At just the right time…

…when all is set

January 12, 2025

Scripture: Acts 8:14-17

The storyline of the book of Acts is the story of the birth and early growth of the church. Centered in and around Jerusalem it tells wonderful tales of how the Holy Spirit was active in forming a close, tight-knit community that would be able to endure hardship, rejection, and persecution even up unto the present day. Shortly after Acts begins however, we are introduced to the resistance from main-line Temple-based Judaism that had risen up against the followers of Jesus.

In Chapter 6 we hear of a man named Stephen who was a devout follower and preacher of the word. He was arrested and put on trial for his faith in Jesus and sentenced to die by stoning for his heretical views. As he was stoned to death the cloaks of all those participating in the killing itself were left in the care of a young Jew by the name of Saul.  The scriptural account goes on to note that this ‘Saul’ approved of the killing…which as I have noted in the past, seems like a small insignificant detail, but do not dismiss it lightly as every similar detail I have found over the years ultimately proves out to have been quite significant indeed!

Now you may remember that this same young man named Saul went on from there to engage in a horrific round of persecutions aimed at the fledgling Christian movement…a persecution so intense that it scattered the followers of Jesus throughout Judea and Samaria. The only ones who remained in Jerusalem were the original apostles, as everyone else was driven out in the face of Saul’s terrible campaign to eradicate the Christian faith. And, as you may remember as well, Saul would later be blinded by the Holy Spirit and converted to Christianity on the road to Damascus, which was when he took the name of Paul…yes the Apostle Paul. But during the time of today’s reading he was the church’s primary threat.

Now one of those driven out of Jerusalem was a devout believer named Philip. Philip was a close follower of Jesus and a strong and effective preacher. After fleeing Jerusalem, he ended up in Samaria and preached throughout that region with great power, his ministry being accompanied by many signs of God’s grace and favor. As such, many people began to follow after him as they witnessed the great wonders resulting from his proclamation of this new faith in Jesus of Nazareth as the Risen Christ. Through his preaching and teaching people were freed from unclean spirits and given a whole new lease on life. Others who had been paralyzed or lame were made whole through the power of his preaching by the grace of God.

And so it was not long before word reached the Apostles still remaining in Jerusalem that this man Philip was having great success preaching the Good News in Samaria. Now you may recall hearing of Samaria and of the Samaritans in other places in the gospel accounts…perhaps in the story of the Good Samaritan…or in the story of the woman Jesus met beside Jacob’s well in Samaria from whom he requested a drink of water. In either case, it is clear throughout all accounts that there was a long-running rivalry between the Temple-based Jews of Jerusalem, and those Jews in the region of Samaria to the north and east. Historically there was deep resentment of the Samaritans on the part of mainstream Judaism ever since the region of Samaria had been overrun and conquered by the Assyrians. This resentment was based on the fact that the Jews in Samaria had intermarried with their Assyrian invaders over time and had given birth to children who, by Jerusalem’s estimation, were unclean, impure, and therefore, not welcome or even allowed in the Temple.

Considered inferior due to their mixed bloodline, the Samaritans were regarded with disgust and contempt if they were regarded at all. They believed in the same God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but as a result of their long separation from Jerusalem, other aspects of their worship had become decidedly different.

So I imagine it was with a mixture of unbelief and even deep concern that the message coming back to the Apostles in Jerusalem claimed that Samaria had somehow come to believe in the message of Jesus…in their Jesus. So as soon as they received word that God’s word was being preached with great success and power by Philip over in Samaria, a decision was made to send Peter and John to check out what was going on, and then to report back to the rest of the church leadership. And it is here that our short reading for today picks up the story line.

Upon arriving in Samaria the two found out that there was indeed great belief and great power at work in the preaching of Philip. It goes on to say that they also realized that the believers there had been baptized into the name of Jesus, but had not as yet received the Holy Spirit. Seeing this, Peter and John immediately laid hands on them, praying that they might also receive the Holy Spirit, and as they did so the Spirit flowed out upon the Samaritan believers in fullness and abundance. And that is all our reading tells us.

Now at first glance, it might seem as though there must have been something deficient in Philip’s ministry to account for this strange absence of the Holy Spirit…or that perhaps being baptized solely into the name of Jesus, was somehow not sufficient. Surely there had been great signs and wonders accompanying Philip’s work in the region so it seems as though the Lord was indeed blessing his work there. Why then did it take a visit from two of the apostolic heavyweights from Jerusalem for the Holy Spirit to begin to flow into the hearts and minds of the Samaritan believers? Why did the Spirit only seem to show up after Peter and John got there?

