LESSON: Acts 8: 26-40
26 Then an angel of the Lord said to Philip, ‘Get up and go towards the south to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.’ (This is a wilderness road.) 27So he got up and went. Now there was an Ethiopian eunuch, a court official of the Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, in charge of her entire treasury. He had come to Jerusalem to worship 28and was returning home; seated in his chariot, he was reading the prophet Isaiah. 29Then the Spirit said to Philip, ‘Go over to this chariot and join it.’ 30So Philip ran up to it and heard him reading the prophet Isaiah. He asked, ‘Do you understand what you are reading?’ 31He replied, ‘How can I, unless someone guides me?’ And he invited Philip to get in and sit beside him. 32Now the passage of the scripture that he was reading was this:
‘Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter, and like a lamb silent before its shearer, so he does not open his mouth. 33 In his humiliation justice was denied him. Who can describe his generation? For his life is taken away from the earth.’
34The eunuch asked Philip, ‘About whom, may I ask you, does the prophet say this, about himself or about someone else?’ 35Then Philip began to speak, and starting with this scripture, he proclaimed to him the good news about Jesus. 36As they were going along the road, they came to some water; and the eunuch said, ‘Look, here is water! What is to prevent me from being baptized?’ 38He commanded the chariot to stop, and both of them, Philip and the eunuch, went down into the water, and Philip baptized him. 39When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord snatched Philip away; the eunuch saw him no more, and went on his way rejoicing. 40But Philip found himself at Azotus, and as he was passing through the region, he proclaimed the good news to all the towns until he came to Caesarea.SERMON: “Going Where the Holy Spirit Leads” Rev. Peter Hofstra
Acts 8: Philip and the Eunuch: The Role of the Holy Spirit…
May 7, 2023 Rev. Peter Hofstra
Theology: (Or, thinking about God the Holy Spirit)
For May, we are looking to the book of the Acts of the Apostles as the last Sunday this month is Pentecost, the celebration of the coming of the Holy Spirit. As we come to Pentecost, our focus in Acts will be on the presence and work of the Holy Spirit. By month’s end, my hope is that we have a powerful sense of just what it was that the early church was receiving in the gift of the Holy Spirit.
The Acts of the Apostles is written as the sequel to the gospel of Luke. One might call it “Jesus 2: The Coming of the Holy Spirit” because the timid disciples of the Gospel now become Jesus’ force multipliers under the influence of the Holy Spirit. Peter shines in the first part of the book, Paul in the latter part, but others make their marks. Today, we follow the Apostle Philip.
In the lead up to our passage, Philip was in Samaria, preaching and healing, doing Jesus after Jesus’ ascension. He is SO successful that Peter and John are dispatched to back him up. In so doing, there is an interesting divide here. Philip is baptizing many of them, building up a base of believers in Samaria, but they have not yet received the Holy Spirit (as the apostles did at Pentecost). With the coming of Peter and John, prayers are offered and the Spirit comes down upon the Samaritan believers, causing great rejoicing in a church.
From here, we come to our passage continuing to follow Philip. An angel of the Lord sends him along a specific roadway to meet the Ethiopian eunuch, a court official and the treasurer of Queen Candace of the Ethiopians. He came to Jerusalem to worship, is headed home, in his chariot reading from the prophet Isaiah (hopefully while someone else is driving).
The Holy Spirit commands Philip to join the Eunuch in his chariot. Phil does as commanded, approaching and interpreting the words of Isaiah for the Eunuch. This man comes to believe as Philip speaks to him. Enroute, they come past some water, and the man insists that Philip baptizes him. When this happens, “the spirit of the Lord snatched Philip away; the eunuch saw him no more, and went on his way rejoicing.”
It is from this passage that one of the most ancient ethnic churches, the church of Ethiopia, claims its origins.
In this passage, there are a few places where it is notable to see where the Holy Spirit is involved and a couple where it is notable to see where the Holy Spirit is NOT. The first place of presence for the Holy Spirit is in Philip. He has received the Holy Spirit with the other disciples at Pentecost, and we are seeing the results. The powers of Jesus are being repeated in the apostles. We see the Holy Spirit at work in him, opening up the good news of Jesus to the understanding of this court official from Ethiopia. As Acts records: Now the passage of the scripture that he was reading was this: ‘Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter, and like a lamb silent before its shearer, so he does not open his mouth. 33 In his humiliation justice was denied him. Who can describe his generation? For his life is taken away from the earth.’ 34The eunuch asked Philip, ‘About whom, may I ask you, does the prophet say this, about himself or about someone else?’ 35Then Philip began to speak, and starting with this scripture, he proclaimed to him the good news about Jesus.
