Pew Sheet - Low Sunday - 15th April 2007
First reading - Acts 5.27-32
Having brought the apostles, they made them appear before the Sanhedrin to be questioned by the high priest. “We gave you strict orders not to teach in this name,” he said. “Yet you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and are determined to make us guilty of this man’s blood.” Peter and the other apostles replied: “We must obey God rather than men! The God of our fathers raised Jesus from the dead – whom you had killed by hanging him on a tree. God exalted him to his own right hand as Prince and Saviour that he might give repentance and forgiveness of sins to Israel. We are witnesses of these things, and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey him.”
Second reading - Revelation 1.4-8
4) John to the seven churches that are in Asia: Grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven spirits who are before his throne,
5) and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. To him who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood,
6a) nd made us to be a kingdom, priests serving his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.
7) Look! He is coming with the clouds;
every eye will see him,
even those who pierced him;
and on his account all the tribes of the earth will wail.
So it is to be. Amen.
8) ‘I am the Alpha and the Omega’, says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.
The Gospel
Gospel - John 20.19-31
19) When it was evening on the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you.’
20) After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord.
21) Jesus said to them again, ‘Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.’
22) When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.
23) If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.’
24) But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came.
25) So the other disciples told him, ‘We have seen the Lord.’ But he said to them, ‘Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.’
26) A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you.’
27) Then he said to Thomas, ‘Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.’
28) Thomas answered him, ‘My Lord and my God!’
29) Jesus said to him, ‘Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.’
30) Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book.
31) But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.
Services this week
Weekly services resume 23rd April