Good news...for all

A newspaper article based on research by CASPER (Community Action on Suicide Prevention, Education and Research) noted that during the 2011 Rugby World Cup, suicides in New Zealand had almost ceased. The organisation concluded that the reason there were less suicides during that time was because the competition had created ‘social cohesion’.

The Rugby World Cup gave something to belong to that was bigger than themselves. People were united with others in supporting their team, and New Zealanders came together as proud Kiwis. As a result, people felt less isolated and more positive, which meant less people felt suicidal.

The really fascinating aspect of this research is that the same trend was seen after the Christchurch earthquakes, London bombings and 9/11 terrorist attacks. In these terribly depressing times, the rate of suicide also decreased. This is because both positive and negative events can create social cohesion. Tragedies also bring communities together. They cause people to look after each other and share what they have. They cause people to care.

CASPER call this phenomenon ‘social cohesion’, but African people would give it another name: ‘ubuntu’. This word is hard to define in English. Ubuntu is a philosophy that encompasses humanity toward others: community, kindness, belonging and acceptance. But it’s much bigger than that. In western culture, we overemphasise the individual. We say, ‘I am who I am. I’m a strong, self-made, independent person.’ But ubuntu flies in the face of that. The spirit of ubuntu says, ‘I am who I am, because we are who we are.’

Ubuntu says we are all connected to each other. We are part of something bigger than just ourselves. When I affirm my own humanity, I acknowledge the humanity in someone else. And therefore, when I fail to acknowledge the humanity in someone else—when I diminish another human being—I diminish myself, because we are all connected. I am who I am, because we are who we are.

And who are we? We are human beings. We are all just human beings, made in the image of God.

The Ethiopian eunuch

God didn’t make us to live in isolation. From the very beginning, God saw that it wasn’t good for Adam to be on his own. God knew Adam needed company. Humans are social beings. We long for social cohesion. But how do we get it? Surely, we don’t just sit round and wait for another sporting event or disaster to take place? Hold that thought—we’ll come back to it next time. But first, here’s a story about ubuntu. At least, a story about what ubuntu looked like for an Ethiopian man a couple of thousand years ago.

This story is found in the Bible, in Acts 8:26-39. The book of Acts is really a continuation of Luke’s gospel. In Acts, Luke continues to write to Theophilis (who may have been one person or a group of people) about the good news of Jesus Christ.

Luke has a specific purpose in writing. He was most likely Greek, and Theophilis was also a Greek. Why does their nationality matter? It’s because if they’re Greek, they’re not Jewish. Acts is a book written by someone who is outside of God’s chosen race, to another person who is outside of God’s chosen race. Perhaps this is why Luke, more than any other gospel writer, includes accounts of women, the poor, outcasts and non-Jews in his writings. These were the people whom the Jews didn’t consider all that important.

I think Luke’s purpose in writing was to say, ‘Hey, Theophilis, if the good news of Jesus was for all these foreigners, social rejects and even for women (who’d have thought it?!) then it can be for you too!’ Luke is writing to say that all those barriers the Jews used to keep people on the outside; they aren’t barriers anymore. The story Luke recounts of the Ethiopian helped drive this point home: that the good news of Jesus was for all people.

Good news travels

The account of the Ethiopian comes at a crucial point in Acts. Before Jesus ascended to Heaven, he said to the disciples (Acts 1:8) that they would be his witnesses: 1) In Jerusalem, and in all Judea; 2) In Samaria; and 3) To the ends of the earth.

We could interpret this to mean they would witness: 1) Where they were—the place that was home and where they were most comfortable; 2) A bit further afield—where they were uncomfortable and to people they didn’t really like or understand very much; and

3) Everywhere else—to the furthest places imaginable and to peoples they had never heard of.

The ‘furthest place imaginable’ is how Luke’s original audience thought of Ethiopia. It was so far away that Ethiopia was considered to be the end of the earth.

Acts 8:26-39 begins to lead us into part three of Acts, when the story of Jesus extended beyond Israel and Samaria to reach the ends of the earth. This happened as early believers encountered people like this Ethiopian man, who then took the message of Jesus home.

Here is what we know about this man. Luke tells us he was an Ethiopian eunuch, an important official in charge of the treasury of the Kandake, which means ‘queen mother’. The Ethiopians believed their king to be an incarnation of the sun god. This meant he was too holy to do any of the actual work of ruling, so his mother ruled for him. That made her an incredibly powerful woman, which put the Ethiopian eunuch in a very powerful position as her minister of finance.

It will seem bizarre to us today, but to hold such a role in Ethiopia back then, it was usual to be castrated. This ensured that the one who held this important position would have no wife or family of their own, and so would be fully devoted to the royal family for their entire life.

When we meet the Ethiopian eunuch, he is on his way home from Jerusalem, sitting in his chariot and reading the book of Isaiah the prophet. But why had he gone to Jerusalem? Luke tells us the Ethiopian had gone to worship, which is interesting. Only one God had a temple in Jerusalem—Yahweh, the God of the Jews. So why was this man, an Ethiopian, wanting to worship the Jewish God? Was it because there a special festival on? Was he just a little curious? Had something about the morality, calmness and wisdom of the Jewish religion attracted him?

