April 28, Easter 5B (John 15:1–8; 1 John 4:7–21)

The hymn “abide with me” dates either to the impending death in 1847 of its author, Scottish Anglican priest Henry Francis Lyte, or to the death of his longtime friend William Augustus Le Hunte 27 years earlier. Those who espouse the earlier date tell the story of Le Hunte’s repeatedly uttering the phrase “abide with me” as Lyte sat by his deathbed. Some believe both dates are valid, positing that Lyte first wrote the hymn on the occasion of Le Hunte’s death but later remembered the words and added to them as he himself lay dying from tuberculosis.

The hymn draws its main scriptural allusion from the narrative of the disciples’ walk to Emmaus and their post-resurrection encounter with Jesus, whom they do not recognize on the road but nonetheless urge to “abide with us, for it is toward evening, and the day is far spent” (Luke 24:29). The Greek word translated as “abide” is μεῖνον, which means simply “remain” or “stay.” But the word yields deeper meaning as well. In the New Testament, to abide is to participate in an ongoing process of renewal through one’s presence intermingled with another’s; in biblical Greek, the word is active rather than passive. It reflects not merely existing alongside another as a static entity but rather sharing in a common fellowship and mission. To abide one with another is to remain an active part of the whole community in an iterative fashion, over and over again, so as to maintain a life-giving, ongoing bond that will sustain a shared mission and purpose.

Two books of the Bible far outrank the rest in the sheer number of attestations of abide. The Gospel of John wins the overall count at 41 uses of the word in its various forms, and the much shorter 1 John comes in at just over half that number but with more density. If one were looking for a characteristic representation of these books’ ample use of the term abide, this week’s lectionary texts would not disappoint.