We have seen that Cranmer’s new collect for the Sunday after the Ascension goes to great lengths to emphasize that the Holy Spirit brings comfort to God’s people, including the ultimate comfort, the assurance of eternal salvation because of God’s promise in Jesus. Associating comfort with Christ’s saving work was so important to Cranmer that he embedded four scriptures at the heart of his 1552 service of Holy Communion to make this point crystal clear. Collectively, these biblical passages are called Cranmer’s Comfortable Words. Yesterday, we looked at the first verse, Matt. 11:28. Cranmer used Jesus’ own words to acknowledge the depth of human longing for good news. His second Comfortable Word now turns again to Jesus to establish the depth of God’s own longing to respond.

God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son to the end that all that believe in him, should not perish, but have everlasting life.

Copyright 2021 John Ashley Null; all rights reserved; used by permission for educational purposes