This morning we’re continuing the story we
began looking at last week when Paul makes his way to Philippi in response to a
vision where he meets Lydia who accepts Jesus. A bit of time has passed and Paul’s
continuing to preach the good news of Jesus and inviting people to accept Jesus
as their Lord and Saviour. One morning, as they’re heading to the place of
prayer, they’re met by a female slave who has a spirit inside her that helps
her predict the future. This means she and her owners are probably connected to
the Temple of Apollo, the Olympian god of prophecy.
The slave girl follows Paul and the
rest of his group, shouting, “These men are servants of
the Most-High God, who are telling you the way to be saved.” The spirit
in the slave girl recognizes that they’re followers of Jesus, that their God is
more powerful than the god she represents. This is what’s Ascension Day about;
that Jesus returned to heaven and is now sitting on the throne beside his
Father with all authority in heaven and earth given to
him. You would think that Paul would appreciate the slave girl’s
testimony, the affirmation from someone possessed by the spirit of one god
affirming that your God is the greatest, but Paul gets annoyed with her, turns
around and says to the spirit, “In the name of Jesus
Christ, I command you to come out of her!” Immediately the spirit leaves
the slave girl, she’s saved from the spirit through the power of Jesus. This is
a god-level battle and Jesus wins hands down.
In this story though, there’s a sense that
it’s not finished, there’s stuff left undone. I’ve so many questions still. Why
doesn’t Paul free the slave girl from her masters, what happens to her, why
doesn’t anyone seem to care about her afterwards? The slave girl’s freed from
the spirit in her, but she’s still a slave girl and is worse off now than when
she had the spirit in her. Her value’s much less now. We see this in how her
owners act, they get ticked off at Paul and Silas; get them thrown in jail for “advocating customs unlawful for us Romans to accept or
practice.” There’s no mention of the slave girl, no concern for her
knowing Jesus, for her soul, she was a nuisance now gone away. Heart and soul
freedom are always connected to Jesus. So often, when we find relief from some
struggle, we believe we’ve made it and yet many times there’s soul healing we
forget to work on. The spirit may be gone, but the slave girl still needs soul
healing but she’s overlooked, forgotten.
Paul and Silas get thrown into prison, placed
in an inner cell with no windows or fresh air, and their feet placed in stocks
so they can’t move around. Their freedom’s taken away. Justice isn’t the
concern here. Rome has established the great Roman peace, the Pax Romana, but
it’s a peace that’s simply an absence of conflict and they used brutal ways to
keep the peace. Rome was a brutal master at times. Paul and Silas are stripped
and beaten with rods; a punishment designed to intimidate them into silence. Just
as Jesus was unjustly condemned and crucified because Pilate put justice aside
for peace, now Paul and Silas are thrown in prison unjustly because the
magistrates prefer peace over justice.
How would you react to such injustice? How do
you react to any injustice against you today? Do you react in anger, do you
whine and complain that life’s not fair and expect someone to step in and make
things right, do you fight back? Paul and Silas go in a completely different
direction, they pray and sing hymns to God while the
other prisoners listen to them. This blows my mind! It’s probably not
how I would react. While Paul and Silas sing and pray, the other prisoners
listen to them, unlike the prisoners on the cross with Jesus who mock him instead,
adding to Jesus’ pain as he suffers there for our sins to make things right
between us in God. Rather than responding in gratitude, as we’re called to do,
the prisoners on the cross add to Jesus’ suffering. Yet Jesus doesn’t fight
back and this changes the heart of one of the prisoners, leading him to ask
Jesus to “remember me when you come into your kingdom.”
Jesus reassures him, “I tell you the truth, today you
will be with me in paradise.” An amazing response! How we react to
injustice is noticed by the people around us. The cross changes things in a big
way, it changes us and how we respond to the things of life, it frees us from
lots of anger, bitterness and hatred that can wrap us in heavy chains.
Then the Lord steps in, there’s an
earthquake
that shakes the foundations of the prison and opens the prison doors. The
prisoners have freedom staring them in the face, all they have to do is grab
hold of it. The jailer wakes up, sees the prison doors open and knows he’s in
deep trouble. Rome is an unforgiving master; the jailer knows this is going to
cost him dearly and is about to kill himself to escape the harshness of the
punishment that waits for him. The jailer is a slave to his fear, to the
oppression that makes up the peace of Rome. What a difference from our master
and Lord who offers freedom from fear, freedom to mess up and know that our
master’s love is unconditional and his grace and peace is freely given. Before
the jailer can take his own life, Paul shouts out, “Don’t
harm yourself! We’re all here!”
Paul and Silas’ response to injustice, their
worship even while in chains has captivated the other prisoners so deeply that
none of them flee even though the prison doors are open and they have the
opportunity to flee. The jailer rushes in and falls trembling before Paul and
Silas. He can’t believe what he sees and brings them out of the cell and asks,
“Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” I wonder if
he even knows what he’s asking for here. All he knows is that Paul and Silas
have something that he needs, something that allows them to know peace in the
middle of injustice, a peace very different from the peace of Rome. The jailer
turns to the ones who, as the slave girl told everyone, “are servants of the Most-High God, who are telling you the
way to be saved.”
Paul and Silas talk to the jailer about this
Jesus who is able to free the jailer from his fears, about what freedom looks
like when you’re free from your sin, when your relationship with the Most-High
God is made right again and you’re adopted as a child of God, so much better
than being a child of Rome. Paul and Silas challenge the jailer to believe in
Jesus as Lord over Caesar and trust in the peace and freedom of Jesus over the
peace and freedom of Rome. The jailor takes them and washes their wounds, and
then realizing that he can be freed from the fear he lives with under Rome,
freedom from the guilt of the injustice he was so often a part of, he and his
household are baptized, washed clean by the Holy Spirit and an unexpected
convert is added to the growing church in Macedonia.
What’s keeping you from being completely
free, what
do you need to be saved from? The simple answer is sin, the more complex answer
is recognizing the things that wrap us in chains, the things weight us down,
the things we turn to for meaning, purpose, security other than Jesus. Many people
today are slaves to anxiety and fear. Guilt wraps many in heavy chains. We’ve
been told over and over that Jesus forgives us yet so many people never accept
his forgiveness and guilt wraps them in its chains. Addictions to things like
power, lust, drugs, alcohol, and pleasure wrap us tightly in chains while
making us believe that we’re experiencing the best that life has to offer. But
in the dark of night, our hearts know better.
Salvation is about so much more than
forgiveness of our sin, it’s about freedom from fear and
oppression, freedom to flourish and develop the potential within each of us.
It’s about being able to live in shalom, the Jewish word for peace, in healthy
relationships with God, each other, ourselves and creation. This is why Jesus
returned to heaven after dying on the cross and being raised from the dead to
wash away our sins, so that he could send the Holy Spirit to bring hope, peace,
and transformation into our hearts in a personal and intimate way and save us
from the anxieties, fears and soul oppression so many of us struggle with
today.
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