Holy Spirit Nudges
(Today's passage comes from Isaiah 53:7-8. I have prepared an imaginative reading of when this passage was used in the New Testament: Acts 8)
Dear Friends,
I was sitting in Bartholomew’s home, twenty of us crammed into the living space while sunlight flooded in through the open door. Even though there was great persecution against Christians, we still met together. My back was against a wall while comfortably resting my head, my arms wrapped around my knees and my long skirt wrapped around my feet. I closed my eyes as Bartholomew lovingly recounted when Jesus made his way into Jerusalem for the last time, sitting on a colt. I could hear sadness mixed with regret in Bartholomew’s voice. He understood the greater purpose but still wished he had intervened somehow.
I love hearing stories of Jesus—I wish I could have met him like the first disciples. But I meet him every day when hearing the scriptures read. I meet him in Isaiah and Jeremiah—every story in God’s Word whispers the name of Jesus. I couldn’t see it before but now it’s all I can see.
My eyes flew open as Philip bounded into the room with a cloud of dust from his journey—sunlight made dust sparkle like levitating gold flakes. I sat up, startled, as Philip loudly greeted us with excitement in his voice. He started telling us about what he had just witnessed on a dry wilderness road where nothing ever happens. He had felt God nudge him to take this empty and lonely road and he wasn’t sure why, but he obediently set forth in the wilderness. Along the way he saw a beautiful, Ethiopian man dressed in fine clothes and riding in a chariot and reading from a scroll. Philip said he felt God’s nudge again so he approached this man on a dry wilderness road where nothing ever happens.
Philip asked the man if he understood what he was reading and the man was like, “It’s actually pretty confusing—will you give me some context?” So Philip hopped up next to the man, who turned out to be an important person for the Ethiopian queen, and they read Isaiah 53:7-8:
He was oppressed and afflicted,
yet he did not open his mouth;
he was led like a lamb to the slaughter,
and as a sheep before its shearers is silent,
so he did not open his mouth.
By oppression and judgment he was taken away.
Yet who of his generation protested?
For he was cut off from the land of the living
for the transgression of my people he was punished.
My mouth gaped as we had just found Jesus in this same passage this morning with Bartholomew’s teaching. But what Philip said next opened up the vastness of God’s love even greater, because Philip was one of Jesus’s best friends so he must know what God was like. Philip told this Ethiopian man, a sexually ambiguous person desperate for Jesus Christ, that God’s love extends to all people through Jesus’s death and resurrection and, even in a wilderness road where nothing ever happens, everlasting life breaks through the dryness.
Because Philip had no agenda besides God’s nudges, Philip and this man traveled together talked for a long time. I sat mesmerized by Philip’s story as he continued on describing each detail. They rounded a corner in that dry wilderness road when Philip said he could see leafy trees and long, leggy grasses up ahead. They knew there was water nearby, beaconing them to leave the chariot and rest their souls for a minute. With water lapping their sandaled feet, they both stepped further in—refreshing life dancing along their legs. With a bright smile, he turned to Philip and said, “Friend! Here’s water and I’m ready. Can you think of anything about me or my life that could keep me from being baptized? Is there anything that makes me a lesser member of God’s family through Jesus Christ?”
With joy and honor, Philip told us that he held his new friend and brother’s head, dipping him under the water of his death and bringing him forth into new life, even on a wilderness road where nothing ever happens.
My eyes welled with tears at the picture of this man, my new brother who I would probably never meet, welcomed into this new family just as I had been…
My friends, even in a wilderness of loss and lack where nothing amazing ever seems to happen, God might nudge you towards some water. God might nudge you to open your eyes and pay attention because there’s life and beauty and welcome for all.
Get ready! A small and seemingly insignificant nudge in your wilderness of loss and lack could have huge kin-dom potential. May you lean into those nudges and respond with the same obedient joy as our brother, Philip, even in a wilderness.
With (love),
Bethany