Acts 12:1-19
July 21, 2002
Surprised by Prayer
A minister dies and is waiting in line at the Pearly Gates. Ahead of him is a guy who's dressed in sunglasses, a loud shirt, leather jacket, and jeans. Saint Peter addresses this guy, "Your name, please, so that I determine your place in the Kingdom of Heaven?" The guy replies, "Aey, Joe Cohen, taxi-driver, Brooklyn." Saint Peter consults his list. He smiles and says to the taxi-driver, "Take this silken robe and golden staff, yours is the marble mansion on the hill over there."
The taxi-driver goes into Heaven with his robe and staff, and it's the minister's turn. He stands tall and booms out, "I am Joseph Snow, pastor of Grace Presbyterian for the last forty-three years." Saint Peter consults his list. He says to the minister, "Take this burlap bag and go to the shack down that back alley." "Just a minute," says the minister. "That man was a taxi-driver, and he gets a silken robe and a mansion. I’m a pastor and I get a shack? How can this be?" "Up here, we work by results," says Saint Peter. "When you preached, people slept; when he drove, people prayed."
While the story is far from theologically correct, it underscores the importance of prayer. While we know the heart of faith is expressed in prayer, it is a practice with which the majority of us struggle. Prayer is a popular topic today in books and seminars as well as studies which show the benefits of prayer.
In Christianity Today there was an articled titled, "Doctors Who Pray," in which several medical doctors expounded upon the medical benefits of prayer for their patients. Dr. Dale Matthews, an internist and associate professor of medicine at the Georgetown University Medical Center is one of a growing number of medical professionals who tout the benefits of faith and prayer. In the article, Dr. Matthews says, "Scientific knowledge has demonstrated the positive benefits of religion. I can say, as a physician and scientist--not just as a Christian--that, scientifically, prayer is good for you. The medical effects of faith on health are not a matter of faith, but of science." (CT 1/6/97)
Even HMO executives believe spiritual practices such as prayer and meditation can have a beneficial effect on one's health, a recent survey found. Of the 300 HMO professionals polled, 94% said they believed spiritual practices could aid medical treatment and hasten the healing process. Also, 74% agreed the positive effects of spirituality on medical treatment could reduce healthcare costs. (World 1/31/98)
Unfortunately such findings may confuse people as to the proper understanding and place of prayer. Anytime we learn of something that is going to benefit us personally in some way, you can bet there will be many who will jump on the bandwagon. If we understand prayer as simply a means to get what we want and to align ourselves with some spiritual force who can work the system for us then we’ll miss out on the true purpose of prayer. The consequences of this view of prayer are catastrophic.
If prayer is nothing more than another means to achieve a better place in heaven or a healthier life on earth, then we have greatly misunderstood the importance of prayer. Not only that, if we perceive prayer to be only mechanism to achieve a desired goal, our faith will end up in the ash heap.
When Ted Turner accepted an award given by the American Humanist Association for his work on behalf of the environment and world peace, he explained how he had come to despise the Christian faith. Turner told the audience how he was raised in a Christian home, professed faith on numerous occasions and even considering being a missionary. Yet he became disenchanted with Christianity after his sister died, despite his prayers. Turner said the more he strayed from his faith, "the better I felt." (Spokesman-Review, 5/1/90)
While the tragedy of misunderstood prayer may result in an abandoned faith, there is another tragedy that can befall us. We may properly define prayer as the offering up of our desires unto God for things agreeable to his will, in the name of Christ, with confession of our sins, and thankful acknowledgement of his mercies (WCS 98) ... yet do so apart from faith in Christ is also tragic. It is easy to go through the motions but never consider that God hears our prayers, and hearing them, will answer every time in the way that will honor him and pour out his love on us, his children.
We may engage in an empty ritual, even with zeal and fervency, but never expect God to respond. I don't think that we are the first generation to walk away from eloquently worded prayers expecting nothing to happen. This morning we see Christians in early Church who prayed fervently for Peter, but then, when God answered their prayers, they couldn't believe that He really acted on their behalf. READ Acts 12:1-19.
Herod’s reputation for power
Luke introduces us to a king with familiar family name and a familiar family trait of cruelty. Herod came from a long line of ruthless leaders.
His grandfather, Herod the Great was so barbarous that he executed one of his wives, her mother, and three of his sons. Shortly before his death, he lured prominent Jewish leaders to Jericho where he had them put into prison. He knew no one would mourn his death, so he ordered the murder of the leaders so tears would be shed when he died. Fortunately the plan was abandoned when he finally died. We know his most infamous atrocity, the slaughter of the boys of Bethlehem.
In Acts 12 we meet Herod Agrippa, Herod’s grandson who reigned from AD 37 to 44, whose own father was murdered by Herod. Shortly after is father’s death, while a child, he was whisked away from Palestine to avoid being the next murder victim. He was taken to Rome and, given his aristocratic roots, was educated with the Roman elite. His schoolmates, Gaius and Claudius, were destined to become emperors, a friendship that would guarantee Herod the power only his grandfather had held. When his uncle Herod Antipas, the man who ruled in Galilee and participated in Jesus’ kangaroo court, was exiled, he received more lands.
