The Persistence of God

Acts 12

St. John’s United Church of Christ
Greeley, Colorado
June 18, 2023
Rev. Juvenal Cervantes

Acts 12:1-5

It was about this time that King Herod arrested some who belonged to the church, intending to persecute them. He had James, the brother of John, put to death with the sword. When he saw that this met with approval among the Jews, he proceeded to seize Peter also. This happened during the Festival of Unleavened Bread. After arresting him, he put him in prison, handing him over to be guarded by four squads of four soldiers each. Herod intended to bring him out for public trial after the Passover.

So Peter was kept in prison, but the church was earnestly praying to God for him.

Acts is a book with an abundance of stories of what God can do, particularly now that His Spirit has been poured out in Creation. In recent weeks and a few weeks ahead we’ll continue to focus on the topic of what God can do, today, the persistence of God.

Perhaps you’ve never heard a sermon on the persistence of God. Of the numerous attributes and qualities of God, persistence is an undervalued quality of God, we don’t hear much about this, yet one that we rely on every day, most every moment of our lives. When we continue to sin and turn from God in big ways and small ways, God persists in his forgiveness, he persists in his love, he persists in his pursuit of us. When we persist in running from God, when the darkness appears to be winning, when the gospel and life seems to face impossible odds, God persists in working, in moving, in acting, so that the light shines bright.

Because we are Christians, literally translated “Little Christs,” we are called to the work of persistence as well. Persistence to believe and hope, persistence to forgive all things, persistence to love in all times, persistence in prayer, and faithfulness.

At times our small acts of persistence are the necessary, faithful link in the chain, used in a big way in the kingdom of God. Sometimes our persistence lines up with the persistence of God and God does something rather amazing with our little acts of faithfulness as we participate.

Our text today showcases the persistence of God in his followers. We’re here on Acts 12, when we look back on Acts 11, we’re kind of in one of the midpoints of the book, we’re making some transitions from the Peter story into the Paul story, more from the Jerusalem story, the work primarily among the Jewish people, to the spread of this fire of the gospel, this fire that the spirit led that is going to go across the Roman world.

Chapter 11 ended in rather a high note. Early in chapter 11, God works in visions and dreams in the life of Peter and Cornelius to work salvation in the house of Cornelius, this Roman centurion, and to broaden Peter’s understanding on who is now in the kingdom of God, that all people might be in the kingdom of God, this crucial change in the church, and Peter’s outlook of the church as well.

Then at the end of 11, this fast, growing church of Antioch, this diverse church of Antioch, full of all sorts of type of people takes up a collection to support the home church, the mother church, back in Jerusalem because there has been this great famine in Judea. This new church, supporting the mother church, this wonderful, beautiful picture.

The church is one the move, growing and expanding, new people are coming into the fold and then we turn to chapter 12 and it takes this abrupt turn in tone and outlook.

Back in Jerusalem, in 12:1, King Herod laid violent hands on the church, as King Herod was apt to do. He has James, the brother of John, killed, not James the brother of Jesus, but James the brother of John, one of the apostles, one of the leaders of this early church movement, he had him killed, morbidly, sadistically.

When he saw that it pleased the Jewish leaders, he also had Peter imprisoned, presumably with the intent to kill Peter as he did James. We imagined the situation of this young Jerusalem church. We imagined of all that they have been through, now in chaos because their leadership has been killed or imprisoned, much of it.

They had Peter seized, they had him guarded by four quadrant of soldiers. Why so many? We really don’t know, it seems overkill, maybe because back in Acts 5 there was a jail break by Peter where God recklessly opens the doors of the prison.

Here is one of the moments that comes up regularly in the life of the church and in the lives of God’s people where it seems like darkness is winning, it seems like the ways of God are failing and the resources are lacking. The leadership of the Jerusalem church now in shambles. Herod in a tear and in power, lots of power, able to do what he wishes and evidently wishes to do a lot.

The irony of these events is that these are taking place in the feast of the Passover, this time when the faithful Jewish people would gather and remember the time when God worked in power and delivered His people from slavery, delivered his people from bondage, delivered in captivity.

In spite of all of this, in the face of all of the this, the weapon the church chooses to use to fight this injustice is prayer.

To many, a seemingly impotent force, in the face of Herod’s legions, yet verse five says not that they learned the lessons from before, to pick up one sword to cut off part of an ear but many swords to do much more, not that they stormed the prison with some fun and exciting Hollywood plan to bust Peter out. No, they rushed to Mary’s house. Mary, the mother of John, to pray. This evidently was where the church would have met, and it says that they gathered with persistent prayer, they prayed with earnest prayer, the word they used. The word used of Jesus’ prayer in the garden. They gathered to pray earnestly, fervently, passionately, with all of their hearts, for Peter’s deliverance. And in this story we will see what is possible when God’s persistence aligns with persistent faithfulness in the prayers of His people.

