Thursday of the Third Week of Easter
Don’t you wish, sometimes, that an angel or the Spirit of the Lord would give you such specific instructions as Philip receives in today’s reading from the Acts of the Apostles (Acts 8: 26-40)? “Get up and head south on the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza, the desert route.” It almost sounds like Philip has a spiritual GPS guiding him specifically where the Lord wants him to go. I sure would like to have one of those! And although it’s true that we don’t exactly have a spiritual GPS, we do have God’s Spirit within us, guiding and directing us if we but listen.
Philip was on fire about sharing the good news of Jesus. He was open to the Holy Spirit, which led him to meeting up with the eunuch from Ethiopia and bringing about his conversion and baptism. The eunuch was reading a text from Isaiah and was looking for understanding. He was searching in his faith and God used Philip to respond to that searching and lead him to Jesus. And his baptism signals the beginning of the acceptance of Gentile believers by the early Christians.
Both Philip and the eunuch were “on the road,” just like Jesus appearing to the disciples “on the road” to Emmaus. It is in our journeying, our seeking, that we are guided by the Spirit.
Have you ever had the experience of feeling that you should do something and you’re not really sure why? Maybe it doesn’t seem to make sense at the time, but you feel called or lead to do it. I can recall numerous occasions in which I felt an inner nudging to call someone on the phone when I didn’t have a particular reason to; then when I follow through I learn that this person was really struggling and it meant so much to have someone reach out to them. I have also been the recipient of such Spirit-guided interactions.
Philip could easily have questioned the instructions he received to head off on a different road, to catch up with the carriage this stranger, the eunuch, was in. He could have seen that he was a “foreigner” and decided not to approach him; he could have rationalized his way out of spreading the good news to this Ethiopian. But Philip was in tune to God’s voice and responded to the Spirit’s guidance and helped break down geographical, ethnic, even legal barriers to bring Jesus’ salvation that was intended for all people.
I ask myself, am I open, like Philip and the eunuch, to God being present in new ways and new circumstances?
Today’s gospel reading (John 6: 44-51) ends with the beginning of the Eucharistic theme in John's gospel. “I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.”(vs. 51) Just as Jesus was made known to his disciples in the breaking of the bread, let us be guided by the Spirit to be the body and blood of Christ to the world around us. Especially to those with whom we might have barriers – barriers of fear or hurt or prejudice, barriers of economic or social status, barriers of cultural or religious differences. Let us continue “on the road” of our own faith journey, remaining open and listening for the Spirit’s guidance on our path and in our encounters with others.
- Eileen Miller