Mothering Sunday 15th March 2015

From today’s second reading: God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.    Ephesians 2:4-6

That’s a wonderful three verses and by coincidence we’ve got another purple passage in the Gospel where the year of Mark has given way yet again to St John to be supplemented, and here’s the purple verse: God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. John 3:16

Both passages on this mid-Lent Sunday speak of God’s very great love for us and how it works for our eternal well being: Even when we were dead through our trespasses, God’s love made us alive together with Christ.

Everyone who believes in him and so welcomes that love does not perish but receives eternal life.

The essence of God’s plan for the cosmos is very simple – out of love he made us, out of love he redeems us from sin through the gift of his Son and out of love he’ll bring us to glory.

Out of love God provides us with grace in this world and glory in the next so that we can never lose out, which is what being saved’s all about

In order to be saved we need to welcome the God of love through belief in Jesus and receiving his Holy Spirit.

This we call receiving grace, God’s favour, and entering life in its fullness.

To be saved is to know there’s nothing in heaven or earth that can separate us from God’s love.

If we doubt that, if we doubt, for example thinking death has power to cast us into nothingness, we must look to the Cross.

This is where the first reading illuminates the last.

Moses we read there made a serpent of bronze, and put it upon a pole; and whenever a serpent bit someone, that person would look at the serpent of bronze and live. This extraordinary healing process described in the book of Numbers Chapter 21 is pointer to the extraordinary power of the Cross so that St John writes in the holy Gospel: just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.

Love needs a body to act. The love of God which is for all time and every place had to come to one time and place, to Calvary around 30AD so that what was true in his heart could be seen by folk in every age and place.

The outstretched arms of Jesus upon the Cross are God’s embrace of us yesterday, today and for ever. The Son of Man is lifted up, that whoever believes in God’s love shown in this extraordinary sacrifice may have eternal life.

Love needs a body to act. In the sacraments divine love touches our bodies to reach afresh into our hearts. Christ who died for us reaches out to us this morning in the most holy Sacrament feeding us with his life, embracing us with his love in bread and wine. Let us open our hearts to receive his parental love this Mothering Sunday.