Acts 8:26-40 (NRSV)
Read Acts 8:26-40 on biblegateway.com
Verse 26Then an angel of the Lord said to Philip, "Get up and go toward the south to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza." (This is a wilderness road.) Verse 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 Verse 28and was returning home; seated in his chariot, he was reading the prophet Isaiah. Verse 29Then the Spirit said to Philip, "Go over to this chariot and join it." Verse 30So Philip ran up to it and heard him reading the prophet Isaiah. He asked, "Do you understand what you are reading?" Verse 31He replied, "How can I, unless someone guides me?" And he invited Philip to get in and sit beside him. Verse 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. Verse 33In his humiliation justice was denied him. Who can describe his generation? For his life is taken away from the earth." Verse 34The eunuch asked Philip, "About whom, may I ask you, does the prophet say this, about himself or about someone else?" Verse 35Then Philip began to speak, and starting with this scripture, he proclaimed to him the good news about Jesus. Verse 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?" Verse 38He commanded the chariot to stop, and both of them, Philip and the eunuch, went down into the water, and Philip baptized him. Verse 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. Verse 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.
Devotion
The connection violated all kinds of normative boundaries and barriers—culture, class and sexuality to name a few. Yet, the connection was obviously Spirit-led. As Phillip approached, he heard the Ethiopian eunuch reading from Isaiah. The text spoke about innocence slaughtered, human injustice and the vulnerable silenced by empires. And now God had sent Phillip to love and listen to a person who had not only read about these things, but had endured them.
Perhaps God is inviting us, too, to sit alongside today's eunuchs with the same patient listening and gentle guidance as Phillip, trusting that the human experience of our neighbors and strangers are prophecy in the flesh. And when they wonder aloud what is preventing them from love and belonging, we are the ones there to answer:
Nothing prevents you from this new life. Nothing stands between you and
the God who died with your pain,
the God who fulfills heaven’s justice,
the God who cannot be silenced by empires.
Prayer
Sending God, you call us to get up and go. Send us beyond our expectations, always listening for your Word made flesh in the voices of our fellow human beings. Amen.