While the people persistently prayed, it seems Peter is getting a good night sleep. There are some humorous, ironic parts of this story. Here Peter imprisoned, he has four squads guarding him, we’re told that he is chained between two prisoners. Getting into history, he was likely chained to two guards, that was a technique used to prevent jail break, and an angel of the Lord appears and a light shine down and Peter sleeps right through it, Peter keeps on sleeping. It kind of when you have a teenager and you wake them up in the morning and you have to treat them like a robot and say, “It’s time to get up, it’s time brush your teeth, chew your food.” The angel appears and Peter is asleep, it’s like you have to kick Peter in the ribs and say, “Peter, get up, Peter, get dressed. Peter, don’t forget your cloak, Peter, step over those two guards. This is a very unique miracle in a book of unique miracles, the angel takes Peter step by step in the process of breaking out of jail. The chains fall off and don’t wake the soldiers, he steps over the guards. Luke writes, that Peter didn’t know what was happening to him, whether it was a dream or whether it was real, again, like a teenager, or an adult, that is half-asleep. They pass the first guard and the second guard, unseen and unheard, they find themselves on the wrong side of the locked prison gate and yet the prison gates swings open for them on their own accord. Peter finds himself a block away from the prison and he realizes he is free and says, “This is not a dream, this is real and he hightails it to Mary’s house which he trusted and knew the church would be praying for him, waiting for him there. What a story.

He gets to the house. It appears Mary is a person of means. It wouldn’t have been a house, maybe a house that is a part of a city block, maybe had most of the block, these came in different sizes, you might had knocked on the front door and there might had been a courtyard and there would have been other rooms in the house that would have their own doors that open to the courtyard. So the people were likely praying in the room, but far from the front gate. And there’s this servant named Rhoda that becomes so important to the story.

Peter comes to the gate and knocks and knocks and Rhoda hears him. Rhoda is probably a believer herself, but also a servant in the house of Mary, the mother of John. And she hears him and joyful to recognize his voice but doesn’t open the gate. She runs to tell the prayer meeting and she busts into the prayer meeting and says, “Peter is here, Peter is here and he is knocking at the gate, everybody, Peter is here!”

Acts is full of stories of the spirit’s miraculous movement. Even in this book of miraculous stories, this story stands out. There are two other prison breaks in Acts, in five and 16, but they don’t happen at the detail where the angel takes Peter step by step in the process in the face of all odds, in the face of the power of Herod and chains and legions of soldiers. The power of God thwarts this power of Herod and system and in all of these there is all of this people praying and God is answering their prayer as they pray. It’s an amazing story, except for one detail: Those praying people don’t believe Rhoda. The praying people stand in the way of the miracle of God coming to completion.

In verse 15 they say, “You are out of your mind, Rhoda. You’re insane, Rhoda. There is no way Peter can be here, that’s why we’re praying, don’t you get it, that’s why we’re praying. Peter can’t be here, maybe it’s an angel, but not Peter. We think Peter is already dead.” Perhaps in some Jewish thought there would have been something like a guardian angel to inform Peter and was going to be around Peter and protect him, but either way, there is no way it’s Peter, they think.

Can we stop here and name the absurdity of the moment? This is the church in Jerusalem, it is probable that there were some in that room that witnessed the crucifixion, who were in mourning when Jesus appeared to them in resurrected form. It’s possible that the other Marys were there, who knew what it was like to see the risen Christ, to see prayers answered, and not be believe. It is probable that many of these in this room were present on Pentecost waiting in that room when that mightily sound of the rushing wind came down and the Spirit of God came down on Creation, these folks had seen God do something.  And here they are, praying again, praying for Peter to be delivered, praying through the night. This was now something like daybreak that this is happening, before the guard is changed over in the prison. God has persisted at his word and answered their prayer. Peter is knocking on the gate and they don’t believe the messenger. Somehow in their prayer they stop listening for an answer from God even as it bangs on the front door.

This text is full of lessons, principally, that their weapon was prayer. It is an amazing lesson for us that when we face injustice, when we face insurmountable odds, that our first weapon is prayer and everything else flows from that. We can’t pray to the extent that we stop hoping, that we stop watching, that we stop listening. We pray with an ear at the door for God to call us from prayer into action. At this point the miracle seems to hang in the balance.

Could this really be all overcome by this praying people’s unwillingness to listen to Rhoda? But Rhoda persisted. We know nothing about this fascinating character. Rhoda, a believer. From all that we can gather, she rejoices with Peter, yet not in the prayer gathering, on the outside, this servant of Mary. You don’t have to do a lot of commentary work to realize the tricky dynamics in this relationship. She’s been called “crazy” by her master and the leaders of this church who have been praying all night. Her livelihood is at stake, her standing at her church is at stake, perhaps her sanity itself is questioned by this people.

What did it take for Rhoda to keep insisting in this situation? Rhoda kept insisting in the face of their blindness, in the face of their arguments, Rhoda kept insisting. Finally, she convinces them to at least come to the gate and see and they do when they hear Peter and when they open the gate and they saw him and this link, in this chain of miracle is complete.

And he told them the story of how he had been delivered from prison and he encouraged them to spread the word and to tell the brothers about it and he got out of town.

Friends, we just never know when our persistence, which is to say our continued faithfulness, even in a small thing, is the link in a long chain that reveals God’s persistent work. Isn’t that amazing? Rhoda, would have no idea, probably, the exact role she is playing here.

So often, we may not understand or have vision to see what God can only see, how only one act of persistence, our one small act of continued prayer or continued faithfulness in any number of areas, might be that link in the chain that God uses to connect a much larger plan that he is persistently working in the world.

When we struggle to see, when the darkness appears to be winning, the greatest weapon at our disposal is prayer, for it is in prayer that we join the work of God in the world. It’s in prayer that God would speak where we would be encouraged in our own acts of persistence that might just join that God may bring about his purposes in the world.

Where are you praying for God’s persistence? Where are the acts of faithfulness, acts of service? Where is God calling you to, both big and small?