This continues what Philip was doing among the Samaritans, doing the work that Christ did. But there are two direct references to the Spirit here. The first is that the Spirit directs Philip to walk up to this important man in his chariot and basically ask, “So, whatcha got there sir?” The second is that the Spirit essentially disappears Philip from the Court Official’s sight when he comes up from his baptism.
It is not like the Spirit teleports Philip to some far off location. Acts tells us that Philip met up with the court official on the road from Jerusalem to Gaza, from the capital down to the south coast where he could then catch a ship to Egypt, then south through to Ethiopia. Acts tells us that the Spirit removed Philip to Azotus, on that same coastal road not far from where they met, and Philip continued north toward Caesaria.
The two places where the spirit does not appear of note are 1. At the baptism itself. In Samaria, Philip was baptizing but the Spirit came later with John and Peter. 2. The Spirit sent Philip to talk to the court official, but an angel of the Lord is said to have dispatched him to that road.
Evangelism: (Or, so what does this mean for us?)
Philip appears to be on some kind of preaching circuit, coming out of Samaria, sent on to this road to meet the Ethiopian Court Official. An angel of the Lord sends him to the right place at the right time on the road, the Spirit pushes him to go up to the chariot to engage with the gentleman, the Spirit then whisks him away where he then heads north along the coast, apparently to continue his preaching circuit (although Acts shifts focus away from Philip after this).
So, now a few questions. Is Philip doubly blessed to receive instructions from both an angel AND the Holy Spirit? Or, taking a step back, what does receiving such transcendent directions even look like? Taking a step forward to us, does this kind of divine direction even happen today? As people of faith, can we presume an angel or the Holy Spirit direct our path? If so, is it done without our knowledge and participation? Can it be done any other way?
Another way to look at it, have you ever been at the right place at the right time to either receive an influx of goodness from someone that coincidence or “the universe” just seemed to drop down next to us? Or, even more grace-filled, have you been that person slotted at the right time and right place? Coincidence? Machinations of the universe? I hope that, being in attendance in the House of God this morning, maybe, machinations of the Holy Spirit fits our profile?
How about this? As followers of Christ, our daily paths are marked by the machinations of the Holy Spirit that lay out opportunities where we can be as Philip was, a voice to a person in need. That one of the benefits (or discouragements) of who we are is that God’s master plan has us out there, persons of faith sent to engage with a world in need. Whether we want to or not.
Maybe the reason we see it so plainly spelled out in Acts is that this is not just a history of the earliest church but a ‘how to’ of church, how the Lord gets things done. Read the first few verses of Luke to see what the gospel writer was intending to share with Theophilus and decide for yourself. So, would a natural concern for us today be something like, “I’m not ready for that.”
I am not sure I am ready for that. While I am convinced that the Lord, in our God’s infinite humor, is the guiding force in the path I have taken to the pulpit, the notion of the Holy Spirit essentially telling me to run up to somebody’s car to talk about Jesus…does not strike me as optimal in today’s world.
But the presence of the Holy Spirit is not just in the coming and going of Philip. More powerfully, it is also in his background. He was in Jerusalem for the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. He and Peter and John and all the rest of the disciples, not simply the twelve but the whole community of Jesus’ followers, were fundamentally transformed by the coming of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost. The most visible part of that transformation was the gift of speaking in all the various languages of the Jews gathered in Jerusalem from around the known world.
This Court Official of Candace, the Queen of the Ethiopians, was in Jerusalem to worship the Living God. He could afford the scroll to the prophet Isaiah. I say ‘afford’ because this is not like ordering off of Amazon. This is a hand-copied edition of Isaiah. This was something it normally took an entire synagogue, an entire worshipping community to afford. When Philip came jogging up, asking “Whatcha got there?”, he was equipped by three years in Jesus’ personal apprentice program plus the blessings of Jesus within him by the auspices of the Holy Spirit. Hm, I wonder if that is why they decided a full time master of divinity program should take three years…
What I am saying here is that Philip was in tune with the movements of the Spirit guiding his life because he was prepared in the Spirit to share that life in Christ with others. What was the Court Official reading? ‘Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter, and like a lamb silent before its shearer, so he does not open his mouth. 33 In his humiliation justice was denied him. Who can describe his generation? For his life is taken away from the earth.’ This is Jesus on Good Friday, humiliated and slaughtered in the denial of justice. His life WAS taken away from the earth. But then he came back. He was resurrected, and everything was made new. That;s the news Philip brought.
