Living in the Light of Christ’s Resurrection
SEVENTH SUNDAY OF EASTER
(16 May 2021)
Acts 1:12–26
1 John 5:9–15
John 17:11b–19
Our Great High Priest Preserves Us in the Name of His Father
On the eve of His Passion, Christ Jesus intercedes for the disciples as their merciful and great High Priest. He prays that His Father would protect them “from the evil one” and preserve them in His name (John 17:11–12, 15). Along with His prayer, Christ Himself comes to the Father by His self-sacrifice upon the cross, thereby consecrating Himself for the sake of His disciples, “that they also may be sanctified in truth” (John 17:19). To that same end, He speaks to them in the world and gives them His Father’s Word, that is, Himself. His apostles, in turn, have written these things “to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life” (1 John 5:13). For “this life is in his Son,” whom He has given by His Word, and “whoever has the Son has life” (1 John 5:11–12). By this apostolic testimony, disciples are gathered together “with one accord,” as one Body in Christ, “devoting themselves to prayer” and waiting upon the Lord in “the upper room” of His Church on earth (Acts 1:13–14).
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