Make Room by Going

Making room sends you outside. This is where it all leads—love spilling into the world. Philip is in Samaria. Revival happening. Crowds being baptized. Success by every metric. Then an angel says: "Get up and go toward the south to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza" (v.26). A desert road. Away from the crowds. One person. Philip goes. He encounters an Ethiopian eunuch—a sexual minority, a foreigner, a Gentile, reading Isaiah but not understanding. Philip makes room: in his day (leaves the revival), in his chariot (literally climbs in with the eunuch), in his theology (baptizes someone the temple would exclude). "Look, here is water! What is to prevent me from being baptized?" (v.36) Philip: Nothing. Nothing prevents you. They go down into the water. Philip baptizes him. The Spirit snatches Philip away. The eunuch goes on his way rejoicing—and tradition says he took the Gospel to Ethiopia, becoming one of the first evangelists to Africa.