31 August 2010
Psalm 26, 28; Job 12:1,13:3-17,21-27; Acts 12:1-17; John 8:33-47

I wonder if verse 5 of the Job passage was the inspiration for Abraham Lincoln’s famous saying, “Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.” Job wants no more of their useless words and proverbs of ashes. The friends attempt to speak for God and defend Him in doing right against Job but he knows better, he has done nothing to deserve all this. He begins to call out God and ask for a hearing, a place to plead his case and be told why this has happened to him. Job believes in a world of cause and effect, a world that makes logical sense, where every action has a logical and foreseeable consequence. The reasons for suffering and for good must be knowable and deducible. The problem is that I AM cannot be explained in such a way that we can comprehend its meaning. Some things in this world will remain a mystery to those who are within space and time,

It would be difficult to imagine how angry these folks would have been to hear Jesus first deny they were Abraham’s children, then deny they were God’s children and finally to say that they were children of the devil. The only familial resemblance they bear is to the one who rejects the truth, the father of lies, a murderer. The affront would have been too incredible to even begin to understand. We know that there were those among them who were indeed willing and ready to kill Jesus and that they were spreading lies about Him. He was not making these statements/accusations simply to incite people, He was telling the truth about them and Himself. He was never afraid of truth and never afraid of offending someone with the truth, particularly those who thought themselves to be righteous or religious.

Herod persecutes the church in earnest, killing James the brother of John and arresting Peter with the intention of delivering him up as this year’s Passover sacrifice. The prayers of the church are answered and Peter is miraculously set free in spite of all the precautions Herod took against that possibility; double chains, guards sleeping next to him, guards at the door and then the iron gate of the city itself. Even Peter believes he is dreaming until the angel departed. The scene at the home of John Mark’s mother is humorous, Rhoda is so excited that Peter is there that she leaves him standing outside the locked door, a dangerous business. The believers don’t believe it is Peter, it is surely his angel. Finally they have sense enough to go and see and find, to the amazement of all, that Peter is indeed there but he doesn’t stay with them, going to another place, lest they find him here and the entire body of believers be blamed for the escape.

The Lord is the strength of his people;
he is the saving refuge of his anointed.
O save your people, and bless your heritage;
be their shepherd, and carry them for ever.