St. Mark’s Lutheran

My love, my wife and kids are on their way to her brothers for a cousin’s birthday. I am a batchelor for a few days, and falling back into vampire like hours. The olympics aren’t helping as they keep me riveted until mid-night. No good excuse for making a morning prayer an evening exercise. Please forgive.

Readings
Job 1:1-22
Acts 8:26-40
John 6:16-27

Meditation
Oh no, Job. I know that Job fascinates the modern age. The problem of evil and all, but gracefully it has never vexed me. It is a fallen world. The standard answer of we see through a glass darkly has always seemed both true and humble. I will be reading Job, but not commenting on it. I’m sticking with Acts.

Philip and the Ethiopian is one of those episodes that opens a door and just never goes through it. It continues the story of Philip’s evangelization outside of Jerusalem. The church’s tradition holds that this ethiopian went and evangelized the nation. Fitting for one who went on his way rejoicing. This link takes you to the wikipedia entry for the Ethiopian church. That church by the way claims to have the ark of the covenant in the church of Our Lady Mary of Zion. That dedication would seem appropriate also as Mary held the Word in her womb, just as the Ark held the words and manna given to moses. Mary is the fulfillment which the ark forshaddowed, a vessel that carried the divine.

But that is far afield. A door opened by, but not entered by, the scriptures. What is emphasized is baptism. The response of faith is the desire to be baptised. There is always the story of Constantine who withheld baptism until close to death. The conception of baptism was a free washing of sins. Sins after baptism were more serious as your ‘get-out-of-jail-free card’ had been used. Thoughts like those border on the magical and abuse the sacrament. The ethiopian as well as every other believer recorded in the NT, if they believed immediately were baptized. The ethiopian even urges it. See, here is water! What prevents my being baptized? In the Jewish tradition there would have been something. This man was a eunuch. Deuteronomy 23:2 would have forbid him from becoming a Jew. He was still going to Jerusalem to worship, but he could never really convert. What prevents my becoming a Christian? He was surely expecting a answer. One that he knew. But Philip baptizes him. The things that separate us from God - taken away in Jesus Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek. In Christ we are made whole, no matter what the world has taken from us. The Ethiopian had the faith. Nothing stands in the way. No wonder he went on his way rejoicing.

May you also go on you way rejoicing in the restoration offered through Jesus the Christ.

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