they seized Paul and Silas
and dragged them into the marketplace before the
authorities.
When they had brought them before the magistrates, they
said,
“These men are disturbing our city; they are Jews
and are advocating customs that are not lawful for us as
Romans to adopt or observe.”
The crowd joined in attacking them,
and the magistrates had them stripped of their
clothing
and ordered them to be beaten with rods.
After they had given them a severe flogging,
they threw them into prison and ordered the jailer to keep
them securely.
Following these instructions,
he put them in the innermost cell and fastened their feet in
the stocks.
About midnight Paul and Silas were
praying and singing hymns to God,
and the prisoners were listening to them.
Suddenly there was an earthquake,
so violent that the foundations of the prison were
shaken;
and immediately all the doors were opened and everyone’s
chains were unfastened.
When the jailer woke up and saw the prison doors wide
open,
he drew his sword and was about to kill himself,
since he supposed that the prisoners had escaped.
But Paul shouted in a loud voice,
“Do not harm yourself, for we are all here.”
The jailer called for lights, and rushing in,
he fell down trembling before Paul and Silas.
Then he brought them outside and said,
“Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”
They answered,
“Believe on the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and
your household.”
They spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were
in his house.
At the same hour of the night he took them
and washed their wounds; then he and his entire family were
baptized without delay.
He brought them up into the house and set food before
them;
and he and his entire household rejoiced that he had become
a believer in God.
When morning came, the magistrates sent the police, saying,
“Let those men go.” And the jailer reported the message to Paul, saying, “The
magistrates sent word to let you go; therefore come out now and go in peace.” But
Paul replied, “They have beaten us in public, uncondemned, men who are Roman
citizens, and have thrown us into prison; and now are they going to discharge
us in secret? Certainly not! Let them come and take us out themselves.” The
police reported these words to the magistrates, and they were afraid when they
heard that they were Roman citizens; so they came and apologized to them. And
they took them out and asked them to leave the city. 40After leaving the prison
they went to Lydia’s
home; and when they had seen and encouraged the brothers and sisters there,
they departed.
***
This past Thursday, I had a little
gathering at the manse, or parsonage, where I live. I had checked the weather,
hoping for a sunny day, which had been granted, but by them I was setting up
tables outside, I had to put potted plants on the tablecloths as centerpieces
so everything wouldn’t blow away. By the time friends were arriving, the wind
was really blowing and the sky was turning dark. I said, “This weather can only
be described as ominous,” and in my head, I thought, I like it! There was a
charge in the air, which gave a sort of energy and life to the gathering as we
watched lighting come closer and closer, counting, watching. For all I had
prepared, with food and music, the weather was the treat. It started to rain
and my friends paraded inside with plates of food, and those same tablecloths
but I liked they were he type friends who would rather get a little wet and be
outside in it. We danced until the lighting came so close it zapped the music,
and I asked does anyone want to do sparklers, and a resounding yes came from
those on the deck. At the moment we lit the first rounds the raindrops weren’t
a bother, and circles of shining flame danced in the yard, then the rain came
harder, and the lighting would flick on the daylights of the sky, so close to
us it was as if for a second, we were in the afternoon. Nature one upping the
sparkers, until they got too wet and could no longer be lit. My friend and I
raced out in the yard to play in the rain and being adults we realized it was
quite cold and went back inside to which my friends and I stood at windows and
watched and listened and the party died down, and they went home, soaked and
happy. A friend later described it as the most invigorating thing she had done
in awhile, and I replied that I guess the rain does that to all living
things.
And I imagine how the charge of the earth and waves of the
oncoming earthquake fueled Paul and Silas in their praying and singing, just as
the lighting did our dancing. A caveat, I don’t believe that God foreordained
the other night’s storm, nor Paul and Silas’s earthquake, but I do believe in
both instances God used them to God’s good purpose. That just as our dancing
didn’t bring on the rain, Paul and Silias’ praying and singing didn’t bring on
the earthquake. But I do believe because of the lightning we danced harder and
because of the earthquake Paul and Silas sang louder. Paul and Silas, after
being attacked, and stripped and flogged and beaten, prayed and sang hymns to
God, and beneath their cell the ground was moving, the earth then too was
charged and waves of energy pulsed through the prison. I imagine their singing
becoming louder and the words of their prayers almost violent with energy and
perhaps at a crescendo the walls came crumbling down. While they didn’t make
the walls come down, the earthquake must have created an energy in the room
that joined what was human and what was nature into something divine.
I imagine upon witnessing this the fear of the jailer, now
less in control, not only of Paul and Silas’ voices praising God, but now their
whole physical beings now free and everyone else’s as well. In the dark, the
jailer believes the prisoners all have gone, and he will be punished, as
brutally as those whom he has watched, if not death itself. Picking up his
sword, to do the deed himself, then Paul shouted with a loud voice,
“Do not harm yourself, for we are all here.”
I imagine the voice carrying the same seismic strength as
his former prayers and I imagine the jailer now hearing that same voice which
spoke of God now speak to him. Likewise, I don’t know how Paul saw, since the
jailer then calls for lights, to see if what Paul says was true. But Paul did,
and saved the jailer’s life. They all did, these men, these prisoners, they
have saved him, instead of saving themselves. These are the stories we hear, of
the ways natural disasters create divinity among humanity. No wonder the jailer
has fallen down trembling, an earthquake would do that on its own, but here so
have the disciples.
Then the jailer brought them outside and said, “Sirs, what
must I do to be saved?” In this instance saved is meaningful word. The jailer
has been saved from an earthquake, saved from suicide, and saved from death by
the magistrates. He has already been saved, but he noticed that there power in
Paul and Silas that is beyond nature, beyond humanity. It is the power of the
divine. The power to save. Paul and Silas answered, “Believe on the Lord Jesus,
and you will be saved, you and your household.” It was then that the jailer
became a believer in God, not because of an earthquake, but because of the
divinity within Paul and Silas’ humanity.
There were times in the rain the other night that I
commented, that God was just showing us up, we had cascarones - God had
lighting in the distance, we had dancing - God zapped our music, we had
sparklers and God could light up the sky. But the weather wasn’t God. The
weather was the weather. What was God was the way it made us come together and
feel alive. It felt like a christening, a baptism of sorts, the kind that makes
you know your saved, not from storms or trials, but the saved that means you
feel the divinity in humanity in the unlikelyhood of summer’s first storm and
an earthquake in prison.
