Sunday 26 May, 2019

General:
Lectionary
6th Sunday of Easter

Hymns marked with an asterisk (*) are suggested for more than one reading

Additional notes on the readings and choices of hymns are offered below by the Revd Phillip Poyner.

General

In this house all people will be welcome (website only)
Time for God (website only)
We come today to celebrate (website only)
You're calling us (StF 37)

Acts 16: 9-15

Almighty God, to whom all hearts are open (StF 749)
Come, Lord, to our souls come down (StF 493)
Have you heard the good news? (StF 406)
I know that my Redeemer lives (StF 502)
One more step along the world I go (StF 476)
Pay heed to the people you meet on the journey (website only)
The love of God comes close (StF 654)

Psalm 67

Hymns echoing the psalmist’s theme

Father, in whom we live (StF 5)
God whose almighty word (StF 106)
It is God who holds the nations in the hollow of his hand (StF 705)
Praise and thanksgiving, Father, we offer (StF 125)
Praise God for the harvest of orchard and field (StF 126)

Revelation 21: 10, 22-25

Come to us, creative Spirit (StF 726)
Darkness like a shroud covers the earth (StF 170)
Down the mountain the river flows (StF 377)
Meet and right it is to sing (StF 32)
The Spirit lives to set us free (StF 397)
There is a new heaven (StF 738)

John 14: 23-29

Christ is alive! Let Christians sing (StF 297)
Holy Spirit, come, confirm us (StF 382)
Like the murmur of the dove’s song (StF 389)
Lord of creation, to you be all praise! (StF 449)
My eyes be open to your presence (StF 560)
Peace, perfect peace, is the gift of Christ our Lord (StF 710)
Put peace into each other’s hands (StF 712)
Spirit of the living God, fall afresh on me (StF 395)
The peace of the earth be with you (StF 774)
We give immortal praise (StF 16)
You are the centre, you are my life (StF 567)
* You give rest to the weary (StF 657)

or
John 5: 1-9


All my days I will sing the song of gladness (StF 343)
Bread of Life, Truth Eternal (StF 578)
God to enfold you, Christ to uphold you (StF 648)
O for a thousand tongues to sing (StF 364)
* You give rest to the weary (StF 657)

Notes

The theme of the Holy Spirit is present in the Gospel where Christ promises the Holy Spirit, in Revelation 21, where the Spirit ‘carried me away’, and implied in the Acts reading of the call of Paul to Macedonia.  However, with Pentecost two Sundays ahead it may be appropriate to prepare for the coming of the Spirit with one hymn or two rather than have all hymns focussing on the Holy Spirit.

The passages also encourage us to reflect that it is in Christ that we find everything that is worthwhile, everything we are looking for.  In the Acts reading Lydia, though a faithful Jew, finds profounder faith in the message of the evangelists; in Revelation all is found in Christ: light, peace, life; in John 14, to those who love Christ and keep his word  the gift of the Holy Spirit is promised  ‘whom the Father will send in my name’; and in John 5 healing is found not in a superstitious belief in the stirring of the pool but by trusting in Jesus.

The Psalm is a petition seeking blessing, the light of God’s countenance, and the recognition and response of the people to that blessing which we know now through our experience of the Triune God.
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