Read Acts 12:5-11 & the quote by John Stott
5 So Peter was
kept in prison, but the church was earnestly praying to God for him. 6 The
night before Herod was to bring him to trial, Peter was sleeping between two
soldiers, bound with two chains, and sentries stood guard at the entrance. 7
Suddenly an angel of the Lord appeared and a light shone in the cell. He struck
Peter on the side and woke him up. “Quick, get up!” he said, and the chains
fell off Peter’s wrists. 8 Then the angel said to him, “Put on your clothes and
sandals.” And Peter did so. “Wrap your cloak around you and follow me,” the
angel told him. 9 Peter followed him out of the prison, but he had no idea that
what the angel was doing was really happening; he thought he was seeing a
vision. 10 They passed the first and second guards and came to the iron gate
leading to the city. It opened for them by itself, and they went through it.
When they had walked the length of one street, suddenly the angel left him. 11
Then Peter came to himself and said, “Now I know without a doubt that the Lord
has sent his angel and rescued me from Herod’s clutches and from everything the
Jewish people were hoping would happen.”
Here then are two
communities, the world and the church, arrayed against one anothers, each
wielding an appropriate weapon. On the one side was the authority of Herod, the
power of the sword and the security of the prison. On the other side, the
church turned to prayer, which is the only power which the powerless possess.[1]
(BUT WHAT POWER!)
“That’s
not fair!” This was the first time the children I look after three-days-a-week had accused me of such a thing. I cannot remember what it was over,
probably something like whose turn it was to choose the Peppa Pig episode to
watch. However, although I felt I was treating them equally, the perception of
unfairness jarred with me as – like most people working with children – I try
hard to be fair since I appreciate how hurtful it must be for a child if
someone is favoured over them.
However it is not just
children; we all like things to be fair and it throws us when it is not. “Why
did this happen to me? What have I done to deserve it?” We can find ourselves
exclaiming. Or conversely, “Why have I had such an easy life when others have
all sorts of heartache to deal with?” Time and time again though the well-worn
parent refrain “Life isn’t fair” is proved correct. We live in an unfair world.
To add to our
frustrations, often God too seems unfair. At times our prayers are answered
before they are uttered; at other times we pray for years and God apparently
does nothing! While one person in church goes through a time of prosperity
another is bankrupt. While some enjoy great health others fall sick…
Even in this chapter
of Acts, God seems unfair! Why does he save Peter but not James? Why is Herod
struck down at the end of the chapter rather than at the start, before he can
unleash any damage? Further, if God is willing to kill Herod why not other
destructive despots who have plagued the earth before and since?
Luke does not proffer
any reason why James was killed but Peter walks free, nor does he seem
perturbed by the inconsistency. Indeed there are echoes of Acts 5-7 where the
release of Peter and the apostles from prison precedes Stephen’s death at the
hands of a mob. God’s apparent inconsistency would perhaps be better explained
were Peter to continue as his main agent. However, other than a brief
appearance in chapter 15, Peter is not mentioned again.
What
jarred me most about the children's protestation was the implication that I could
not be trusted. That rather than doing my best to love both equally I favoured
one above the other. This challenge to my trustworthiness is sometimes
expressed in other ways; when I forbid something dangerous and am regarded a
killjoy. None of this is unusual and I’m building it up to make a point! However when trying to explain to a
two-year old the logic of not giving her a hot
cup of tea to carry or allowing her to just eat cake or climb on the TV… and
your patient clear well-grounded-in-rational-thought arguments are met with
cries of despair, it can be a genuinely frustrating experience.
It was
during one of these experiences – as I was lamenting the cognitive gap
between my highly rational explanations and a two-year old's inability to grasp their
astonishing logic – that it suddenly occurred to me that the gap in knowledge
and understanding between myself and a two-year old was infinitely smaller than the
gap between myself and God! You see at the time I was, if I am honest, annoyed
with God because a number of things had not panned out as I had hoped. I felt
let down by him and could not understand why he was not answering my prayers
more immediately and directly. In that moment I began to picture myself as the two-year old and God as me. There I was railing against the apparent unfairness I
perceived in God totally oblivious to, and unable to grasp, his infinite wisdom
and the work he was doing in my life.
Perhaps Luke grasped
better than I how vast the gap between our knowledge and God’s really is?
Perhaps he had the
faith to not understand but still
trust?
Perhaps we can learn
from him?
No comments:
Post a Comment