The first reading each Sunday during the season of Easter is taken from the Acts of the Apostles and provides us with the opportunity as we celebrate the Resurrection of our Lord, to take a peek into the life of those who have gone before in faith and to glimpse at how they responded to the Good News of God's grace. In fact Acts, written by Luke, is really the second volume of the Gospel of Luke, written to a man by the name of Theophilus, so that he "may know the truth concerning the things about which (he) has been instructed." (Luke 1:4) Acts also begins with an introduction by Luke in which Luke write, "In the first book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus did and taught from the beginning until the day when he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen. After his suffering, he presented himself alive to them by many convincing proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God." (Acts 1:1-3) 

As we journey through the Sundays of Easter, we will hear about how the early community of faith responded to the kingdom of God alive in their midst, in short, about how they became church. And I think that this provides us with the opportunity as well to reflect on what would Luke have to tell Theophilus about how we, as a church, respond to hearing the kingdom of God proclaimed in our midst. 

How would Luke describe our believing, living, caring, and praying together as God's apostles in the 21st century? 

Hopefully, our chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, the story of 

God's amazing grace and our response to grace is a chapter which like the first chapters, will bring the promise of God to all. 

+God bless,

Pastor Pete