It Only Takes a Spark

It Only Takes a Spark

Sunday, July 11, 2021

We were sitting down to dinner in the quietness of our home when someone came pounding on the front door. “Your garbage is on fire,” she shouted, pointing to my leaf bags out at the street. “Drat,” I said to myself. “Not again."

It happened to me once before, in the back yard. I had cleaned some ashes out of our little, raised fire pit and put them, along with some weeds, in a leaf bag. The fire had gone out the night before. Some time later, I saw my leaf bag smoking and had to tear it apart in order to douse the ashes. The second time, I had waited longer. There had been a little rain. No signs of life. And this time, the leaf bag of weeds and a dash of ash made it out to the front curb.

There’s an old ’70’s song from church youth groups that went, “It only takes a spark to get a fire going; And soon those all around can warm up in its glowing.” That’s the song that came to mind when the people came to the front door.

The song goes on to say, “That’s how it is with God’s love.” It only takes a spark, and then it spreads. The story of the Ethiopian eunuch traveling home to Africa from Jerusalem is a great, Biblical example of this. We don’t know why he was in Jerusalem at the time of Pentecost. He could have been a God-fearer, as Gentile worshippers were called, visiting during one of the great feasts. Perhaps he was there on king’s business. But he was going home with a portion of Scripture open in his lap - the book of Isaiah.

Philip, one of the Jerusalem church’s early deacons, was transported by the Spirit to visit the eunuch. He explained the Scriptures, showing that Jesus would be the One who would fulfill the sin-bearing described in Isaiah 53. And the eunuch placed faith in Jesus.

A eunuch is one who has been castrated, oftentimes in relation to service in a royal household. He had no hope of having children, a family, or a heritage. Except that God said: “Don’t let the eunuchs say, ‘I’m a dried-up tree with no children and no future.’ For this is what the LORD says: .. I will give them—within the walls of my house—a memorial and a name far greater than sons and daughters could give. For the name I give them is an everlasting one. It will never disappear!” (Isa. 56:3–5 NLT).

And so the Gospel came to Africa. It only takes a spark.