Acts 12:1-19 – This Stuff Really Works!
We say that prayer changes things. We say that prayer works. We say that prayer is powerful. So why are we surprised when things happen because we prayed about them?
This Bible passage is a perfect example of people being surprised by the power of prayer. It would be comical, if their reactions weren’t part of a powerful story. It begins with Herod’s decision to crack down on this troublesome group that had just started to call themselves “Christians” (11:26). Names are powerful. Up to this point they were simply Jews who had taken up this novel idea that Jesus was the Messiah. Now, with a name to identify themselves, they were becoming a movement of their own. They were still part of the overall Jewish community, but they saw themselves as distinct. Distinct means different, and different can mean conflict. Herod knew (or thought he knew) that they were a minority, and that if he wanted to stay in the good graces of the majority, he should crack down on them. He needed to pick his side in the conflict, so he went with what he thought would be the winning side. Too bad for him, this and other decisions would lead to his death before the end of the chapter. But that’s another story.
The best way to cut this Christian movement short was to decapitate it: get rid of its leaders. Even during the life of Jesus, Peter, Andrew, James, and John were the main leaders. Eventually James, the half-brother of Jesus, would become the head of the church in Jerusalem. But that time hadn’t come yet. So Herod’s goons swooped in and killed James (the brother of John, one of the four chief disciples). When he saw that his ratings went up in the polls because of this, Herod went on to arrest Peter, probably the most visible and powerful leader of this Christian group. Pretty much everyone knew where this was going: Peter would go through a show trial in order to make his fate public, and then he’d join James in martyrdom.
Herod didn’t want to leave anything to chance. These Christian weren’t particularly violent, as the Zealots were. But you never know what they might do in desperation. So Herod arranged for Peter to be held in prison with four squads of soldiers, with four soldiers per squad (a total of sixteen soldiers) to guard him. In each squad of soldiers, one soldier was to take one of the watches throughout the night, so that at least one soldier per squad would be awake at all times. Perhaps Herod didn’t think his soldiers were as disciplined as the Roman soldiers, who would be executed for sleeping on their watch. Or maybe he was afraid of a surprise attack which could overwhelm one soldier before his companions could be roused. So he made sure that a total of four soldiers would be on guard at all times, to keep each other awake and to support each other in case of a surprise attack. Plus, twelve more soldiers would be in reserve to wake up and help at the first sign of trouble. For extra measure, Peter was chained up, so that he couldn’t be whisked out of his cell very quickly. Herod’s preparations sound pretty impressive.
So what did the church do in response? They didn’t organize a group of secret agents to sneak into the prison, James Bond-style. Verse 5 puts it quite simply: they earnestly prayed to God for Peter. That’s all.
So, in the middle of the night, an angel appeared in Peter’s cell. He was asleep, chained to the wall, with two of the four soldiers on guard on either side of him. Peter must have been a heavy sleeper, because the angel had to slap him to wake him up. As Peter awoke, his chains fell off of him, and the angel told him to gather up his things and follow him. It seemed so unreal that Peter thought he was dreaming. The soldiers guarding him didn’t notice anything that was going on. Notice that the Bible doesn’t tell us that they had fallen asleep; they simply didn’t see or hear what was happening. The angel led Peter down the hallway of the prison, past the other two soldiers who were guarding him, all the way to the heavy iron gate of the prison. Not only was the door unlocked, but it opened all by itself. Peter followed the angel for about a block down the street, when the angel suddenly disappeared. It was only then that Peter snapped out of his dreamy surreal feeling and realized that it was all real. He was out of prison. God had done the amazing, the impossible. Despite all the best preparations that Herod could make, Peter simply walked straight out of his clutches. When it comes to God, it doesn’t matter how strong the chains are, how heavy the gates are, how alert the guards are. God simply does whatever he wants.
As amazing as his escape was, Peter knew that he was still a wanted man. God may have blinded the senses of the prison guards, but now that the angel was gone, all it would take was a street patrol to find him and recapture him as an escaped prisoner. So he hurried as quickly as he could to the house where he knew the fellow believers would be, where he could be taken in and given refuge.
As it happened, this was the very place where the church had gathered to pray for Peter’s safety and deliverance. When Peter started banging on the door, one of the servant girls went down to see who it was. She recognized Peter’s voice, calling to let him in before someone saw him and would summon the authorities. Now, we need to give Rhoda, the servant girl, credit. She really did believe that it was Jesus. But maybe she didn’t grasp the urgency of the situation and give him help right away. She was so excited and happy that she left the poor guy standing out in the street when she ran to tell everyone that Peter was there.
