What is Love?

[Our readings were Acts 8:26-40; Psalm 22:24-30; 1 John 4:7-21; and John 15:1-8.]

One of the things we see in our readings from Acts every Easter is that the Holy Spirit is unpredictable. Today we hear the story of Philip being sent on the wilderness road to Gaza where he encounters the Ethiopian eunuch.

We never learn the name of the Ethiopian eunuch. We learn that he is a court official—the treasurer—of the Queen of the Ethiopians. He appears to be a “God-fearer”, a person who had been exposed to the Hebrew Scriptures, but who was not a full member of the people of Israel. He was barred from full membership by his nationality and his being a eunuch, since Deuteronomy barred eunuchs from “the assembly of the Lord.”

So this powerful court official has been to Jerusalem to worship, where he would have been barred from the Temple. He clearly has wealth, because he has a copy of Isaiah, and wealth was a requirement for that in those pre-printing days. He has education, because he can read it, probably in Greek. So he is an exceptional man of those times, yet he has been barred from the Temple.

This story has a sense of urgency about it. The angel tells Philip to “get up and go” and he does: “he got up and went.” The Spirit tells Philip to go over to the chariot and Philip runs. When the eunuch has been baptized and, presumably Philip’s work there is done, the Spirit snatches Philip away, and “the eunuch saw him no more.”

The part of Isaiah which the eunuch was reading was what we often refer to as the words of the second Isaiah, an unnamed prophet who came several centuries after Isaiah, but whose words have been included with his. It’s probably no coincidence that the second Isaiah also promises that eunuchs who keep the Sabbath will be welcome in the house of God.

This excerpt is one of the “suffering servant” passages which moves the eunuch to ask if the prophet was referring to himself or to someone else. It’s as if he is asking, “Is this only about Isaiah and his time or is it about me as well? Is this God’s word to someone else, back then, or does it speak to me, today?”

God’s Word is never merely about “back then.” It always speaks to us, this day, in this place and these circumstances. When Philip shows the eunuch how, to use Jesus’ words from Luke, “this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing,” it is better news than the eunuch could have imagined. Not only did God understand the humiliation and outcast status of the eunuch, God had experienced humiliation and ostracism as Jesus! And in Jesus—the “sheep led to the slaughter”—shame and suffering is transformed into a story of redemption and hope.

“What is to prevent me from being baptized?” What would bar the eunuch from full membership in the Body of Christ? We can think of many things that could have been raised—his nationality, his sexual status are only starters. Perhaps his race might have been an issue. If someone were to ask us that question today, what would be our answer? The Spirit’s answer obviously was “Nothing! Absolutely nothing!” Another human who has felt lost and humiliated is found and restored and goes on his way rejoicing.

Philip’s actions show God’s love. Our reading from John’s letter is a paean to Christian love. One problem we have is that we use the English word “love” for concepts which other languages have different words. John uses the Greek word agapē—love that gives without expecting a return. He addresses those to whom he writes as agapētoi, or “Beloved.” God is agapē; Jesus died for us as an act of agapē and we ought to agapē one another.

This love is not a warm feeling, it exists in action or it doesn’t exist at all. If we love God, we must love each other, or, as John says, we are liars. If we do not love—if we do not act in love!—to our brothers and sisters in this world, how can we claim to love our “God whom we have not seen”?