Like his grandfather, Herod Agrippa was half-Jew and half-Idumean. The Jews disliked this half-breed and many in Rome distrusted him as a Jew. Yet contemporary accounts of Herod define him as the consummate politician. When in Rome, he did what the Romans do. But in Israel, he played the pious Jew. His political intuition is seen in v3. After killing James, the brother of John, he numbers in the polls rose, so he arrested Peter. But he waited for that execution as it was forbidden to dispatch with even the worst criminal during the holy week.
It had been close to ten years since Stephen was stoned by the mob, yet we’re not told why persecution began again. Herod was known to dislike any minority which might threaten his reign. Perhaps as the Christians incorporated Gentiles into the church, the Jews became restless with this cult and wanted rid of their message of God’s grace available to all who believe.
The first target was James; John’s the brother, who was put to death with the sword. With his demise, the first apostle was now dead. But his death was not without warning.
In Mark ‘s gospel Jesus warned both James and John, who had asked for the best seats in his kingdom, that they would drink his cup and share his baptism (10:38-39), that is, participate in his sufferings. James was the first of the apostles to die and John the last. Their deaths form a parenthesis within which all the apostles lived and labored and eventually died.
With James’ death and Peter’s arrest and pending execution, the great battle between the king and the King of kings is about to take place. Yet the battleground on which this war is fought demonstrates something very important about the workings of God’s providence. Verse 5 sets the scene, while Peter is in prison, the church prays.
Church’s response in prayer
The church’s response of prayer was their only avenue, as they lacked military or political might. Yet this single response was more than sufficient as the God of the universe used their prayer to act boldly.
Their prayers were earnest, fervent, a medical term describing the stretching of a muscle to its limits. This same word is used of Jesus’ prayer in Lk 22:44 when he prayed in the Garden so fervently that his sweat was like great drops of blood falling to the ground.
Passionate prayer was no doubt made for James. But his death did not stop them from praying. The church well knew that the effectiveness of prayer is not measured by the outcome. The difference is not that the one prayer worked and the other did not. The point is that God answers in terms of a will that is hidden from our view, while at the same time calling us to pray for what seems to us at the time to be good and desirable.
C.S. Lewis well stated this truth when he wrote:
There are, no doubt, passages in the New Testament which may seem at first sight to promise an invariable granting of our prayers. But that cannot be what they really mean. For in the very heart of the story we meet a glaring instance to the contrary. In Gethsemane the holiest of all petitioners prayed three times that a certain cup might pass from Him. It did not. After that the idea that prayer is recommended to us as a sort of infallible gimmick may be dismissed. (The World's Last Night and Other Essays, p.5)
Many times we regard prayer as the last resort, when all else fails...pray. Like reading the assembly instructions on the kid’s bike after you’ve about given up. The church had no physical means of securing Peter’s release. Herod was in complete control of the situation and the majority of the populace supported him. Even so, it must be stated that prayer was still the church’s first resort in their trouble. The early church understood an important truth we often forget:
Men may spurn our appeals, reject our message, oppose our arguments, despise our persons—but they are helpless against our prayers. (Sidlow Baxter) Mary, Queen of Scots was an undaunted tyrant, but once said: “I fear John Knox’s prayers more than an army of 10,000 men.”
A century later it was John Bunyon who said: “You can do more than pray, after you have prayed, but you cannot do more than pray until you have prayed.”
Three ministers were talking about the appropriate and effective positions for prayer. As they were talking, a telephone repairman was working on the phone system in the office. One minister felt the key was in the hands. He always held his hands together and pointed them upward as a form of symbolic worship. The second suggested that real prayer was conducted on your knees. The third suggested that they both had it wrong--the only position worth its salt was to pray while stretched out flat on your face. By this time the phone tech couldn’t stay out of the conversation any longer. He interjected, "I found that the most powerful prayer I ever made was while I was dangling upside down by my heels from a power pole, suspended forty feet above the ground."
Certainly we pray more fervently when the situation is most frightening. Yet, even when life is relatively calm, we must make prayer a priority, a central part of our life as individuals as well as a church. What is more, we must pray with the expectation that God will work through prayer.
God’s remedy through prayer
Luke stresses the thoroughness with which the apostle was being guarded against escape or rescue. Normally it was considered enough for a prisoner to be handcuffed to one soldier, but as a special precaution Peter had a soldier on each side and both wrists were manacled, while outside the cell the other two soldiers of the squad were on duty. Perhaps Herod had heard from his Uncle Herod Antipas of Peter’s miraculous escape years before, recorded in Acts 4. Peter was guarded by four squads, that is, 16 soldiers who worked around the clock in shifts, changing guards every three hours.