This Eunuch had no frame of reference to understand this. He knew there was something good and powerful and amazing in this faith experience he had in Jerusalem. He’s diligently trying to get his mind around it. He was open to the gospel message. And the Holy Spirit provided him with Philip in that key moment of understanding. A moment that led to baptism and conversion.
That could be us, Philip, not the Eunuch. It could be us in the right place at the right time for someone who has questions, concerns, sufferings, brokenness, something in need of the gracious forgiveness found in our Lord Jesus Christ. Someone in need of the healing found in our Lord Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit could be dialing us in to just such a moment in the life of someone in need. How wonderful is that? How fulfilling? How scary? How unprepared do we feel for something like that?
As I challenge us, me especially, please know this is not some grand plan for the renewal of our church. It is not the basis of a vision statement to take us forward from this place. It is simply who we are as God’s children, in what we have received through the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, in how we are called to go out into the world, that it is God’s expectation for us to be out there in the world.
Prayer: (How We Get there)
The method of such courageous entry into the world is by the power of the Holy Spirit. The thing about the Book of Acts is that the coming of the Holy Spirit is such a deliberate, conscious process. We will see that at Pentecost. But what we are seeing here are the effects of the Spirit. Of how Philip was so heaven-bent and determined to do for the Lord. But pulling up stakes and wandering hither and yon according to the call of the Spirit, that is not the norm. There are some who are called to such a missionary lifestyle.
But the majority of the time that the Spirit comes in Acts, it is upon the community at hand. In Jerusalem, in Samaria (earlier in chapter 8), eventually on Cornelius and his household (in next week’s reading), these are people who live and work and are established where they are. The Spirit operates there as surely as in the life of the person called to a life on the road.
Whether on the road or set in a community, the growth of our faith is dependent on the presence of the Holy Spirit. In church each Sunday, we issue the invitation, for the Lord to come into our hearts. But we can have the Lord in our hearts, we can know our salvation lies in Jesus’ death and resurrection. We can depend on the promise that God so loved the world that God gave God’s only begotten Son. But we can also run into a dead end that asks something like, “Is this all, is there nothing more?”
Is there a presence of God to push us out of our comfort zones? Is there a place in our faith that when we look to the injustices around us, we find we have a heart of mercy for those whom we would stand beside in a world of sin and repression? Is there a desire to do more, to learn what we must to overcome the gaps in our capacities, in our knowledge, in our understanding of our faith? Is there the desire to reach out to the Almighty and confess that which we cannot do and cry out for the tools, the opportunity, the drive to do something more?
I suggest this is the call of the Holy Spirit to activate in our lives. That Spirit could very well be alive in our hearts, but maybe as an untapped resource. Maybe its just an urge, a tickling in the heart and mind that there is something more that can be done. That there is someone I can benefit. That this gift of Jesus is SO amazing, it must be shared.
Maybe not “jumping into the chariot of a stranger” shared, but someone is looking down, maybe I can reach out and share in some way. Maybe not a full exposition of a passage in the prophet Isaiah, but a word of comfort to another in need.
How about sharing a bottle of water with someone after a disaster? Sounds almost trite, doesn’t it? Say someone lost their home and are in a shelter, we are able to be there, and we offer…water? But maybe, just maybe this is the first decision the survivor has made for themselves since they lost everything? Maybe, just maybe it is the first step on the road to recovering their lives. Maybe, just maybe the Holy Spirit put us there with water, in that moment.
Maybe afterward, the Holy Spirit is not going to beam me up like Mr. Scott in Star Trek, but have you ever experienced the moment of a stranger being there at the right moment, with the right words, and then being gone again?
This is how the Holy Spirit operates, working within us to share the grace we have in Christ Jesus. Teaching us what to say, giving us the joy and courage to say it, leading us to moments where we can open our mouths to speak in the name of Jesus. Kind of scary, isn’t it? But I hope the possibilities are exciting as well. Being aware of what the Lord has blessed us with.
Maybe as we come to the table of the Lord, this is the moment to prayerfully ask the Lord, as the Holy Spirit, to fill, direct us, and give us purpose. This meal is to remind us of the sacrifice Jesus made on behalf of all God’s children, a promise of mercy, salvation, grace, and healing for the whole world. Maybe we pray to the Lord to remind us again of just what wonder that means, and ask for the Spirit to light us up in the wonder of God’s promises. Maybe we ask for the Holy Spirit to give us courage and opportunity to share this joy with someone who does not know what we know. Maybe we open up a whole new world of possibility that is just waiting for us.
Let us pray…
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