Sacramental Preaching

Sermons on the Hidden Presence of Christ

Hans Boersma

• Publisher: Baker Academic
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9780801097454
• eBook ISBN: 9781493404544
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Ministry

Leading Scholar Offers a Theological Approach to Preaching

This primer on the ministry of preaching connects reading the Bible theologically with preparing and preaching sermons. Hans Boersma explains that exegesis involves looking beyond the historical and literal meaning of the text to the hidden sacramental reality of Christ himself, which enables us to reach the deepest meaning of the Scriptures. He provides models for theological sermons along with commentary on exegetical and homiletical method and explains that patristic exegesis is relevant for reading the Bible today. The book includes a foreword by Eugene H. Peterson.

1
Why Join the Chariot?

Acts 8:26–35

Acts 8:26–35

26 Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Rise and go toward the south to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” This is a desert place. 27And he rose and went. And there was an Ethiopian, a eunuch, a court official of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, who was in charge of all her treasure. He had come to Jerusalem to worship 28 and was returning, seated in his chariot, and he was reading the prophet Isaiah. 29And the Spirit said to Philip, “Go over and join this chariot.” 30 So Philip ran to him and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet and asked, “Do you understand what you are reading?” 31And he said, “How can I, unless someone guides me?” And he invited Philip to come up and sit with him. 32 Now the passage of the Scripture that he was reading was this:

“Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter

and like a lamb before its shearer is silent,

so he opens not his mouth.

33 In his humiliation justice was denied him.

Who can describe his generation?

For his life is taken away from the earth.”

34 And the eunuch said to Philip, “About whom, I ask you, does the prophet say this, about himself or about someone else?” 35 Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning with this Scripture he told him the good news about Jesus.

Sunday, July 27, 2014

Christians are people of the book. Adam and Eve, Abraham, Moses, David, Jesus, Paul—they are key figures in the book. The mere mention of their names calls to mind the things they did and the stories to which they belong. Knowing the people, knowing their stories, we nonetheless go back to them again and again. The reason is that we are deeply aware that the people of these stories aren’t buried in the rubble of history. Even today they shape our lives and give us our identity. Therefore, even today each of these characters in the biblical narrative lives on in our lives. This is why as Christians we are people of the book. This book—its people and its stories—makes us who we are.

The Ethiopian eunuch and Philip both know that the biblical stories make us who we are today. Recognizing the shaping power of the ancient Scriptures for his life, the eunuch has been reading Isaiah 53. Encouraged by the Holy Spirit, Philip soon joins him in the chariot, and together they explore how the ancient story is supposed to shape their lives. You and I too want to join the chariot. We too want to read along with the eunuch and with Philip. This morning, therefore, all of us are traveling from Jerusalem to Gaza. All of us are reading yet again the well-known Servant Song of Isaiah 53.

Why? Why join the chariot? Why doesn’t Philip just leave the Ethiopian eunuch reading on his own? And why don’t we leave these two Bible readers alone while we do our own thing without getting all hung up about this chariot? “Why join the chariot?” is the question we’re going to put front and center this morning.

The most immediate answer to the question is, of course, that we’ve been asked to join the chariot. We read in Acts 8:31 that the eunuch invites Philip to come up and sit with him. The reason for the invitation is that the eunuch needs Philip to explain to him what is going on in the Bible passage that he’s reading. All by himself, the eunuch doesn’t get it. “Do you understand what you are reading?” Philip asks (8:30). “How can I,” is the response, “unless someone guides me?” (8:31). Both Philip’s question and the eunuch’s answer are instructive. “Do you understand what you are reading?” “Understanding” and “reading” are the two key words in the question, and they are not the same. Sometimes they look as though they are the same, and in Greek the two sound almost the same: “to read” is anaginōskein, and “to understand” is ginōskein. On the surface, there is very little difference. But merely to read, to sound out the words, is not yet to understand. We all know that sometimes reading leads to mis-understanding rather than to understanding. The eunuch realizes he needs someone else with him in the chariot to guide him in understanding the Scripture.

