abide in love

Jesus gives part of his farewell discourse in John 15. I have always loved these chapters in John. Something about the rhythm reminds me of Robert Jordan’s farewell to Maria in “For Whom the Bell Tolls.” Our 1 John reading has that rhythm too.
Jesus gives us beautiful and loving words about our mystical union with him. If we abide in him, he will live in us. Only that way can we bear fruit. This is communion Sunday for us, so the vine will lend itself well.

John repeats this idea in his epistle.

No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us. By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and do testify that the Father has sent his Son as the Savior of the world. God abides in those who confess that Jesus is the Son of God, and they abide in God.

The psalmist and the reading for Acts take a different twist, perhaps we could see them as concerning themselves with the fruit of abiding.

The Psalmist declares that the nations belong to God and, “All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the LORD; and all the families of the nations shall worship before him.” In acts we see the spread of the gospel to the nations as a Eunuch from Ethiopia becomes part of the Way. We also see the fulfillment of the Psalmist’s prophecy, “The poor shall eat and be satisfied; those who seek him shall praise the LORD.”