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Acts 8:26-40
Easter 5B
On this Fifth Sunday of Easter, we continue to watch the march of the Easter Gospel across the ancient world as the early Christians followed the marching orders of Jesus given in Acts 1:8. Actually, it was not so much a march as a meander, particularly in the case of Philip in our text. At…
Acts 4:5-12
Easter 4B
Until now, the story of early Christianity has been all good, very good, in fact. Pentecost has filled the infant church with the Holy Spirit. Peter has preached the first Christian sermon with the crucified and risen Christ at the very center, and the result was spectacular—3000 converts in one day! Then came the first…
Acts 3:12-19
Easter 3B
This is the second major sermon in the early church. Like the first one, it was occasioned by a miraculous event, in this case the healing of a beggar who had been crippled since birth. “While the beggar held on to Peter and John, all the people were astonished and came running to them in…
Acts 4:32-35
Easter 2B
Very early in my preaching ministry, I was producing one theological/exegetical masterpiece after another (in my own mind). My wife wasn’t so convinced. She put up with it for about a month, when she nailed me with this simple question. “So what? What difference does all that make?” In the Old Testament (?) readings for…
Acts 19:1-7
Epiphany 1B
The woman who told me with a puzzled look on her face, “I don’t think anyone here has the Holy Spirit,” had been part of a church community I pastored for about six months. Yet in that short time she’d concluded that members of our church didn’t have the Holy Spirit. So she sadly left…
Acts 2:1-21
Pentecost A
Every pulpit veteran has preached on this story many times, but this year we have a ready-made angle into it. We have seen more than our share of violent winds the past year, haven’t we? Hurricanes in the Caribbean, tornadoes all over the South, and in my home territory of West Michigan those bomb cyclones…
Acts 1:6-14
Easter 7A
On this Seventh Sunday of the Easter season, it is fitting that the first reading is about the Ascension of Jesus. There is a real sense in which Jesus’ resurrection and his ascension are two parts of one glorious act; he rose from the dead and he kept rising into heaven. Between the two risings…
Acts 17:22-31
Easter 6A
On this sixth Sunday of the Easter season, we continue our reflections on the Resurrection of Jesus with this fascinating story which shows us how Paul preached the Risen Christ on the continent of Europe. Directed by the Holy Spirit to leave Asia, Paul worked his way down the coast of the Aegean Sea to…
Acts 7:55-60
Easter 5A
On this fifth Sunday of the Easter season, we continue our journey through the Acts of the Apostles or, as some call it, the Acts of the Holy Spirit. That title fits Luke’s constant emphasis on the role of the Holy Spirit in the growth of the early church. That is surely the case in…
Acts 2:42-47
Easter 4A
We are in our fourth Sunday of reflections on Easter, using the book of Acts as our guide. We began on Easter in Acts 10, where we saw the world-changing significance of Christ’s Resurrection in Peter’s startling realization that God includes people from every nation in his covenantal embrace. Then we backed up to Peter’s…
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