Healed Hearts – Now that’s good news!

Acts 8:34-35 “The eunuch asked Philip, ‘Tell me, please, who is the prophet talking about, himself or someone else?’ Then Philip began with that very passage of Scripture and told him the good news about Jesus.”

Picture courtesy of Kenneth Taylor

Perspiration trickled down his dark skin as he sat in the chariot squinting into the sun. The vehicle joggled slowly along the desert road while he wiped the dampness from his eyes and again focused on the ancient words in front of him. His mind was reeling with questions regarding the things he was reading. There was something there that touched a wounded place in his heart but he just didn’t understand the meaning.

Bitter memories of days gone by floated across his mind. He remembered so clearly all the physical indignities he suffered in the past – the humiliating experience that had made him a eunuch. It was supposed to be an honor to serve Queen Candace of Ethiopia and, in fact, he was a very high and well-respected financial official in her court, but there was still a deep wound that oozed in the very core of his being – an empty hole in his spirit that needed to be filled.

Hearing about the great and mighty God of Israel, he had come to believe that here was the one and only God. Desiring to worship the mighty One, he had taken the long hot journey through the desert to pay his respects in the temple at Jerusalem. But when he had arrived he found out quickly that there were places that men like him were not allowed to go. According to the laws of the Jewish holy books, recorded by the great prophet Moses, no one who was a foreigner or who had been physically maimed like he was allowed to enter the assembly of this great God.

Now, as the dusty sand swirled across the road home, he sat reading something in another holy book, Isaiah,  that gave him hope – if only he could understand the content. “Let no foreigner who has bound himself to the Lord say, The Lord will surely exclude me from his people. And let not any eunuch complain, I am only a dry tree.” It continued to say that all eunuchs and foreigners who would bind themselves to this great God would be given a place of joy in God’s house of prayer.

What could all this mean? He continued reading, pondering the message that spoke of one who had been led like a lamb to the slaughter, one who had been deprived of justice and who had suffered great humiliation. Could the answer to his great hope of acceptance be in this person who had suffered such grief? In frustration, the official breathed a silent prayer asking that somehow God would help him understand these deep things.

His reverie was interrupted by approaching footsteps. “Do you understand what you are reading?” a man asked.

The seeker’s confused mind formed the unspoken question, “Where did you come from?” but his words only voiced the quandary he was in. “How can I unless someone explains it to me? Please come up and sit with me in my chariot. I want to know the meaning of these words.”

Philip, understanding now why the angel of the Lord had directed him to go south on the desert road from Jerusalem to Gaza, climbed into the fancy chariot and, beginning with that very Scripture in Isaiah 53, spoke the good news of Jesus.

As the light of the truth dawned on this man’s searching heart, he realized that because of the suffering and death that Jesus, the Son of God, experienced on a Roman cross, his sins were paid for. By believing in this Jesus, all the shame of his past was removed. The curse of the law was broken and in Christ he truly belonged where once he had no right to be.

Suddenly he felt a light breeze from a body of water they were passing blow across his glistening face. In his excitement, he cried to his driver, “Stop the chariot!” Addressing Philip he asked, “Why shouldn’t I be baptized?”

They both entered the water where Philip dipped him into the cool liquid. Immediately upon coming up from the depths, the Spirit of the Lord whisked Philip away and the eunuch did not see him again. He paused for a moment to grasp the fact that Philip had disappeared, but then he turned towards home rejoicing, excited to spread this good news he had heard. The wounds of his past were healed and he was no longer an outcast in the temple of this God he worshiped. Because of this man, Jesus and this message of salvation his dignity was restored and he finally belonged.

For those who today put their faith in Jesus, the good news is the same. Regardless of a person’s past, they can belong to the great God of heaven and no one will be shut out. In Christ there is no longer any Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male or female, for all are one in Christ (Galatians 3:28). So let us, like the Ethiopian eunuch,  also rejoice in this good news and share it with the world.

Love,

Mama