As they traveled along the road, they came to some water and the eunuch said, “Look, here is water. What can stand in the way of my being baptised?” And he gave orders to stop the chariot. Then both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water and Philip baptised him. (Acts 8:36-38, NIV)
You might have noticed this morning that there is going to be a baptism in our midst. Now the most exciting thing about this particular baptism is that it was in no way planned months or even weeks ago, but it is something that our dear sister has been led to do by the very Spirit of God now. Hence, the spontaneity of it all and it must be said it is a joyous occasion for our church to behold indeed. You see when someone comes to faith in Jesus and wants the world to know where they have come from and where they are now (in the Kingdom of God), it is the most natural thing in the world to want to be visibly identified and marked out by the King of God’s Kingdom; Jesus, and that’s exactly what baptism signifies. Its a sign and seal of God’s saving work (Rom 4:11). That’s certainly one of the things going on in the passage that we have above. The eunuch, we are told, was an Ethiopian, meaning that he most likely was not privy to the earthly ministry of Jesus because of the incredible distance between Ethiopia and Israel, yet after hearing the gospel, he wanted to be identified with Jesus and nothing was going to hold him back and the church was used by the Spirit of God in the work.
If we look back further into chapter 8, where we find this passage, we get some interesting information about what’s going on here. First, this was a man who served in the Ethiopian courts, not just as a cook or cleaner, but it is reported by Luke that this man was high up in the house of royalty, with great responsibility looking after the Treasury of the Queen; meaning he would have had to have been well educated (Acts 8:27b). Second, he was a man who had come to faith in the living God and travelled the great distances to worship Him at His temple (The Old Testament instructed all Jews and converts to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem three times a year). Which leads us to the third bit of information given about this man and that’s that He read and believed God’s Word (c.f. 28, 32-33).
You see all this information has been given to us to show us that no one, no matter where they have come from or what sort of status they had in their community can keep them from coming into the kingdom of God. Ethiopia had brushes with Israel (especially in the time of King Solomon, see 1 Kings 10), but were in no way a thoroughly proselytised country (Isa 43:3, 54:14) Yet somehow this man was drawn to the truth of Israel’s God and somehow got hold of the Scriptures, which he believed and put into practice (Acts 8:27c). But one thing was clearly missing and that’s that he had not connected the lines from Isaiah’s suffering servant to the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ (Isa 53, Acts 8:30-34). And so the Holy Spirit put the church into action. First He sent an evangelist named Philip to the man (vs 26), second He got Philip to explain the scriptures to him (vs 35) and third (and most importantly) the Holy Spirit opened not just the man’s understanding but gave him the faith to trust in Jesus (vs 37, 16:14 c.f. Eph 1:18). And that’s what we are witnessing here today, we are witnessing a person who has come to put their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, because in his kindness and mercy, He sent someone into her life to explain the scriptures to her and He opened her heart to the truth of the gospel. And so dear church, it is our privilege as the hands and feet of the risen Lord, to mark this precious woman out in the waters of baptism, signing and sealing the faith she has been given as a wonderful gift from God (Eph 2:8).