29 May 2022
10:00 | 
Posted by
Dr Platts |
This Sunday, the last of Easter, we also celebrated the Ascension of Our Lord. The Eucharist was celebrated by Father Roger, who also preached. We were joined at communion by the members of the SUnday School in good number even though it is half term.
The Choir sang 'God is Gone up with a merry noice' by Willian Croft (1678 to 1727)
There was coffee after the service.
The Fete is on its way, Car parking help still needed!!
Acts 16:16-34
A reading form the Acts of the Apostles.
One day, as we were going to the place of prayer,
we met a slave-girl who had a spirit of divination
and brought her owners a great deal of money by fortune-telling.
While she followed Paul and us,
she would cry out,
‘These men are slaves of the Most High God,
who proclaim to you a way of salvation.’
She kept doing this for many days.
But Paul, very much annoyed, turned
and said to the spirit,
‘I order you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.’
And it came out that very hour.
But when her owners saw
that their hope of making money was gone,
they seized Paul and Silas
and dragged them into the market-place before the authorities.
When they had brought them before the magistrates,
they said, ‘These men are disturbing our city;
they are Jews and are advocating customs
that are not lawful for us as Romans to adopt or observe.’
The crowd joined in attacking them,
and the magistrates had them stripped of their clothing
and ordered them to be beaten with rods.
After they had given them a severe flogging,
they threw them into prison
and ordered the jailer to keep them securely.
Following these instructions,
he put them in the innermost cell
and fastened their feet in the stocks.
About midnight
Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God,
and the prisoners were listening to them.
Suddenly there was an earthquake,
so violent that the foundations of the prison were shaken;
and immediately all the doors were opened
and everyone’s chains were unfastened.
When the jailer woke up
and saw the prison doors wide open,
he drew his sword and was about to kill himself,
since he supposed that the prisoners had escaped.
But Paul shouted in a loud voice,
‘Do not harm yourself, for we are all here.’
The jailer called for lights, and rushing in,
he fell down trembling before Paul and Silas.
Then he brought them outside and said,
‘Sirs, what must I do to be saved?’
They answered, ‘Believe on the Lord Jesus,
and you will be saved, you and your household.’
They spoke the word of the Lord to him
and to all who were in his house.
At the same hour of the night
he took them and washed their wounds;
then he and his entire family were baptized without delay.
He brought them up into the house
and set food before them;
and he and his entire household rejoiced
that he had become a believer in God.
John 17:20- 26
Hear the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to John.
Jesus looked up to heaven and prayed:
"Holy Father,
I ask not only on behalf of these,
but also on behalf of those
who will believe in me through their word,
that they may all be one.
As you, Father, are in me and I am in you,
may they also be in us,
so that the world may believe that you have sent me.
The glory that you have given me I have given them,
so that they may be one, as we are one,
I in them and you in me,
that they may become completely one,
so that the world may know that you have sent me
and have loved them even as you have loved me.
Father,
I desire that those also, whom you have given me,
may be with me where I am,
to see my glory, which you have given me
because you loved me before the foundation of the world.
‘Righteous Father,
the world does not know you, but I know you;
and these know that you have sent me.
I made your name known to them,
and I will make it known,
so that the love with which you have loved me
may be in them, and I in them.’
