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Acts 8:26-40

The Right Place, the Right Time

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Acts 8:26-40

The Right Place, the Right Time

By The Rev. Charles Hoffacker

The Sundays of Easter Season feature readings from the Acts of the Apostles that recount incidents from the earliest days of the Christian community.  Today’s passage from Acts tells of one occasion when Philip the deacon found himself in the right place at the right time.

The story in Acts does not speak in terms of the right time or the right place.  Instead, it relates that an angel of the Lord told Philip to go to the wilderness road that leads to Gaza.  When this happened, Philip may not have understood that an angel was prompting him.  He may have recognized the heavenly intervention for what it was only some time after it happened.

Many of us have experiences like this.  We find ourselves going off in some direction, perhaps for ordinary or uncertain reasons.  Then something significant happens: a meeting, a conversation, an impact on somebody’s life.  The ordinary incident becomes extraordinary.  And so we recognize that we were in the right place at the right time.  We may even claim that an angel told us to go there.  And we may be correct in saying so.

But what happens to Philip?  He sees a splendid chariot making slow progress along the dusty road.  He’s led to approach the chariot; later he attributes this leading to God’s own Spirit.

One man stands driving the chariot.  Another man, very finely and strangely dressed, sits and reads from a scroll.  He reads out loud, and Philip recognizes words from Isaiah the prophet.

Not knowing this man from Adam, Philip dares to ask him a question: “Do you understand what you are reading?”

The man with the scroll replies with surprising candor.  “How can I, unless someone explains it to me?”  He motions to his driver to stop the chariot and invites Philip to take a seat beside him.  As the chariot rolls on, these two engage in some Bible study.

The man with the scroll turns out to be the treasurer of Ethiopia.  He has traveled a long way to Jerusalem to worship the God of Israel.  Eager to know still more about Israel’s God, he is reading the Isaiah scroll on the journey home, but he is left wondering about a mysterious suffering figure that the author writes about.  Is the prophet describing himself or someone else?  It is here that Philip arrives on the scene.

Philip says that the mysterious suffering figure is Jesus, who was recently crucified outside Jerusalem and three days later raised to life.  The Ethiopian welcomes all that Philip tells him of the good news.  As they pass by a river, the Ethiopian—we never learn his name—asks to be baptized.  Philip does this and immediately afterward is snatched up by the Spirit and taken away, leaving behind this new Christian, who continues home, rejoicing.

Philip finds himself in the right place at the right time to help the Ethiopian take a decisive step to faith in Christ.  It may be the most important encounter the Ethiopian ever has, yet it is brief.  Philip disappears soon enough, his task accomplished.

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We may find ourselves in the same situation as Philip.  We are led at some time, to some place, to someone who needs to hear a word from us.  Our message may be one of explanation, witness, support, or encouragement.  Though it may be expressed in very personal terms, the message does not belong to us.  What we say is God’s word spoken through us. The one who hears it takes some decisive step in life.  That person recognizes and responds to good news that comes from God.

You may find yourself in Philip’s situation today, tomorrow, or the next day.  We are taken to the right place, the right time, the right person in order to make a difference, to speak some good news from God.

The Lord works in such circumstances, yet we must be sensitive to our opportunity.  We must be available and unafraid.  What’s required is not extraordinary knowledge or eloquence or an unusual depth of spirituality.  We must simply speak the truth as we know it in our lives, bear witness to Christ as we know him.  That’s what it means to share our faith.

The right place, the right time, the right person—these come along often enough if we make ourselves available.

The right person may not be a high official from a distant country, but simply someone who turns up.  By God’s grace, someone may go forth rejoicing after an encounter with us having heard in our words a personal message from God.

The right place.  The right time.  A great deal of the Christian life consists in this: our availability to act for God precisely when action is needed.  To be available we must be free—from fear, distraction, busyness, and ignorance of our abilities.  Availability means we are free—free to act as neighbor for other people, free to put heart and head to work, free to take a risk, free to step out in hope.

What happened to Philip the deacon happens to the rest of us too.  We find ourselves—unexpectedly—in some place and time that is strange to us.  It’s strange and unexpected, but the time and place are  right for us, a situation to which God has led us.  We must respond in faith.

The world is—literally—dying for good news.  We find ourselves in the right time and the right place to respond, to make a difference for people like Philip’s Ethiopian, who wait to hear the good news and then to go on their way rejoicing.

Scripture quotations from the World English Bible.

Copyright for this sermon 2006, The Rev. Charles Hoffacker. Used by permission.