But no one believed her! This should strike us as the strangest part of the entire story. Here is a group of devout believers, willing to risk their lives to be faithful to God, seeking God’s mercy to rescue Peter. You’d expect them to be grateful and joyful that their prayers were answered, and that God had delivered Peter. At most, we’d expect them to be surprised at the way that it happened. They could even be amazed that their prayers had been answered. After all, we’re all a little bit like the father who brought his possessed son to Jesus (Mark 9:14-27): we believe, but we also have some unbelief. So when our prayers really are answered, it can knock our socks off. But even that wasn’t the response of these faithful who were praying for Peter. They outright refused to believe Rhoda’s good news that God had answered their prayers. They told her that she was imagining things. But when she insisted that it was real, that she really had seen Peter, they went one farther and told her that she must have seen his ghost, or his spirit. In many cultures that are more spiritually attuned than ours, it may be possible to recognize the presence of a person spiritually when they’re not physically present. But in most situations, we imagine this only when the person is dead and the spirit is no longer confined to the physical body. In other words, when the faithful finally accepted that Rhoda actually had seen someone, they decided that Peter had already been killed, and his spirit had come to visit them. Amazing! As they are praying for God to protect Peter, they’re more willing to believe that Peter is dead, that God hadn’t answered their prayer and that all was lost, than to consider that maybe prayer actually does work, and that God had done for them what they had asked.
I suppose that poltergeists can make a ruckus, but when the faithful heard for themselves that Peter was continuing to knock on the door and beg to be let in, they went down to see for themselves. I imagine that by this time Peter was pretty frantic: he had escaped prison but was out on the street, where any passer-by could blow the whistle on him, and his friends wouldn’t let him in! Finally they did, and they were overjoyed. God had done for them what they couldn’t even imagine to be possible, even though they had been asking him to do it. They were ready to break out the brass band and start celebrating. But Peter, who was probably still pretty jumpy about it all, did his best to shut them up so that no one would show up to investigate. He told them what had happened, and then left. Peter figured that once the authorities realized what had happened, they would show up at the house to look for him. So Peter left to go into hiding.
In the morning, the soldiers were amazed to see that Peter was gone. I can only imagine the shock, surprise, and confusion they felt. There was no way that it could have happened! Herod sent out the bloodhounds to look for Peter, but by then he was long gone. So he took out his frustration on the poor hapless soldiers.
The real lesson for us in this story (or at least one of them) is that things really do happen when we pray. We set limits on what we think is possible, and refuse to accept the wonders that God performs. We shortchange our own prayer lives. In a way, we allow our prayers to be nothing more than wishful thinking, forgetting that they connect us to a powerful and amazing God. When you pray, recognize that it actually works.
This Bible passage is a perfect example of people being surprised by the power of prayer. It would be comical, if their reactions weren’t part of a powerful story. It begins with Herod’s decision to crack down on this troublesome group that had just started to call themselves “Christians” (11:26). Names are powerful. Up to this point they were simply Jews who had taken up this novel idea that Jesus was the Messiah. Now, with a name to identify themselves, they were becoming a movement of their own. They were still part of the overall Jewish community, but they saw themselves as distinct. Distinct means different, and different can mean conflict. Herod knew (or thought he knew) that they were a minority, and that if he wanted to stay in the good graces of the majority, he should crack down on them. He needed to pick his side in the conflict, so he went with what he thought would be the winning side. Too bad for him, this and other decisions would lead to his death before the end of the chapter. But that’s another story.
The best way to cut this Christian movement short was to decapitate it: get rid of its leaders. Even during the life of Jesus, Peter, Andrew, James, and John were the main leaders. Eventually James, the half-brother of Jesus, would become the head of the church in Jerusalem. But that time hadn’t come yet. So Herod’s goons swooped in and killed James (the brother of John, one of the four chief disciples). When he saw that his ratings went up in the polls because of this, Herod went on to arrest Peter, probably the most visible and powerful leader of this Christian group. Pretty much everyone knew where this was going: Peter would go through a show trial in order to make his fate public, and then he’d join James in martyrdom.
Herod didn’t want to leave anything to chance. These Christian weren’t particularly violent, as the Zealots were. But you never know what they might do in desperation. So Herod arranged for Peter to be held in prison with four squads of soldiers, with four soldiers per squad (a total of sixteen soldiers) to guard him. In each squad of soldiers, one soldier was to take one of the watches throughout the night, so that at least one soldier per squad would be awake at all times. Perhaps Herod didn’t think his soldiers were as disciplined as the Roman soldiers, who would be executed for sleeping on their watch. Or maybe he was afraid of a surprise attack which could overwhelm one soldier before his companions could be roused. So he made sure that a total of four soldiers would be on guard at all times, to keep each other awake and to support each other in case of a surprise attack. Plus, twelve more soldiers would be in reserve to wake up and help at the first sign of trouble. For extra measure, Peter was chained up, so that he couldn’t be whisked out of his cell very quickly. Herod’s preparations sound pretty impressive.