We shouldn’t think, though, that the Bible—and we have to think here of the Old Testament—was a completely foreign book to the eunuch. We know he made the trek all the way from Ethiopia, south of Egypt, to Jerusalem, and that he was on his way back home via the coastal city of Gaza. The reason for his long journey up to Jerusalem, we read, was to worship (8:27). This prominent official at the court of Candace, the Ethiopian queen, worshiped the God of the Jews. We don’t know exactly what caused this remarkable situation—the Ethiopian minister of finance worshiping the God of Israel. One way or another, however, this man came under the spell of the stories of Israel’s people. They shaped him. They made him into a different person. They formed his identity. Somehow, I suspect, this was not the first time this man read Isaiah 53.

Yet he remains puzzled—something that no doubt bothers him. He wants not just to read but also to understand, for he knows from experience—especially from his conversion to the God of Israel—that reading with understanding will allow him to become the person he is meant to be. Confronted with Philip’s question, he therefore readily acknowledges that he doesn’t get the meaning of the passage: “How can I, unless someone guides me?” The eunuch’s deepest desire is that these words from God would chisel and mold him.

In a remarkable way, God enters into this spiritual journey. The event is marked both beginning and end by God’s activity: in the beginning, Acts 8:26, “Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, ‘Rise and go toward the south,’” and also verse 29, “The Spirit said to Philip, ‘Go over and join this chariot’”; in the end, verse 39, “the Spirit of the Lord carried Philip away, and the eunuch saw him no more, and went on his way rejoicing.” It is an angel of the Lord, and it is the Spirit of the Lord, who enter into this man’s search for God and ensure that Philip joins the chariot. In a real sense, it isn’t just Philip, but it is the Lord himself who joins the chariot. He doesn’t leave us traveling on our own when, hearts burning, we read the stories yet again.

Luke wants us to note that it is the Lord who meets up with the eunuch in his chariot. After all, the ascended Lord himself is on a mission and has been on a mission since the beginning of the story. In Acts 1:1, Luke tells us that in his first book, his Gospel, he “dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach.” If Luke’s Gospel tells us what Jesus begins to do and teach, then the implication is that the book of Acts tells us what Jesus continues to do and teach. He may have ascended into heaven, but Jesus is still doing things and teaching things. He pours out his Spirit in Acts 2, and it is the Spirit of the Lord who from that moment directs the mission, beginning at Jerusalem and moving from there via Judea and Samaria “to the end of the earth” (1:8). The Ethiopian eunuch’s story, then, is part of a larger narrative. With persecution scattering the church from Jerusalem “throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria” (8:1), Philip, one of the seven appointed as deacon back in chapter 6, “went down to the city of Samaria” to preach the word (8:4–5). Thanks to Philip’s work, “many villages of the Samaritans” had the gospel preached to them, we read in 8:25.

What’s happening in our passage is that the Spirit of the ascended Lord is telling Philip to keep the mission going. When the eunuch becomes a disciple of Jesus, for the first time in the story, the gospel moves past the boundaries of Judea and Samaria into gentile territory.

This mission, on the forefront of our minds, shapes the way we read the story of the Ethiopian eunuch. It guides us as we move from reading to understanding. Later tradition fills us in on some of the details of this story. It reports that the eunuch’s name was Indich. Once back in Ethiopia, Indich preached the gospel and converted Queen Candace and many other people to the Christian faith.1 Much of this story is probably apocryphal. But it nonetheless reminds us of something important. The book of Acts is about mission. Philip is a link in that mission. The eunuch too is a link in that mission. Everyone who joins the chariot becomes a link in that mission. The links continue, just as the mission continues. These missional links make up a long tradition. After all, we still read the Scriptures; we still read Isaiah 53. One way to read the Scriptures well—to move from anaginōskein to ginōskein, from reading to understanding—is to ask, how does our reading fit our mission?

