Meditation 278
Acts 8:26-40
This story of Philip is an intriguing one. Philip is directed by an angel of the Lord to go toward the south on the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza. Here Philip finds someone who needs him to explain scripture.
This story raises a lot of questions for me. How did Philip know that he was talking to an angel? Do angels still move among us with messages? Did Philip question whether or not he should as the angel said? Was Philip nervous? Or excited?
We are told that when Philip went down that road he saw the Ethiopian reading the book of Isaiah, and the Spirit directed him to go to the man’s chariot and join him. Again we see that Philip is compliant. Philip is so in tune with God that he recognizes the messengers from God as soon as they speak to him. What might that be like, to have such a close connection to God that we hear and follow such messages?
While we may not have angels appear to us, or hear the Spirit speak to us in words that our ear understands, we believe in our hearts that God is still active in our world. We are the future generation that the psalmist mentioned in yesterday’s reading, the ones that would proclaim [the Lord’s] deliverance to a people yet unborn. (Psalm 22: 30-31). We may wish that God would appear and give a definitive answer and action when we pray for peace and healing and guidance. But we also know that this has not been God’s way. God gives an invitation and we chose to follow it or not. Those who are faithful to God’s invitation do so in a world where sometimes good things happen and sometimes bad things happen.
From the days of the giving of the Ten Commandments, to the prophets, to the letters of the early church; God invites people to live according to the covenant and they do so right beside those who ignore the covenant. We know that when Jesus came to be with us, and when he died and rose again, he was the final answer to sin. The good news about Jesus that Philip explained to the Ethiopian was the good news that we are free to be children of God.
We may think that it would be nice if all of the things that we look upon as bad were taken away, and if we all lived lives of loving God, and loving our neighbours as ourselves. A part of us may long for no conflict or trouble, but this is not the way God does things. Each day we may chose to live the way God has revealed to us, to be the ones who have hope, to be the ones who do not give up, to be the ones who live the truth the God has made known to us.