So what did the church do in response? They didn’t organize a group of secret agents to sneak into the prison, James Bond-style. Verse 5 puts it quite simply: they earnestly prayed to God for Peter. That’s all.
So, in the middle of the night, an angel appeared in Peter’s cell. He was asleep, chained to the wall, with two of the four soldiers on guard on either side of him. Peter must have been a heavy sleeper, because the angel had to slap him to wake him up. As Peter awoke, his chains fell off of him, and the angel told him to gather up his things and follow him. It seemed so unreal that Peter thought he was dreaming. The soldiers guarding him didn’t notice anything that was going on. Notice that the Bible doesn’t tell us that they had fallen asleep; they simply didn’t see or hear what was happening. The angel led Peter down the hallway of the prison, past the other two soldiers who were guarding him, all the way to the heavy iron gate of the prison. Not only was the door unlocked, but it opened all by itself. Peter followed the angel for about a block down the street, when the angel suddenly disappeared. It was only then that Peter snapped out of his dreamy surreal feeling and realized that it was all real. He was out of prison. God had done the amazing, the impossible. Despite all the best preparations that Herod could make, Peter simply walked straight out of his clutches. When it comes to God, it doesn’t matter how strong the chains are, how heavy the gates are, how alert the guards are. God simply does whatever he wants.
As amazing as his escape was, Peter knew that he was still a wanted man. God may have blinded the senses of the prison guards, but now that the angel was gone, all it would take was a street patrol to find him and recapture him as an escaped prisoner. So he hurried as quickly as he could to the house where he knew the fellow believers would be, where he could be taken in and given refuge.
As it happened, this was the very place where the church had gathered to pray for Peter’s safety and deliverance. When Peter started banging on the door, one of the servant girls went down to see who it was. She recognized Peter’s voice, calling to let him in before someone saw him and would summon the authorities. Now, we need to give Rhoda, the servant girl, credit. She really did believe that it was Jesus. But maybe she didn’t grasp the urgency of the situation and give him help right away. She was so excited and happy that she left the poor guy standing out in the street when she ran to tell everyone that Peter was there.
But no one believed her! This should strike us as the strangest part of the entire story. Here is a group of devout believers, willing to risk their lives to be faithful to God, seeking God’s mercy to rescue Peter. You’d expect them to be grateful and joyful that their prayers were answered, and that God had delivered Peter. At most, we’d expect them to be surprised at the way that it happened. They could even be amazed that their prayers had been answered. After all, we’re all a little bit like the father who brought his possessed son to Jesus (Mark 9:14-27): we believe, but we also have some unbelief. So when our prayers really are answered, it can knock our socks off. But even that wasn’t the response of these faithful who were praying for Peter. They outright refused to believe Rhoda’s good news that God had answered their prayers. They told her that she was imagining things. But when she insisted that it was real, that she really had seen Peter, they went one farther and told her that she must have seen his ghost, or his spirit. In many cultures that are more spiritually attuned than ours, it may be possible to recognize the presence of a person spiritually when they’re not physically present. But in most situations, we imagine this only when the person is dead and the spirit is no longer confined to the physical body. In other words, when the faithful finally accepted that Rhoda actually had seen someone, they decided that Peter had already been killed, and his spirit had come to visit them. Amazing! As they are praying for God to protect Peter, they’re more willing to believe that Peter is dead, that God hadn’t answered their prayer and that all was lost, than to consider that maybe prayer actually does work, and that God had done for them what they had asked.
I suppose that poltergeists can make a ruckus, but when the faithful heard for themselves that Peter was continuing to knock on the door and beg to be let in, they went down to see for themselves. I imagine that by this time Peter was pretty frantic: he had escaped prison but was out on the street, where any passer-by could blow the whistle on him, and his friends wouldn’t let him in! Finally they did, and they were overjoyed. God had done for them what they couldn’t even imagine to be possible, even though they had been asking him to do it. They were ready to break out the brass band and start celebrating. But Peter, who was probably still pretty jumpy about it all, did his best to shut them up so that no one would show up to investigate. He told them what had happened, and then left. Peter figured that once the authorities realized what had happened, they would show up at the house to look for him. So Peter left to go into hiding.
In the morning, the soldiers were amazed to see that Peter was gone. I can only imagine the shock, surprise, and confusion they felt. There was no way that it could have happened! Herod sent out the bloodhounds to look for Peter, but by then he was long gone. So he took out his frustration on the poor hapless soldiers.
The real lesson for us in this story (or at least one of them) is that things really do happen when we pray. We set limits on what we think is possible, and refuse to accept the wonders that God performs. We shortchange our own prayer lives. In a way, we allow our prayers to be nothing more than wishful thinking, forgetting that they connect us to a powerful and amazing God. When you pray, recognize that it actually works.
posted by Rev. Peter de Vries, Old Union Presbyterian Church @ 12:19 PM
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