Given that he was reading the Old Testament book of Isaiah, it seems the Ethiopian was more than just a little curious. He was a serious inquirer. Not only had he come an incredibly long way to worship, he had gone to the trouble of getting himself the book of Isaiah. This wasn’t a ‘book’ as we know it today; it was a scroll. Big, rare and expensive. The Ethiopian eunuch had likely gone to considerable expense to acquire this scroll, and now he was reading it aloud (as was the custom) and wondering what it was all about.

Sent by God

Meanwhile, Philip, a disciple and leader in the early Christian church, was directed by God to do the strangest thing. An angel had told him, ‘Go south to the road—the desert road—that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.’

So Philip has headed to a road, but a road that goes nowhere. Gaza had been destroyed 100 years earlier and would only be rebuilt 30 years after this event. Remember, this was a time when the good news was spreading quickly throughout the world. It would have made more sense for God to send Philip to a big city where he could preach to lots of people at once. Gaza was a ghost town. So why head there? It didn’t make a lot of sense. But Philip did as the angel asked.

While walking along the road, Philip is directed by the Holy Spirit to stay near a chariot. And from that chariot, he hears an accented voice reading familiar words. It is the voice of an Ethiopian eunuch reading words by the prophet Isaiah.

‘Do you understand what you are reading?’ Philip asked. ‘How can I,’ he said, ‘unless someone explains it to me?’ So he invited Philip to come up and sit with him. This is the passage of Scripture the eunuch was reading [Isaiah 53:7-8]: ‘He was led like a sheep to the slaughter, and as a lamb before its shearer is silent, so he did not open his mouth. In his humiliation he was deprived of justice. Who can speak of his descendants? For his life was taken from the earth.’ The eunuch asked Philip, ‘Tell me, please, who is the prophet talking about, himself or someone else?’

The Ethiopian was eager to know: ‘Who suffered like this? Who was humiliated and deprived of justice? Who had no descendants?’

Presumably, the eunuch was reading Isaiah in order; in which case, just before Philip came across him, he would have read the opening verses of Isaiah 53. These verses (53:2-6) would have made him even more curious as to the identity of this man, whom Isaiah describes as someone who:

… had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem. Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.

Good news for the outcast

I think there’s a good reason the Ethiopian wanted to know the identity of the one Isaiah describes. It’s because he could relate to him. The Ethiopian eunuch knew what it was no have no descendants. He knew what it was to be humiliated and suffer. In fact, I think he’d been humiliated and rejected recently. Remember what the eunuch had been doing? He had gone to Jerusalem to worship. But here’s the thing—he would never have been allowed to worship. He would never have even got through the door. Because he was Ethiopian.

Wrong race, sorry. Not one of God’s chosen people. The temple had barriers—literal walls—around it to keep the wrong people out. Any ‘Gentile’ (non-Jew) who went beyond the Gentile court could be put to death. Later, in Acts 21, when Paul entered the temple with a Greek man, a riot broke out. Non-Jews could go to one point. Jewish women could go to another. But if you weren’t a Jewish man, you remained on the outside.

Men from other races did sometimes convert and become proselytes. That was a second-class kind of admission. But in the case of this Ethiopian, he would never have been accepted as a proselyte, because he was a eunuch. Jewish law made this clear. Deuteronomy 23:1 declares, ‘If a man’s testicles are crushed or his penis is cut off, he may not be admitted to the assembly of the Lord.’ This man had a permanent defect that left him cut off from God’s people. He would have been turned away—disqualified from worship. The Ethiopian eunuch did not belong. His race and physical defect left him outside the worshipping community.

Did he feel humiliated, rejected? Did he know that would happen when he reached the temple? Did he feel isolated in everyday life? Everyone else had wives and kids, but not him. Other men hung out together, but he was never going to be ‘just one of the guys’. Eunuchs often ended up identifying more with women. They became more feminine and often dressed as women. But he wasn’t a woman either. So where did he belong when he didn’t fit the usual boxes?

Isaiah’s words about one who was humiliated and rejected found their home in the man’s heart. Philip told him that the one Isaiah was describing was Jesus. Jesus was the one ‘pierced for our transgressions’ and ‘crushed for our iniquities’. Jesus was the one whose ‘punishment … brought us peace … and by his wounds we are healed’.

But just who was the ‘our’, the ‘us’ and the ‘we’ able to experience this healing and peace? The answer to this question is that the good news of Jesus extends to all people.

Ubuntu, as experienced by the Ethiopian, was that God’s offer of salvation was not just for one people group. Because of Jesus, the offer of salvation was freely available to the Ethiopian eunuch, just as it was to Luke and his fellow Greeks.

By Carla Lindsey (abridged from War Cry 13 July 2013, p12-13)