In spite of the seeming impossibility of liberation, and the extreme likelihood that on the following day he would suffer the same fate as James, Peter showed no sign of anxiety, let alone alarm. He wasn’t pacing the floors nor pleading for a pardon. He was asleep. Even this is an answer to their prayer. Peter’s undisturbed slumber while about to die evidences God’s grace. His ability to remain calm and cool in the face of death shows that God is already at work.
In Alexander Solzhenitsyn's, A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, Ivan endures all the horrors of a Soviet prison camp. One day he is praying when a fellow prisoner notices him and says with ridicule, "Prayers won't help you get out of here any faster." Opening his eyes, Ivan answers, "I do not pray to get out of prison but to do the will of God."
E.M. Bounds properly identifies what prayer is to do when he said: Prayer honors God, acknowledges His being, exalts His power, adores His providence, and secures His aid.
Unfortunately we think only of securing God’s aid in prayer and forgetting all the other components when we pray. We jump immediately to our list of desires, forgetting the much more important components of God’s character and power.
God’s worked through the prayers of his people by sending an angel into that cell. What happens next is told with a touch of humor, showing the power of God, at work through unsuspecting prayer.
The angelic wake up came in the form of a kick to the ribs, followed by a series of commands, each step insured by an instruction. “Do this, now that.” This is not Peter’s escape from prison; Peter was doing very little here.
While they prayed, seeking God to answer, they were, like many of us, very surprised when prayer “works”.
As Peter makes his way past the guards and out of the jail, he is sure he is still dreaming. There is no great heightened spiritual awareness here. He is sure that this is nothing more than a pleasant dream just before his death. It isn’t until the angel is gone and the cool night air hits face that he finally realizes that this is real. With this surprise escape, he quickly figures out what to do.
He weaves through the streets of Jerusalem to Mary’s house. Luke tells us she is the mother of John, also called Mark, the cousin of Barnabas who will accompany Paul on the first missionary journey and who will later write the Gospel. Scholars speculate whether Mary’s house may have been the principle meeting place for the early church, where the last supper was celebrated and the 12 gathered for prayer prior to Pentecost. This would be the place they would pray...so he makes his way there.
When Peter arrives, he knocks and calls out his name. Rhoda, the servant girl, hearing his voice, returns to the praying church with the good news. I can just picture poor Peter, outside the gate, glancing across his shoulder, wondering when the pursuing guards will come looking for him. The prayer meeting is incredulous; they are sure the kid’s mistaken. After she insists, they conclude along common Jewish ideas of the day, that it’s his angel.
It was said in that day, that guardian angels would taken on the appearance of the deceased to bring news of a loved one’s death.
It is ironical that the group who were praying fervently and persistently for Peter’s deliverance should regard as mad the person who informed them that their prayers had been answered. Rhoda’s simple joy shines brightly against the dark background of the church’s skepticism.
Meanwhile, Peter is still banging on the door, waiting desperately to be let in while those praying for him debate his death. They finally decide to believe that he is alive and when they see him their excitement is uncontainable. Making enough noise to wake the neighbors, Peter tries to get them quiet.
He explains how the Lord brought him out of prison. This passage emphasizes Peter’s passivity in the face of God’s intervention. But what should not be missed is that his rescue is framed by the church praying. God’s providence worked through the prayers of his people, prayers that they themselves did not believe worked. As the writer to the Hebrews enjoins us, we must approach the throne of grace with confidence, knowing that the God we serve shall, according to his will, surprise us with answered prayer.
I’ve told you before about the small town in Kentucky who for years was a dry town, not a drop of liquor could be found in the city limits...until one day a local businessman man decided to build a distillery and a tavern. He admitted he could build it outside the city limits just as easily, he did so in the town just to irritate those who objected to the sale of alcohol in the town. As the local atheist, he sought every opportunity to express his displeasure at the faith of the faithful. The ordinance was overturned; the man got his license and built his distillery. The churches decided to call a prayer meeting and spent the night praying that God would close down the distillery. That night a violent storm blew through the area and lightning struck the distillery and it burnt to the ground.
Well the churches were elated; the atheist wasn’t, especially after he heard the news of the prayer meeting. The atheist tavern owner took the two churches to court to sue them for damages, claiming that those praying were responsible. The churches likewise hired a lawyer to argue it wasn’t their fault. The presiding judge said and I quote:
“This is the most perplexing case I have ever sat on because on one hand I have an atheist who claims to believe in the power of prayer and on the other hand I have two churches that deny it” (adapted from Johnston, Why Christians Sin, Discovery House, 1992, 129)
Do you believe in the power of prayer … or the power of God who works through prayer, who not only calls us to pray, but takes great delight to condescend to use our prayers to glorify his name. Philip Brooks, who wrote the hymn O Little Town of Bethlehem, once said:
If man is man and God is God, to live without prayer is not merely an awful thing: it is an infinitely foolish thing.
I trust you and I will chose not to be foolish, but commit ourselves to pray, to be used by God to change our world.
