The 1st Reading for the 5th Sunday of Easter (Acts 8:26-40)

Send us Fan MailHere we have Phillip being sent to a man who is 4x an outsider. So often we think ourselves to be Phillip, needing to be sent out to find this type of man. But I wonder, how often are we the man in the chariot with the open Bible, needing help?Acts 8:26-40An angel of the Lord spoke to Philip: “Get up and go south to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” (This is the desert road.) So he got up and went. There was an Ethiopian man, a eunuch and high official of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, who was in charge of her entire treasury. He had come to worship in Jerusalem and was sitting in his chariot on his way home, reading the prophet Isaiah aloud.The Spirit told Philip, “Go and join that chariot.”When Philip ran up to it, he heard him reading the prophet Isaiah, and said, “Do you understand what you’re reading?”“How can I,” he said, “unless someone guides me?” So he invited Philip to come up and sit with him. Now the Scripture passage he was reading was this:He was led like a sheep to the slaughter,and as a lamb is silent before its shearer,so he does not open his mouth.In his humiliation justice was denied him.Who will describe his generation?For his life is taken from the earth.The eunuch said to Philip, “I ask you, who is the prophet saying this about—himself or someone else?” Philip proceeded to tell him the good news about Jesus, beginning with that Scripture.As they were traveling down the road, they came to some water. The eunuch said, “Look, there’s water. What would keep me from being baptized?” So he ordered the chariot to stop, and both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water, and he baptized him. When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord carried Philip away, and the eunuch did not see him any longer but went on his way rejoicing. Philip appeared in Azotus, and he was traveling and preaching the gospel in all the towns until he came to Caesarea.O God, you give us your Son as the vine apart from whom we cannot live. Nourish our life in his resurrection, that we may bear the fruit of love and know the fullness of your joy, through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.Amen.