Home      Back to Easter 3

 

 

 

 

Commentary from 

THE ANNOTATED

BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER

Edited by JOHN HENRY BLUNT

Rivingtons, London, 1884

 

THIRD SUNDAY AFTER EASTER

On this Sunday the risen Saviour is presented to us as the strength of the regenerate, the Fountain of spiritual ability for all Christians, as well as of pastoral ability for His ministers.  For the mystical Presence of Christ is the power by which those who are admitted into the Christian body are able to eschew evil and follow good, and it was this Mystical Presence of which Christ spoke in the words of the Gospel. 

During the period which is now being commemorated, the Lord Jesus was seen again by His disciples; and yet they must have been possessed by a conviction that it was not for long, and that their Master was to be taken away from their head as Elijah was from Elisha.  At such a time, and as their faith grew with the Resurrection Life of their Lord, the words He had formerly spoken to them must have recurred to their minds as words which had already been in part fulfilled, and of which a still more glorious fulfilment was in prospect.  Because He was going to the Father to present His natural Body as an ever-living Intercession, He could not be seen by the bodily eyes of His little flock; but because He was going to the Father to be a continual Mediator and Intercessor, the benefits of His Presence would be manifestly given to the many, even as if the eyes of all the faithful rested upon His visible Presence. 

Thus had the Good Shepherd comforted His flock before His death: and thus in the Divine Service of His Church He is ever at this season speaking to us, and bidding us look to Him as a Saviour present in His Church, and to be beheld by the eyes of those who will look for Him in faith.  A Presence which Christ could speak of in such terms as those of this day's Gospel may well be called Real, and in such a Presence His people may well look for that strength of the regenerate which will enable them to fulfil the duties of the regenerate. 

When the Collect was first composed, the words, "them that are admitted into the fellowship of Christ's religion" referred especially to those who had been baptized at Easter.