Easter 2, with Baptism of Naomi Kisby, 2026

There is an old literary problem, familiar to every storyteller: how do you write the second book in a series when, at the end of the first, you have killed off the main character? If the central figure is gone, what remains? Memory? Influence? Or something else?

The Acts of the Apostles is St Luke’s answer to that question. Luke’s Gospel has reached its apparent conclusion in the death and resurrection of Jesus, and his Ascension leaves the disciples gazing upward, bereft and uncertain. Yet Acts does not read like an epilogue or a fading echo. It pulses with life, movement, risk, and proclamation. It is often called the 5th Gospel, the Gospel of the Holy Spirit.

In our reading today from the Acts of the Apostles, Peter stands and addresses the crowd with a clarity and courage that would have been unimaginable only weeks before when he shuffled his feet in the courtyard of the High Priest and denied he even knew who Jesus was before the cock crowed. “Jesus of Nazareth,” he declares, “a man attested to you by God… you crucified and killed… but God raised him up.” This is not the voice of someone filled with fear, or clinging nostalgically to a departed master. It is the voice of one who knows that the story has not ended, because Jesus did not end.

What Acts tells us is that the resurrection is not simply the vindication of Jesus, nor merely a nebulous promise of life beyond death. It is the beginning of a new way of being present. Through the gift of the Holy Spirit, the life of Jesus is not confined to the past but is made active and immediate in the lives of his followers. The Spirit does not replace Christ; the Spirit makes Christ present.

This is why Acts is not a different story from the Gospel of St Luke, and there is no doubt they were written by the same person, but its continuation. Written probably about 70 AD as the Apostles themselves were being martyred and harried from the earth, it was one book, with the cross standing centrally. Either side, perfectly balanced are the biographies. Before, the story of Jesus. The Gospel. Christmas to Cross. After the story of the church, the Acts of the Apostles. From Cross to Kingdom.

Both sides of the story are told the same way. The healing of the sick, the breaking of bread, the proclamation of forgiveness— all the things Jesus did, they are shown again, and not just as imitations of a dead example. They are the living expression of Christ’s own life, now shared and spread in the lives of ordinary men and women.

 

And this, of course, is where the rubber hits the road for us. For the question is not merely how St Luke wrote his second volume, or even why? but how the story continues now.

If the Acts of the Apostles is only a record of what happened then, it risks becoming a closed chapter. But if it is truly the Gospel of the Holy Spirit, then it speaks about a truth that is not bounded by time.

In baptism, we are not simply enrolled in an institution or signed up to a set of beliefs. We are drawn into that same story. The continuity between Jesus and his first followers is not a relic of history but a living inheritance. The Church exists because the Spirit makes it possible for the life of Christ to take flesh in every generation. That is what we are here for, because the story of Jesus is written in the pages of our lives. [Naomi is going to be baptised in just a moment. The story of her life and the story of Jesus’ life are going to become one. That’s the point. Life can be a funny thing. It can take unexpected twists and turns. It is painful, disappointing, frustrating. It is also joyful, rich, nourishing. But wherever she goes, whatever the story of her life looks like in 10, 20, 100 years, in all of it she will have the Holy Spirit within and beside her. A support in her hardships and a cheerleader in her triumphs!

[This is both a consolation and a challenge. It is a consolation because it means that we are not left to carry the weight of faith by our own resources. The same Spirit who emboldened Peter, who knit together the fragile early community, who turned fear into proclamation, is at work within us. But it is also a challenge, because it means that the story depends, in some real sense, on our willingness to be its bearers.

The Acts of the Apostles, Luke’s second book is still b eing written. Not by our ingenuity, but by our openness to the Spirit. Not by our striving, but by our surrender to the  life of Christ within us.

So on this Second Sunday of Easter, we are invited to see ourselves not as readers of a finished narrative, but as participants in a living one. The question of how to continue after the apparent ending has already been answered. The Spirit has been given. The story goes on.

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Sermon for Lent 5 - Bishop Brian Farran