Midweek Meditation - September 6, 2006

Acts 12:1-17

From Peter Munson

 

Praying Fervently

 

"And when [Herod] had seized [Peter], he put him in prison and handed him over to four sqauds of soldiers to guard him, intending to bring him out to the people after the Passover.  While Peter was kept in prison, the church prayed fervently to God for him." (Acts 12:4-5)

 

Herod had just begun to go on the rampage.  James, the brother of John, had just been killed. (Verse 3)  And when Herod saw that this pleased many people, he arrested Peter, too.  Given what had just happened, Peter was about to be a dead man, too.

 

Did the early Christian community panic?  Well, I'm sure there were people who were afraid.  But they didn't panic.  They prayed.  They prayed fervently, we are told.  Fervently - that is, "with great warmth of feeling", earnestly, with intense devotion.

 

What comes to mind is Jesus' prayer on the last night of his life, on the Mount of Olives, as he prayed about his imminent death.  "In his anguish he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down on the ground." (Luke 22:44)

 

Praying fervently is not ordinary prayer, it seems to me.  Not when it makes you sweat.  Not when you are praying as if someone else's life depended on your very prayers.  This is the kind of prayer that might lead you to lose some sleep, might lead you to pull an "all-nighter" of prayer.  Come to think of it, I don't recall ever pulling a prayer all-nighter.  Like some of you, I have gotten up in the middle of the night and gone to the church to "pray one hour with Jesus", between the end of the Maundy Thursday service and the beginning of the noonday Good Friday service.  But I have never prayed through the night - fervently, earnestly, with anguish.

 

I get the feeling that's what Peter's friends did the night after he was arrested.  You get the feeling that they weren't going to sleep that night.  Or at least one or two of them were going to praying at any given moment, even if they had to "tag team" their prayers, so concerned were they for Peter's safety.

 

And as he lay there in the middle of the night, asleep, bound with two chains, between two guards... (How was he able to sleep while chained between two guards?  That's a whole different meditation, I suppose.) ...Peter suddenly felt a tap on his side, and there was a light, where before there had only been darkness.  (verses 6 and 7)  Someone said to him, "Get up quickly!"  And the chains fell off.  "Get your clothes on and follow me!" (The 2006 version, but that's basically what it says - you can read it for yourselves in verse 8)

 

Was this real?  Was it just a dream that Peter was having?  The next thing he knew, an iron gate to the city was opening of its own accord (verse 10), and Peter found himself out in the streets of Jerusalem, a free man.  He then had a very funny encounter with Rhoda, a maid who was so glad to see him that she forgot to unlock the gate to the house and let him in.  Fast forward to the end:  Peter got out of Jerusalem that night, and escaped death.

 

Was there a connection between the "church praying fervently" and Peter's miraculous escape?  I would say so.  There are many times in the Bible when God responds to those who exercise faith on behalf of another.  Think of Mark 2 and the four friends who dug a hole through the roof and lowered the paralytic to Jesus.  This coming Sunday we have a story of people who bring a deaf man to Jesus, and beg Jesus to heal him.  The first converts in Jerusalem (remember that Pentecost event?) "devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers." (Acts 2:42)  They were devoted to prayer.

 

When was the last time that you prayed fervently?  When was the last time that we prayed fervently as a church?  What would we be willing to pray fervently about?  What is so important to us, what do we value so much, that we would be unceasing in prayer, or even pray in anguish? 

 

For a child or partner or best friend or parent who is very sick, perhaps?

For a son or daughter who is serving in Iraq, or doing mission work overseas? 

For ourslves, when we feel very lost and alone? 

For finding a new job, when we are suddenly out of work? 

Would we pray fervently to find someone whom we could spend the rest of our lives with?

Would we pray fervently for God to help us find a new curate? 

Would we pray fervently for the Harvest Auction to be a huge success this Sunday? 

Would we pray fervently for peace to come in the Middle East, or for those still struggling to get their lives back together on the Gulf Coast, or for those in the world who don't have enough to eat?

 

What would you be willing to pray fervently for?  And how might the world be a different place if we came together and prayed fervently, even for one night?

 

I thank you for every single prayer that you utter. God bless you.

 

Peter+