And the Spirit Said…

Acts 8: 26-40

 

 

          Ever had a conversation with the Holy Spirit? I bet you have. Ever battled with your conscience? That’s an encounter with the Holy Spirit. Ever felt sorry for someone? Gone out of your way to help someone? Cried or hurt at the sight of someone else’s pain? That’s an encounter with the Holy Spirit. We have conversations with the Holy Spirit all the time. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that the Holy Spirit is talking to us. Sometimes we answer in the right way. Sometimes we don’t. But if we are Christian, if we have accepted Jesus as our Savior, then the Holy Spirit is within us and is working on us. Remember how the kids’ song goes? “He’s still working on me. To make me what I ought to be….”

          The Holy Spirit is that part of God that Jesus sent to us. The Holy Spirit is Jesus, but in another form, a form that we can absorb, who can live within us. The Holy Spirit is that part of us that is God within us. You don’t have to be a Bible scholar to find all the things the Holy Spirit does. Just Google it. Things the Holy Spirit does. Here a just a few examples straight from scripture: The Holy Spirit regenerates us, leads us, sanctifies us, anoints us, empowers us, fills us, renews us, sets us free, supplies us, enables us, transforms us, strengthens us. Get the picture? All of these characteristics of the Holy Spirit and many more are found in the New Testament. The Holy Spirit is that part of God that can become part of each of us and release us to be free to do God’s will. That’s what Jesus meant when he said “Abide in me, and I in you” (Jo 15: 4).

          In the eighth chapter of Acts, we see the early church beginning to move across the landscape. It started in Jerusalem and spread throughout Judea and Samaria. Today’s passage witnesses the next puzzle piece to Luke’s story of the church. The church is going out to the world and this time it is Philip who is the witness.

          Philip is a fairly well known member of the Apostles. While not in the inner circle of Peter, James and John, nevertheless he figures prominently in several passages in the gospels. Philip was another Galilean, hailing from Bethsaida with Peter and Andrew. At the Last Supper, it is Philip who asks Jesus to show them the Father, to which he is answered that to see Jesus is to see the Father, and Jesus is in the Father and the Father in him. And now, in the eighth chapter of Acts, it is Philip who is chosen as the first story showing the spread of the gospel beyond Palestine. In this passage, we can see firsthand yet another way that the Holy Spirit works in our lives to accomplish his purpose.

          First, let’s just set the stage for the work of the Spirit. In Matthew 28, Jesus has his last visit with the disciples on a mountaintop in Galilee where it all started for them. Jesus gives them what we now call the Great Commission: to go, to make disciples, to baptize them and to teach all nations his commandments, all in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Skip over to Acts 1, where Jesus’ last visit with the disciples is described this way: He says to them that they will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon them; that they will be his witnesses in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.  Two different accounts have Jesus sending his followers out into the world to tell his story, but not before they are invested with the Holy Spirit.

          Now, in Acts 8, we see the Holy Spirit at work in Philip. First an angel speaks to Philip. Rise and go, says the angel. And Luke tells us that Philip rose and went. He asked no questions. He just got up and went. This is even more significant than it first sounds, for Philip was told to go to Gaza. Jerusalem was in the south. Samaria was to the north. Gaza was on the southeastern tip of Israel on the Mediterranean Sea. It was the last watering place before the desert on the road from Jerusalem to Egypt.  When Jesus told his disciples to carry the gospel to the ends of the earth, Philip was asked to go to the doorstep.

          So Philip rose and went. Upon his arrival he met an Ethiopian eunuch, a court official, somewhat like running into a Cabinet member of the U.S. government.  Then the Spirit stepped in. The Spirit told Philip to go over and join the chariot. So Philip obeyed. What follows is this interesting sequence of Philip reading Isaiah aloud while walking or jogging to keep up with a moving chariot. Eventually, he gets invited long for the ride but not at first. However silly it may have looked, it worked.  The passage quoted in Acts 8 is part of the Suffering Servant passage of Isaiah 53, long connected to Old Testament prophecy of the coming Messiah. But such cannot be the case here, for the resurrection of Jesus was fresh. Messiah was not yet thought of with any connotation of suffering. It may well be that Philip was explaining the passage from Isaiah for the first time with an eye toward the suffering that awaited the Son of God.

          We cannot know for sure what Philip read to the Ethiopian, but we can be sure of the effect it had. Luke tells us that Philip opened his mouth and told him the good news about Jesus. This high ranking foreigner wanted to be baptized. He was already familiar enough with scripture and whatever Philip told him to know that baptism was connected to his declaration of faith. And here is a mini-lesson for all of us Christians. The Ethiopian said: here’s some water. They went down to the water and he was baptized. We don’t know if it was a river or a stream. We don’t know if he was sprinkled or immersed. We just know he was baptized. That’s all we need to know. He made an outward sign of his inward feeling. There was water, which symbolically represented a casting off of the old in favor of the new; a cleansing. That’s baptism.

          Then the Spirit of the Lord carried Philip away. The eunuch went on his way rejoicing, presumably carrying the gospel of Jesus to Ethiopia. Philip found himself at Azotus, a town south of Caesarea, some fifty miles north of Gaza. He kept right on preaching the gospel until he got to Caesarea. There is no report of the passage of time. All we know is that Philip was there and then he was not.

          There is one more thing we should pay close attention to. The Spirit of the Lord carried Philip away. Three times in this passage, God intervenes in the life of his disciple. There are many other, important things one may glean from this reading, but right now, I ask you to focus on the interaction of God with his disciple, his follower. Three times there is divine intervention, divine guidance. An angel of the Lord speaks, the Spirit of the Lord speaks, and the Spirit of the Lord carries him away. Don’t miss the meaning of what Luke paints for us here. When you read this passage, it has three actors. There is Philip and there is the Ethiopian eunuch. But the star of the show is the Holy Spirit. It is the Holy Spirit who directs the action. Luke is telling us in no uncertain terms that God moves in the lives of his disciples and he moves through the Holy Spirit.  

          How silly we are to give ourselves star billing in the play of life. If we are the stars, the play will grow old and have a short run. But…if we understand our parts…we too, like the eunuch, can go on our way rejoicing. Philip obeyed. He got up and went. When the Spirit told him to jog along the road beside a moving chariot and read aloud to a total stranger, he did it. When God asked Noah to build a giant boat in the middle of dry land during a drought, he did it. When God told Abraham to sacrifice his only son, Abraham raised his sword to do it until God intervened. Once again the kids’ song reminds us:

                                  In the mirror of his word

                                     Reflections that I see

                 Makes me wonder why he never gave up on me

              But he loves me as I am and helps me when I pray

                       Remember He’s the potter, I’m the clay.

 

And the Spirit said…   When the Spirit speaks to you, what will be your answer?