Living Words - Sunday Morning
An Inheritance in Jesus
An Inheritance in Jesus Acts 8:26-40 by William Klock Have you ever had one of those occasions when you had an overwhelming sense that God was telling you to go to this or that place, to go talk to this or that person? On a few occasions I thought I was in the middle of one of those moments. One Sunday evening in Portland I was alone and on my way home from church and, driving down the street had this overwhelming sense—again, like God was telling me—go into that Burgerville restaurant. So I did. And except for the people working there—none of whom had any interest in talking to me beyond taking my order—the place was completely empty. I wasn’t hungry, but I thought, “Well, if God wants me here, maybe I need to wait.” So I ordered dinner. And I sat there for an hour and a half, eating my dinner v…e…r…y slowly with my Prayer Book and Bible in front of me. And the place stayed as empty as it had been when I walked in. That, in itself, is pretty odd for a Burgerville in Northeast Portland. Was that overwhelming sense God? I don’t know. I thought maybe there was someone there who needed a minister. But there was no one there at all. I hear people tell stories of their overwhelming senses that God was telling them to do something and then something really amazing happened. But I’ve never had that happen. Not like that anyway. When those moments have come, I’ve never had an overwhelming sense of anything; they just happen. But Philip. Last week, in the first half of Acts 8, we saw Philip driven to Samaria because men like Saul were rounding up the Christians in Jerusalem and putting them in prison. And while he was there he told the Samaritans about Jesus. And God did something amazing. The church, God’s new temple, this people purified by Jesus and filled with the Holy Spirit, it grew, it jumped the border, it crossed the divide of animosity between the Jews and the Samaritans, it healed and restored. Jews and Samaritans went on hating each other—but not in the church. What the fall had divided, the gospel reunited. It was the first step toward God’s renewed humanity, back on track with their vocation to steward his presence, filling the earth with the knowledge of God’s glory as the church lived out God’s future in the present. And it’s as if God is saying to Philip: “Well done, good and faithful servant.” Philip has proved his faithfulness and now, Luke writes in Acts 8:26, “An angel of the Lord spoke to Philip: ‘Get up and go south,” he said. “Go to the desert road that runs down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” That’s quite a hike. Fifty to sixty kilometres back to Jerusalem—and hope Saul of Tarsus doesn’t catch you on your way through—and then Gaza was another fifty to sixty kilometres. That’s two bike rides for me, but it’s a long way to walk. And Luke kind of stresses that this isn’t an easy journey. It’s not just the road down to Gaza, it’s the desert road down to Gaza. It’s hot, it’s dusty, it’s barren and ugly—it’s lifeless. It’s a stark contrast with the new gospel life suddenly flourishing in Samaria. But that’s what Jesus calls his people to do: To take the gospel, to take the life of the kingdom into the desert of the world. It’s tempting to sit in the church, to enjoy gospel life with our brothers and sisters, and to forget about the desert outside and the people perishing out there. Brothers and Sisters, get up and go to the desert. You and I are the streams of living waters that take the life of God to the world. Don’t dam it up here. Luke goes on in verse 27: “So he got up and went.” Luke uses very biblical way of stressing obedience. God said, “Get up and go” and Philip “Got up and went”. And it’s not for nought. “Lo and behold, there was an Ethiopian eunuch, a court official of the Kandake (queen of Ethiopia), who was in charge of her whole treasury. He had come to Jerusalem to worship, and was on his way back home. He was sitting in his chariot and reading the prophet Isaiah.” So who is this guy in the chariot? Luke says he’s Ethiopian and an official—the head of the treasury—for the Kandake—sometimes in English we say “Candace”—the Queen of Ethiopia. For people like Luke (or Philip) in the Roman Empire, “Ethiopia” was a catch-all for everything south of Egypt, “Black Africa”. “Kandake” was part name and part title, incorporated into the names of many of the Ethiopia’s Queen. But this wasn’t the modern nation of Ethiopia. It was what’s now the northern part of Sudan. It was a trade centre between Egypt and the rest of Africa further south along the Nile and it was very wealthy because of that. And a eunuch in charge of the