If still today our Lord is on a mission—if still today he uses the same Scriptures to pass on the good news—then that mission is our mission, and much like the eunuch and much like Philip, we learn to read the Bible in a way that serves the mission. To understand the Bible’s meaning well, it’s crucial to know its purpose. Its purpose is missional. After all, we’re reading the Bible on our journey, traveling together in the chariot. The characters of the biblical story—Adam and Eve, Abraham, Moses, David, Jesus, Paul (and also Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch!)—do not lie buried in the rubble of history. They continue to help us on our journey. They still guide us on our mission. Whatever other reasons we may have to read the Bible, the overall purpose is always this: to join the mission of our Lord.

To join the chariot is not only to join the mission of Christ; it is also to join the church of Christ. Again, this is of central importance to Luke. The Feast of Pentecost in Acts 2 is also the feast of the beginning of the church. It is when the twelve apostles are “all together in one place” (2:1) that the Spirit is poured out. The entire book of Acts is about the church. It’s about the church’s origin. It’s about the church’s growth. It’s about the church’s mission. The church is the context, the framework, within which we read the Bible. So the eunuch’s response, “How can I [understand], unless someone guides me?” (8:30), implies that we need the church’s guidance to read the biblical story well.

The eunuch knows he’ll never figure out the meaning of Isaiah 53 as long as he’s alone in the chariot. He needs Philip, led by and filled with the Spirit of God, with him in the chariot. Philip—or we could perhaps say the chariot—stands for the church. Reading together in the chariot means that we read the Bible in line with the way the church has read it in the past. Bible reading has to do with both the future and the past. We have already seen how the Bible takes us to the future, that Bible reading is missional in purpose and direction, and that the end point is the gospel being preached to the ends of the earth. But the Bible also takes us to the past. Reading the Bible makes us want to stand in line with the eunuch, with Philip, and with all the others who follow in that long chain, that long tradition of Bible readers—all those people who joined the chariot long before you and I did.

We don’t like others telling us what to do. We are a fiercely independent lot. But if we want to move from reading to understanding, from anaginōskein to ginōskein, then we need to recognize that our reading of the Bible happens between the future, the mission of the church, and the past, the tradition of the church. And in our reading, we are bound to both. We can’t understand the Bible properly if we forget the missional purpose of reading. Neither is it possible to get the fullness of what Scripture means if we go it alone without the guidance of Bible readers who have gone before us.

Reading the Bible is kind of like playing jazz piano. There’s a lot of freedom in how you go about it and a great deal of creativity in your own performance. But as every jazz pianist knows, when you refuse to play by the basic ground rules of the musical tradition, or when you’re unfamiliar with the skills involved in playing jazz, the result will be people closing their ears as soon as you put your fingers to the keys. Playing jazz implies that you have learned to take your place within the bounds of the proper rules for playing jazz. Reading the Bible is similar. It implies that we have learned to take our place within the long tradition of the church and that we read the Bible in line with the way others in the church have read it before us. To understand the Bible, we need to take our place inside the chariot.

There’s one final point. So far, I’ve talked about mission as the future purpose of our reading, and I’ve spoken of tradition as the past starting point for our reading. But we haven’t done the actual reading yet. Sure, we’ve perused Acts 8 in some detail, but we haven’t yet looked at Isaiah 53. And that’s the passage Philip is explaining to the eunuch in the chariot.

Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter

and like a lamb before its shearer is silent,

so he opens not his mouth.

In his humiliation justice was denied him.

Who can describe his generation?

For his life is taken away from the earth.

(Isaiah 53:7...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Epigraph
• Contents
• Foreword
• Preface
• Introduction
• 1. Why Join the Chariot?
• Part 1: Sensed Happiness
• Part 2: Pilgrim Happiness
• Part 3: Heavenly Happiness
• Part 4: Unveiled Happiness
• Epilogue
• Subject Index
• Scripture Index
• Back Cover