Sixth Sunday of Easter, Year A · May 10, 2026
First Reading: Acts 8:5–8, 14–17
Second Reading: 1 Peter 3:15–18
Gospel: John 14:15–21
Full text on USCCB: https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/051026.cfm
Picture a pair of hands. The hands of a fisherman, calloused at the thumbs, scarred along the knuckles from years of nets and ropes. Once, on a dusty road through Samaria, these hands clenched into fists, and their owner turned to Jesus: “Lord, do you want us to call down fire from heaven on these people?” (Luke 9:54). Hands that wanted to destroy.
Now move forward. A few years pass. The same hands. Same calluses, same scars. And they are resting now on Samaritan heads, praying for fire of a different kind to fall. Fire that gives life. The Holy Spirit, descending through the very hands that once wanted to wipe these people out (Acts 8:14-17). This is John. We do not know if these were the same Samaritans he once wished destroyed. They may have been. They were certainly their kin, living along the same roads. And John knew it.
What changed him? Pentecost. The Spirit descended on him in a crowded room in Jerusalem (Acts 2:3), and slowly, quietly, remade the man inside.
Many of us came to church today carrying something we have given up on. Something inside ourselves. A habit we have stopped trying to break. A wrong relationship we know we should leave but cannot, because some part of us still wants what it offers. We say, “This is just who I am. This is my fate.”
But hear this. Nothing in you is finished until God says it is finished. The verdict you have passed on yourself is not the verdict God has passed on you.
Look at John. He would have laughed if you told him his hands would one day bless these people. He would have said, “Impossible.” He was wrong.
There is another story. Two brothers. The younger stole what was meant for the older, who swore, “When my father is dead, I will kill him” (Genesis 27:41). The younger fled. Twenty years passed. When the runaway returned, the older rode out with four hundred armed men. But he got off his horse, ran, and threw his arms around the man he had sworn to kill, weeping on his neck (Genesis 33:4). This is Esau. Twenty years of “I will never forgive” undone at a riverbank.
This is how the Spirit works. Quietly. Patiently. Picking the lock from the other side. Jesus calls Him “the Advocate, the Spirit of truth, who remains with you and will be in you” (John 14:17).
Whatever you have written off in yourself, do not seal the verdict yet. The God who turned a son of thunder into a vessel of mercy, and softened twenty years of hatred into an embrace, is at work in you right now, whether you feel him or not.
This week, name one thing you have given up on. Bring it to him: “Lord, I cannot change this. You can. Begin in me.” The same Spirit who unclenched John’s fists is working in yours. The fire is already falling.
Amen.