And it is here that I found the title for today’s message. As a matter of fact it was mentioned last week in one of the ‘demon-wannabe’ sketches in the play when one of the young demons complained that the Spirit seemed to have been preparing and laying spiritual groundwork beforehand…seemingly far in advance of the actual need for the Spirit to be involved.

So, it seems that perhaps the Lord was reaching out and teaching on multiple levels within our reading today. One lesson, for the Jews in Jerusalem was that God’s salvation and the Good News was not exclusively their own…and that even those whom they considered as greatly inferior, and in fact ‘untouchable’…those who were unclean and of impure, mixed race were granted the same level of God’s favor. Even Samaritans were given the same wondrous gifts as the original converts and believers who were considered ‘proper’ Jews.

But the opposite is also true I think, for the Samaritans had their own share of feeling a bit superior, like they were the ones who actually had it all right…much as we heard in the back and forth between Jesus and the woman at the well. They too needed to learn that the movement of God, the new thing that was happening in their midst was not just for a few, but for all of humanity, including ‘proper’ Temple Jews, Samaritan Jews, and even non-Jew gentiles as the succeeding chapters of Acts made clear through the ministry of Paul. Both the Christian Jews in Jerusalem, as well as those in Samaria needed to realize that a new and profound unity was being called for by the Lord.

There was a need for unity, for there was division amongst the people of God that was not in the Lord’s plan, and so therefore, the Holy Spirit showed up…at just the right time, and when all was set! The Spirit came to the party at just the right moment…just when doing so would have had the most impact…just when all those involved in our story were in fact ready and prepared to learn the lessons that had been prepared for them. 

The Holy Spirit came to Samaria as proof that the movement of God through the life, ministry, and message of the Risen Christ was in fact a movement for all of humankind. By coming to Samaria through the laid upon praying hands of Peter and John, our Lord demonstrated to all that the newly birthed church in Jerusalem was expanding and growing out towards all the ends of the earth.

And that…still goes on. The Spirit still shows up and makes its presence known and felt at just the right time…and…at the time when those who need to hear it or to learn from it, are ready to do so. This was true two thousand years ago in Samaria, and is just as true today. Aside from the Spirit’s constant indwelling presence in the lives of those who know God, the Spirit ‘shows up’, in ways the whole body can see and witness, and, at times of our Lord’s choosing.

Truly it is hard to say or to predict when that will be…especially when it is in places we do not expect, or in ways and through individuals we do not expect it. For honestly, don’t we all have our own Samaria’s, our own limits to some extent on how we believe and expect God will act? However, as evidenced by the seismic shift in the church that was revealed in our reading, God has never been one to be constrained or limited by our expectations. Whenever the Lord wants to teach or to share, it is going to happen through the agency of the Holy Spirit. That Spirit which is alive and still very active within the assembly of God’s people and within the gathering of any who are willing to dare to dream of a God whose love and grace is limited only by our imagination and willingness to believe.

There are many who say that in some sense God has ‘left the church’. And I can understand that sentiment for I have seen much evidence to support it in the tired and weary ways many people of faith continue to live out a gospel of exhaustion and limited hope. However, God is still alive and active and the Spirit still searches for ways in which to share the amazing grace of God’s love with any who are willing to believe in it…with anyone looking for a way forward that is not dominated by the dreary drone of the world’s dire and hopeless predictions.

You just never know when the Spirit will choose to insert itself into the middle of our life together…but I can assure you that it will be at just the right time.  In fact, when you least expect it, there will be that moment of grace, that moment of clarity when you know deep within that you have felt the brush of God’s Spirit as it passed close by to your heart.  Moments that I believe are more frequent than we can imagine…

…for I have seen the Spirit of the Lord at work…in the deep faith of fellow travelers, in the grace of impromptu visits or offers of help which were wholly unexpected and yet so needed…in moments of sharing that rekindle hope and offer new energy to keep on keepin’ on, and in the sincere and voiced commitment on the part of all of us to push on towards greater light and greater love to be offered to others. I have heard and I have seen the Lord at work among us, and I have no doubt that, as it always has been in the past, the Spirit will continue to show up at just the right time, in just the right place, and in a measure most loving and true.

God is here…the Spirit is alive and active amongst us…let us imagine together the wonders we have yet to see…for when you least expect it…the Spirit will show up! 

…amen