Sermon Tone Analysis

Life is Hard

Courage is knowing it might hurt and doing it anyway

That is inspirational, isn’t it?

I love it.

Words to live by.

Stupidity is the same.

And that’s why life is hard.

How do we distinguish between doing the “courageous” thing and doing the “stupid” thing?

Is it just the outcome?

Success or failure?

And sometimes I do the stupid thing and praise-God, it miraculously works out!

Sometimes I do what I am certain is the courageous thing… and fall on my face.

Life is hard.

Why do some get miraculously delivered and some don’t?

Some get miraculous justice and some don’t?

Meanwhile, in Jerusalem

Meanwhile, back in Jerusalem.

Luke is shifting the focus from the church in Jerusalem into the mission field expanding from Antioch… but he does a quick “meanwhile, back in Jerusalem” to catch us up.

Over these course of years as the church in Antioch is being established and growing, persecution in Judea is mounting.

Herod Agrippa I

Herod Agrippa, grandson of Herod the Great reigning 41-44 AD.

Different “Herod” (Herod the Great) than the one who accosted the wise men at the birth of Jesus, and different again from the “Herod” who beheaded John the Baptist and conspired to have Jesus killed (Herod Antipas the Tetrarch of Galilee).

But Luke likely calls him “Herod” to purposefully evoke the other Herods who persecuted Jesus in his life and ministry.

Another feast, aka Passover, another gathering in Jerusalem, but now the mood has shifted and persecuting Christians is cool again.

Herod is going to ride that wave of populism.

Such an echo of Jesus being held and then brought out to the people at Passover.

But the church was praying...

The epic rescue

I love this mental image.

Peter lying there sleeping.

And the angel appears.

A light shining in the cell.

What does an angel usually say first thing?

“Fear not”.

Because the angel appears terrifying to behold.

What does Peter say when the angel shows up?

Nothing.

Shshshs, he’s sleeping.

I like to think the angel is disappointed as he makes his glorious entrance… and no one beholds it.

How many entrances does one angel ever get to make?

So he kicks Peter in the side “Hey, wake up!”

It doesn’t say hi kicks him.

It does say he strikes him, and that’s pretty much the same thing.

Hey, Peter, get up.

Parents, you know this one?

Don’t make me get a glass of water to dump on your face… I’ll do it!

This is a weird dream, a nice dream, alright.

He is barely awake, just stumbling after the angel, totally out of it.

Peter “came to himself” or literally “became himself.”

He woke up.

Where am I? That was a crazy dream!

Wait… I’m not in IKEA at all! I’m outside on the streets of Jerusalem!

That was no dream, that was an angel!

I love that “Rhoda” gets called out by name.

Like she was famous in the early church as the “girl who forgot to let Peter in”.

“His angel”?

Angel means “messenger” so they could be thinking Peter had sent a human with a message.

There are some lines of thought around “guardian angels” assigned to individual people, maybe they thought it was Peter’s guardian angel.

There isn’t a lot of evidence that they thought Peter had turned into an angel.

The church clearly doesn’t seem to be expecting Peter’s release, maybe they weren’t bold enough to be praying for that, maybe just that Peter would be faithful in the face of “certain” death.

And Peter just keeps knocking.

Tell the whole story to James.

This is James the brother of Jesus who has risen to leadership in the Jerusalem church.

And Peter departs.

It doesn’t exactly tell us where he goes.

He continues to exercise some apostolic ministry in Jerusalem.

We learn he visits Antioch (last week) and church tradition has him acting as a missionary, eventually becoming the “elder” or “bishop” in Rome (aka, the first Pope).

What is clear is that, from this moment, Peter becomes less influential in the Jerusalem church and the James mentioned here, James the brother of Jesus, rises to lead the church in Jerusalem.

So even though Peter is miraculously delivered from prison, he is in some ways lost to the church in Jerusalem.

Meanwhile, Herod is left without his prisoner:

Three Men, Three Deaths

Peter

We have Peter.

Supernaturally delivered from prison.

Wouldn’t it be great if the lesson were that “God always delivers his people from captivity.”

It isn’t.

God does deliver his people from captivity in the deepest sense, but only sometimes in the literal sense.

Peter wasn’t always supernaturally delivered from prison.

He’d been flogged and released before.

And in 20 years, around AD 64, he will be crucified upside down.

Our God is great.

Our God can deliver the captives from the greatest of dangers when that is His will and He acts for His glory.

Herod

Wouldn’t it be great if the lesson were, as Herod was punished for his evil and for his pride, so all men will be struck down in their arrogance!

It isn’t.

One day every knee will bow before the Throne of God, be humbled before the seat of judgment… but justice does not often strike so swiftly as it did with Herod, does it?

James

What about James?

James of the inner circle.

As in who was with Jesus all those intimate moments?

Peter, James, and John.

This James.

Why don’t we hear about that guy?

Peter went on to write letters 1 and (probably) 2 Peter.

He was likely the source of Mark’s narrative, so he pretty much wrote a gospel.

He was an influential leader in the early church.

His story gets told.

John went on to live 60 more years.

He writes a gospel, the gospel of John, he writes letters 1,2,3 John… and he writes to the churches in Asia the letter of Revelation.

He declares himself to be “the disciple whom Jesus loved.”