Readings:
Acts 8:26-40;
Genesis 22:1-18;
Psalm 22:25-31;
John 15:1-8

Collect:
Loving and eternal God,
through the resurrection of your Son,
help us to face the future with courage and assurance,
knowing that nothing in life or death can ever part us
from your love for us in Jesus Christ our Saviour,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and forever. Amen

Reflection 

In the lectionary, the entries for Sundays from Easter have the cryptic instruction: “The reading from Acts much be used as either the first or the second reading at the Principal Service.” This instruction continues till the Feast of Pentecost, this year on 23 May. And what a sequence of readings this is, which we’re invited to read one after the other, like words in a sentence, or notes in music.

On Easter Day (Ac 10:34-43) it is when Peter’s preconceptions are dramatically challenged and he realizes that God shows no partiality no matter that Peter might have thought some acceptable and others not. On Easter Day our message is that God loves everyone, even those we do not. Even cannot.

The week after Easter (Easter 2 – Ac 4:32-35) we read about how the group of believers look out for and after each other. They share their goods and make sure no one is without. We learn that we are responsible for each other and no one can be left behind.

Easter 3 (Ac 3:12-19) is when Peter radically reinterprets the holy story he inherits. This is after he and John are challenged after the healing at Solomon’s Portico. Peter tells the people in the temple that their way of understanding the biblical stories is no longer the way Christians interpret it. The wise know there is not only one way to interpret the bible, and Peter’s hearers know this. He then challenges them, as he challenges us: “Think again, understand differently, even when everything seems lost!”

Easter 4 (Ac 4:5-12) is when Peter now has to give a formal account of himself and of his proclamation that Jesus is risen to the people and the religious authorities. Peter warns them that they are being too clever by half. Just when they think they know it all, they miss that which is most important. And I am challenged that when I think something is insignificant to faith, that very event, person, thing, may well be the most significant.

Easter 5 (this week, Ac 8:26-40), Philip meets an important member of the Ethiopian court on “a wilderness road”, in other words, in the middle of nowhere! Philip seizes the moment to ask the fellow if he understands what he’s reading and then promptly interprets for him, reinterpreting the biblical story in the light of Jesus’ horrific death and unexpected resurrection. The Ethiopian seeks baptism, is baptized on the turn, and Philip is gone. Off on another mission. Even in the middle of nowhere, perhaps especially in the middle of nowhere, we struggle to interpret God’s presence with us. Yet we are challenged to respond.

The next four Sundays will offer just as many challenges, challenges to those in the story, and challenges to us who read these stories today so that we can live out that same gospel.

The wisdom of the church gives us Acts to read in the Easter season. We commonly call this book “The Acts of the Apostles”. We’d do better to read it as the Acts of the Church, for it is the story of our forebears in faith who faced challenges, had to reinterpret their past, find ways of looking after each other, and had to account for themselves to those who did not understand them and to those who opposed them. This is why we read Acts in the Easter season. It’s about us and how we live out the gospel story as we continue to seek the inspiration and guidance of God’s Spirit, just as they do in Acts.

Barry Lotz