feel, smell, thought, memory, idea. Meditate on the idea of Jesus
Christ as the bread. Rehearse this phrase: “The Bread of Life is in me.” What
are the implications of this for you today?
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