Queen’s treasury made perfect sense. That’s the sort of thing eunuchs did in the ancient world. No one had to worry about a eunuch trying to build a dynasty for his children using someone else’s wealth. The reward was that this man, himself, would have been fabulously wealthy too. So when Luke says he was riding in a chariot and reading an Isaiah scroll, don’t picture so much a small war chariot. This would have probably been more like a small carriage. And don’t picture him with some little scroll unrolled in his lap the way you might sit with your Bible. Scrolls like this were big. And an Isaiah scroll was really big. One of the longest books in the Bible. So there’s a good chance this man has at least a servant or two to help him. Maybe one as driver. Maybe another as a personal assistant, helping him with that big Isaiah scroll. That he—a foreigner—even has an Isaiah scroll says that he’s very wealthy. Normally you’d only find something like this in a synagogue for public reading. But the bigger question is: Why would an Ethiopian eunuch, the Queen’s treasurer be reading Isaiah? There’s a near-zero chance that this man was actually Jewish. Not absolutely zero, but it was highly unlikely. Neither is he a proselyte—a convert—to Judaism. Because he’s a eunuch. It was right there in Deuteronomy 23:1, “No one who’s testicles are crushed or male organ is cut off shall enter the assembly of the Lord.” There was a way for gentiles to be circumcised, submit to torah , go through the rites of purification, and to enter the Jewish covenant community. It was rare, but it was possible and not unheard of. But not for eunuchs. They were explicitly excluded. Not a chance. And yet this man was drawn to Israel and to Israel’s God. That was not such an odd thing in those days. Pagan society was mean and ugly, it was merciless and perverted and brutal. And the pagan gods were no better. For all her failures, Israel, her way of life, and her God really did stand out and people took note. The Israelites looked after each other—however imperfectly. The Israelites cared about purity. They didn’t practise infanticide or homosexuality. They took marriage seriously. They believed in the dignity of human life. Pagans, tired of their own brutal and morally filthy world, were drawn to it. There was a whole category of people that the Jews called “God fearers”. They weren’t circumcised, they weren’t actually part of the covenant, they couldn’t observe Passover or go to the temple, but they clung to Israel. They came to the synagogue and listened to the teaching. They read the Bible. And this man may have been one of those sorts of people—or, at least, something like that. And maybe that’s why he’s got the Isaiah scroll. He’d come to Jerusalem to worship. And he was leaving disappointed. As gentile he was barred from the temple. As a eunuch he has no hope of that changing. Luke says he was reading Isaiah 53 when Philip caught up with him, but just a few chapters later, in Isaiah 56, the Lord says through the Prophet, “Let not the eunuch say, ‘Behold, I am a dry tree.” For thus says the LORD: ‘To the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths, who choose the things that please me and hold fast my covenant, I will give in my house and within my walls a monument and a name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off.’” (Isaiah 56:3-5) This man longs to be part of this people. This man longs for the presence of the God of Israel. And he’s been there. Maybe he sat in a synagogue and he heard this passage read and his heart skipped a beat. There’s hope. But when he asked, how can I join you, they quoted Moses at him and sent him away. That’s not to disparage Moses. There was a reason God wanted things this way. Remember, God is working through a story that slowly unfolds to reveal him. But in response, somehow this man bought an Isaiah scroll for himself. He wants to read more. He wants to know how to get from Moses’ “No” to Isaiah’s “Yes”. And now he’s reading the part, just a few chapter before as Philip, out of nowhere, is suddenly jogging along next to his little carriage. And the Lord now speaks to Philip again as he sees this chariot on the road. Verse 29: “‘Go up and join his chariot,’ said the Spirit to Philip. So Philip ran up, and heard him reading the prophet Isaiah. ‘Do you understand what you’re reading?’ he asked. ‘How can I,’ he replied, ‘unless someone gives me some help?’ So he invited Philip to get up and sit beside him. The scripture passage he was reading was this one: ‘He was led like a sheep to the slaughter and as a lamb is silent before its shearers, so he does not open his mouth. In his humiliation, judgment was taken away from him. Who can explain his generation? For his life was taken away from the earth.’” This is Isaiah 53:7-8, again just before that passage giving hope to eunuchs. Luke has already made some hints about the importance of Isaiah 53 and we get the sense that the Spirt isn’t just at work to bring Philip to this man. The Spirit has been at work getting this man into Isaiah—showing him hope—and getting him ready to hear the source, the reason for that hope. This is precisely how a lot of people meet Jesus. Maybe this is how you met Jesus. We live in a word full of hurt and tears, full of sin and sickness and death. We may not know a bit of theology or philosophy, but we know it in our bones that this not the way the world is supposed to be. Maybe we meet some Christians, maybe we have an encounter with the church, maybe we just pick up a Bible and we start to read—and we encounter a different world. We encounter a different kind of people. Like the people drawn to Israel for its people’s passion for purity and for mercy and their hope for a world set to rights, we’re drawn to Jesus and his people. There we see holiness, love, grace, unity—however imperfectly displayed, but so different from so much of the world. Maybe we realise that Western Civilisation is not the gross, brutal, and filthy world of the Greeks and Romans anymore, we realise that it was the gospel that made this change, and we want to know more. And so we come. And we hear things said, but we don’t really understand. We open the Bible and we start to read, but we don’t know the context of what we’re reading. That’s where this Ethiopian man was at. He sees goodness. He see holiness. He sees hope. He so desperately wants to be part of it, but how? How does it work? This servant in Isaiah 53’s got something to do with it all, but who is the Prophet talking about? So verse 34: “‘Tell me,’ said the eunuch to Philip, ‘who is the prophet talking about? Himself or someone else?’ Then Philip took a deep breath and, starting from this scripture passage, told him the good news about Jesus.” Philip literally “gospelled” this man. He told him the story. How much of it? Luke doesn’t say. But he told this man the story—the same one that Stephen had told to the Sanhedrin. This was how the first Christians read the Jewish scripture, including the Prophets. They didn’t just go looking for prooftexts that they thought might line up with Jesus. They read the scriptures as a great narrative, a big story with Jesus at its centre. It ran all the way back to the creation itself and to the story of human rebellion against God—to the introduction of sin and death and all the pain and tears, and through Abraham and his family, through Moses and David and the Prophets, leading right to Jesus, but not ending there, but carrying on to the day when the whole project of redemption is done, creation and humanity are set to rights, and sin and death, pain and tears are no more. Isaiah knew this story. At his point in it, Israel was in exile, separated from the land God had promised, separated from the temple where he’d dwelt with them, seemingly—as far as many could tell—cut off from the hope they had. And so Isaiah, inspired by the Spirit no doubt, but also absolutely and utterly steeped in this story of Israel and Israel’s God, knowing his character, knowing his promises, Isaiah meditated on that story: on the exile of his people, on the promises of God, one God himself, whom he knew to be faithful even if Israel hadn’t been. And as Isaiah meditated and prayed and reflected the Spirit gave him the image of a servant: a servant who would come to where Israel was at, who would come to finish the failed task that Israel had been given, who would come to do for Israel—and for the world—what they could not do for themselves. He would, in his own body, bear the shame and reproach that the nations had shown to Israel for her failures and faithlessness, and he would die. He would die, not a death he deserved, but the death his people deserved. Isaiah knew: This was the only way. Israel couldn’t do it on her own. She’d failed over and over. And now she stood, guilty before the Lord, having broken his covenant, cut off, hopeless. Or so it seemed hopeless—dead to the covenant—but Isaiah knew God’s faithfulness and so he knew the Lord would not abandon his people or his promise to them. The Lord would send this servant who would suffer the punishment the people deserved, who would take up the task Israel had failed and complete it himself, who would bring God’s life and light and glory to the world. It’s almost as though Isaiah, working through the story, made a list