Text of the Week: The Rev. Ruth Innes

In a few weeks time, I shall be leaving Christ Church in Falkirk to move on to a new church in Edinburgh.

It is so hard to leave a congregation whom you have come to know and love and our gospel reading this week echoes how I am feeling. “Where I am going, you cannot come,” Jesus says to his disciples.

In our lives people come and go and the going is never easy. Beginnings are much more exciting than saying goodbye. But he leaves them with something to think about…

Love one another, just as I have loved you. And we all know that love is so much easier to say than do.

Loving is tough, much harder than you think. It means saying sorry more often than we’d like, and sometimes we have to work really hard at it. But we must remember that if Jesus can love us, despite all our faults, then the least we can do is love one another. As Desmond Tutu said: ‘There is nothing you can do to make God love you more. There is nothing you can do to make God love you less. God loves you just as you are!’

Now that’s amazing grace.