The book of Acts is sometimes called the gospel of the Holy Spirit. Its pages contain the story of Spirit’s movement among the first followers of Jesus in the days, months and years after his resurrection. Throughout Acts, we read of the Spirit’s movement, which is at times dramatic and at times deliberate, as those in the early church discerned where and how to share the good news that Christ is risen!

The story of Peter’s meeting with the Jerusalem council (Acts 11:1-18) tells how Peter came to share the good news with the household of Cornelius, a Gentile who was an outsider to the Jewish community of the first disciples. This story provides yet another example of the Spirit guiding the early church to share the good news in unexpected places and surprising ways.

As Peter related to the council how he ended up staying and eating in Cornelius’ household (a practice that stood against everything he had been taught about preserving his faith), we see him responding to the voice of the Spirit telling him to go when strangers knocked on the door; and again when it told him to enter Cornelius’ home; and yet again when the sermon he was giving was interrupted by the Spirit, already on the loose in Cornelius’ household, and he stopped preaching and just started baptizing!

The book of Acts reveals that the Holy Spirit does work in dramatic and immediate ways . . . and it also works like a slow burn inside of us calling us to question what we thought we knew, prompting us to build bridges where once we built walls, and encouraging us to reach out in love and service in ways that reveal our faith in the power of God to bring life from death!

Through our baptism, the Holy Spirit is at already at work in us, as it was in Peter, and God’s new life, can not and will not be contained!

Christ is risen!

Christ is risen, indeed! Alleulia!