of everything this servant would need to be or to do and—in poetic form—he wrote a job description—a job description that pointed straight to Jesus, although no one would realise that until Jesus himself arrived—practically with resume in hand to show that he’s the one Isaiah was writing about. And Isaiah saw how this suffering servant—precisely through his rejection, through his suffering, even through his death—would bring an end to Israel’s long exile. And Isaiah knew that through this, God would finally set the world to rights. He would establish a new covenant to replace the one Israel had broken (Isaiah 54), and new creation would be born (Isaiah 55), and as this new covenant made Israel what she was supposed to be all along and as this new world was born, it would finally draw in the foreigners, the nations, the pagans—even the eunuchs. And so Philip explained to this to the man. He told him about Jesus and how he’d done and fulfilled what the Prophet had seen. And—like a good evangelist—Philip had obviously told this man how to be part of it. Give your love, your loyalty, your allegiance to Jesus the Messiah. And repent. Let go of everything else, every loyalty, every other hope, and like Israel passing through the Red Sea to enter a life with God, pass through the waters of baptism to enter life with Jesus and the Spirit—so that Israel’s story, Isaiah’s story, Jesus’ story becomes your story. And Luke continues in verse 36: “As they were going along the road, they came to some water. ‘Look!’ said the eunuch. ‘Here is some water! What’s to stop me being baptized?’” I want to be part of this! “So he gave orders for the chariot to stop, and both of them went down into the water, Philip and the eunuch together, and he baptized him. When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord snatched Philip away, and the eunuch didn’t see him anymore, but went on his way rejoicing. Philip, however, turned up at Azotus. He went through all the towns, announcing the good news, until he came to Caesarea.” This is the part where I want to know more. I want to say, “But…but…but…you can’t just cut him loose at this point. He needs a good church, he needs solid teaching. When you cut people loose right after you baptise them, that’s when they get into cults and obsessed with weird eschatology!” But it seems that the Spirit was powerfully with this man—the same way he was with the apostles and Stephen and Philip. The Spirit has other important work for Philip. And so this man went on his way back to “Ethiopia” with his Isaiah scroll, with the scriptures, God’s word, with the story now his story, and full of the Spirit. It wouldn’t be long before the church was thriving in Africa and tradition says that this man was the one who took it there. The gospel is already on its way to the world. And I think that’s why Luke plants Isaiah 53 and Jesus as the suffering servant where he does here. It’s why, as we tell the story, we ought to be doing the same thing. Because over and over what we see in Acts and down through history is that the people of the nations look around themselves, and they—we—know nothing of Abraham or Moses or David or the Prophets or Israel or even Israel’s God, but we know that the world is not as it should be. The pain, the tears, the sin and the filth, sickness and death. We see how the strong abuse the weak. We know the fickleness and failure of our gods. And when we’re honest, we know that we’ve all had a part to play in the brokenness of the world. One way or another we hear, we feel, we sense the “no”, but we long for a “yes”. We need rescue. We need hope of the world set to right. And then we hear the story. We meet Jesus, the suffering servant. We meet the lamb of God who gave himself up for our sins and to wash us clean from their stain. We meet the King who gave himself for his people. We meet the Messiah in whom all of God’s promises find their “yes”. We meet the one who has conquered sin and death and in him we find the conciliation, the life, and the hope we’ve longed for. Brothers and Sisters, this the story we need to learn, this is this is the story we need to inhabit, this is the story we need to tell—until the whole world has heard, until the whole world knows this life and hope, until the knowledge of God’s glory fills the whole world. Let’s pray our Collect again: Lord God, you declare your almighty power most chiefly in showing mercy and pity: mercifully grant to us such a measure of your grace, that we, running the way of your commandments, may receive your gracious promises, and be made partakers of your heavenly treasure; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen .
