“Have You Found Christ? Then Go On Your Way Rejoicing!”

“Have You Found Christ? Then Go On Your Way Rejoicing!”
Our reflection today concerns the first African baptized follower of Jesus Christ. He was also the founder of the first Christian community (church) in Africa. We are talking of the Ethiopian eunuch, “an important official in charge of all the treasury of Candace, the queen of the Ethiopians.”
The spiritual life of this nameless official only confirms what St. Augustine of Hippo, another great African convert wrote some years later. “Our hearts are restless, until they can find rest in you…” The eunuch’s heart was restless in his African traditional religion. Within his spirit was that urge to search God. His conversion to Christ happened when he was returning from Jerusalem where he had gone to worship. He was a convert to Judaism- a proselyte or Gentile God-fearer.
He was wealthy, powerful and influential; yet he was a humiliated person! Like Jesus he suffered humiliation and he was deprived of justice. He was a eunuch, most probably against his choice. He was castrated, so there was none to speak of his descendants. His life was taken from the earth, even though he was still living.
Most likely his interest in the passage of Isaiah was because he saw himself in the passage. That is why he was eager to find out from Philip, “Who is the prophet talking about, himself or someone else?” How he secretly wished he was the someone else!
When Philip told him the passage was about Jesus Christ, he could easily relate with Jesus Christ because they shared the same fate. Jesus died childless, he too will die childless.
He recognized in Jesus Christ the fulfilment of the restlessness of his soul. The late John S. Mbiti, another great African convert wrote in later days that when the Africans first heard the gospel it was as if it is what they had been waiting for. That is why Christianity is now an African religion because African traditional religion was anonymous Christianity.
Yes, the eunuch saw in Christ Jesus what he had been waiting for! That is why at the first opportunity of water, he asked Philip to baptize him. And after his baptism he “went on his way rejoicing”(Acts.8:26-39).
He went rejoicing because he had found fulfilment in his heart and life. He spread the good news to his people and founded the first Christian community in Africa.
My friend, have you heard the good news? Have you found rest in your heart and for your soul? Go on your way rejoicing for what the Lord has done. Tell it to the next persons so that they too can come to that place of rest.
Prayer: Lord Jesus Christ I rejoice because my soul has found rest in you. Holy Spirit inspire me to spread the good news to others. Amen!
Have a blessed day! Peace be with you!
Babila Fochang.