From Jerusalem to Gaza

​5th Sunday of Easter – B                                                                          LSB #’s 835:1-4, 595, 837
Text – Acts 8:26
 
Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Rise & go toward the south to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.”  This is a desert place. 
 
FROM JERUSALEM TO GAZA
 
 
Here we are on the 5th Sunday of Easter, almost 2000 years after God sent Philip to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza,  & both places are still in the news!    Of course, the news today isn’t nearly as good as that which the Ethiopian eunuch took with him to his home country.   At that time, Ethiopia was the end of the known world. 
At Jesus’ ascension into heaven, He made this promise to His followers in Acts 1:8, “You shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, & in all Judea & Samaria, & to the end of the earth.”    Philip began in Jerusalem & only had to travel to Gaza in order to reach the end of the earth through the Ethiopian convert. 
When Jesus returns from heaven, Matthew 24 tells us, “And He will send forth His angels with a great trumpet blast, & they will gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of the sky to the other.”  (24:31 NASB) 
The Holy Spirit sends out the followers of Christ to witness of God’s love, even to the ends of the earth.   Then, He calls, gathers, enlightens & sanctifies the whole Christian Church on earth, to bring us to our heavenly home on the day of the final resurrection.   That is our Lord’s promise as we observe & endure the injustice & tribulation of life in this sinful world. 
After multiple thousands of years of fighting, it is tempting to question, “What on earth is God doing in the Middle East?”   And since God is in charge of all of history, past, present & future, today, we find ourselves questioning, “What is God doing right now on our college campuses?  What is He doing with those faculty & administrative leaders?  What is He doing with the protestors & the billions of dollars our universities burn through each year?”  Because we don’t have a clue what’s going on, the following question does, at the very least, hover in the subconscious area of our mind, “Can God be trusted?”   That is a case of faith & unbelief confronting each other. 
Faith trusts in God even when we have no clue what’s going on.   Unbelief rejects God often because the unbeliever cannot understand what God is doing & doesn’t trust Him to be working things out to a good end.   The context, as the 8th chapter of Acts begins, is the stoning to death of Stephen & the subsequent dispersal of Gentile Christians from Jerusalem:
“And there arose on that day a great persecution against the church in Jerusalem, & they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea & Samaria, except the apostles…  But Saul was ravaging the church, & entering house after house, he dragged off men & women & committed them to prison.”  (8:1 & 3 ESV) 
You could imagine that people were questioning, “What is God doing?  Can He be trusted?”   Yet, those Christians who were scattered went about preaching the word:
“Philip went down to the city of Samaria & proclaimed to them the Christ.  And the crowds with one accord paid attention to what was being said by Philip, when they heard him & saw the signs that he did.  For unclean spirits, crying out with a loud voice, came out of many who had them, & many who were paralyzed or lame were healed.”  (Acts 8:5-7 ESV) 
Acts 8:8 tells us, “So there was much joy in that city.”   Once Philip returns to Jerusalem, an angel of the Lord sends him on the road from there to Gaza.   In one chapter of the book of Acts, we already see the fulfillment of Jesus’ promise that His followers would, “…be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, & in all Judea & Samaria, & to the end of the earth.”  (Acts 1:8 ESV) 
That fulfillment was triggered by Stephen being stoned to death & the subsequent
dispersal of Gentile Christians from Jerusalem.    There’s no doubt that while those things were occurring, people questioned, “What can God be doing by allowing this?”   Only later, could they see what God did.   With all that’s going on in our world, Christians today certainly question as well, “What on earth is God doing?  How can anything good come of this?” 
The Lord fulfilled His promise to spread the Good News in Jerusalem & to the end of the earth in the days of Philip & the early Church.   But that wasn’t the end of it.   Christ is still fulfilling that promise through us, in our locality & to the end of our earth.   In our time, that’s going a lot farther than to Ethiopia by chariot, even if we do not yet see the results. 
You may not have an angel of the Lord telling you exactly where to go, or how to get there, but the Holy Spirit is working through you to call, gather, enlighten & sanctify the whole Christian Church on earth.  Children in our school are there to be called.  Neighbors, family & co-workers are there to be called.  God is working through you personally & your offerings. 
Especially those of us over the age of 50, today’s world is a far cry from the one in which we grew up.  The structure of the society of our youth has collapsed from within & without, by indifference & by design.  It’s difficult to imagine where the youth of today will be in 20 years, but we do know that Yahweh will still be saving people through His Church. 
It’s difficult to imagine what will become of the Jerusalem & Gaza in 20 years, but we do know that Christ has been saving people there since long before Jerusalem & Gaza existed.  The Holy Spirit used these words from the prophet Isaiah, written 800 years earlier, to call, gather, enlighten & sanctify the Ethiopian eunuch:
“Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter    & like a lamb before its shearer is silent,    so he opens not his mouth.    In his humiliation justice was denied him.      Who can describe his generation?   For his life is taken away from the earth.”  (Isaiah 53:7b-8 LXX)    Isaiah was prophesying about the Lamb of God who would take away the sin of the world.  And by the time of Philip & the eunuch, Jesus of Nazareth had fulfilled that prophesy.  God has been reconciled to His creation through the price that Jesus paid for our rebellion.   Justice has been restored.  That is good news that crushes the only other solution which is that we pay for our own sins. 
 When we want revenge on someone who’s hurt us, Jesus suffered that revenge for them.  For all the sins you & I have committed, & because of all the people we have ever hurt or offended, Jesus suffered revenge for us.   Philip announced that Good News to the eunuch because an angel of the Lord knew of the eunuch’s need & sent Philip to him. 
God knows all of our specific needs for every moment of our lives.  He also knows the needs of all the people around us.   As the opening verse of today’s opening hymn put it, “Therefore I send My children, their witness I will use.”  (LSB 835:1) 
No matter what is going on in Jerusalem & Gaza, no matter what is happening on our campuses or in our culture, by the power of the Holy Spirit, the Word of the Lord continues to go forth, even to the end of the earth.  In that each of us will rejoice.  Amen. 
 
 
 
O blessed spring, where Word & sign embrace us into Christ the Vine:  Here Christ enjoins each one to be a branch of this life-giving Tree.   Through summer heat of youthful years, uncertain faith, rebellious tears, sustained by Christ’s infusing rain, the boughs will shout for joy again.   When summer cools & youth is cold, when limbs their heavy harvest hold, then through us, warm, Christ will move with gifts of beauty, wisdom, love.    As winter comes, as winters must, we breathe our last, return to dust; still held in Christ, our souls take wing & trust the promise of the spring.  Amen.  LSB 595:1-4.