Friday, 07 October 2011

• REMEMBERING

  She sat at the front room window, her first-born with his arm about her waist munching a cookie and looking up at her face as she read.  This was a special moment for her - these times didn't come often, what with three others and a fifth one ready to pop out just any day now.   The rest of the children were at church with their dad.   Not a believer yet, she kept hoping that he would meet God soon.  The idea of attending church had come as a surprise, and since then her husband had begun "changing his life," as he put it.  How wonderful it would be when they were really one in Christ!

  The measles had side-lined her son. He'd been the last to contract them and was probably still contagious.  No use taking chances, so they would have "church" all by themselves.  This would certainly be a moment to remember...

  She began reading:

  "Now an angel of the Lord spoke to Philip, saying, “Arise and go toward the south along the road which goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” This is desert.  So he arose and went. And behold, a man of Ethiopia, a eunuch of great authority under Candace the queen of the Ethiopians, who had charge of all her treasury, and had come to Jerusalem to worship, was returning. And sitting in his chariot, he was reading Isaiah the prophet.  Then the Spirit said to Philip, “Go near and overtake this chariot.”    
   So Philip ran to him, and heard him reading the prophet Isaiah, and said, “Do you understand what you are reading?”    
   And he said, “How can I, unless someone guides me?” And he asked Philip to come up and sit with him.  The place in the Scripture which he read was this:   
  
  
        “ He was led as a sheep to the slaughter;
        And as a lamb before its shearer is silent,
        So He opened not His mouth.
         In His humiliation His justice was taken away,
        And who will declare His generation?
        For His life is taken from the earth.”
  
   So the eunuch answered Philip and said, “I ask you, of whom does the prophet say this, of himself or of some other man?”  Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning at this Scripture, preached Jesus to him.  Now as they went down the road, they came to some water. And the eunuch said, “See, here is water. What hinders me from being baptized?”    
   Then Philip said, “If you believe with all your heart, you may.”   
  And he answered and said, “I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.”
   So he commanded the chariot to stand still. And both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water, and he baptized him.  Now when they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord caught Philip away, so that the eunuch saw him no more; and he went on his way rejoicing."

  There followed a delicious silence, neither of them wanting to spoil the specialness of the moment: he, treasuring the time because this was not like any other time; she, because it was the first time she had shared something of the gospel with any of the children.   Sure, Daddy had consented to rote prayer at bedtime and saying grace at meals; but this was quite different...she would always remember... (or so she told the boy years later after he had come to faith in Christ as a young married man).

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  He sat alone on this particular Fall morning on his bed, propped up with pillows against the headboard, studying his Bible Study Fellowship lesson for the day.  "Read Acts 8:9-40 and Isaiah 53," it said.

  "He was oppressed, and he was afflicted yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent..."

  Memories poured over him like rain - or was it tears of joy?   The very same passages the his mom had read to him - the only ones she had ever read to him - were those that God brought to him (by way of a Christian sharing the gospel) by which he had seen the Father's love for him and forgiveness of his sins!   He could read no further for a time, remembering.

  "Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush him;
     he has put him to grief;
   when his soul makes an offering for guilt,
     he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days;
   the will of the LORD shall prosper in his hand. Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied;by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant,
      make many to be accounted righteous,
      and he shall bear their iniquities.
   Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many,
      and he shall divide the spoil with the strong,
  because he poured out his soul to death
     and was numbered with the transgressors;
   yet he bore the sin of many,
     and makes intercession for the transgressors. (Isaiah 53:10-13, ESV)

  "Thank You, Lord, for remembering me," he prayed.

  "Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no
    compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget
    you! ..."

   

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