Daily Office Readings for Thursday of Proper 19: Year 2
Morning, Psalm 71, Evening, Psalm 74;
Job 28:1 to 28; Acts 16:25 to 40; and John 12:27 to 36a
“About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them.” (Acts 16:25)
Imagine, singing uplifting church hymns while being bound after just being whipped. I have heard that this coping mechanism worked for prisoners of war also. It got them through the most difficult time in their lives, although some were murdered.
Then there was a divine earthquake that released the prisoners. “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.” (Acts 16: 27 to 34.)
The jailer was well acquainted with the merciless system in which he lived and worked. There would be no excuse for prisoners escaping. He moves from beating Paul and Silas with rods to using his own sword on himself. Death would be better than the wrath he would face, not to mention the demise of his family and home. But Paul, freed from fetters, still feeling the sting of the rod while singing hymns, calls out to save the jailer from himself. How powerful is this kind of love? Who today would prevent our tormentor from harming himself given the chance? Folks, this is Christian love, this is Agape love. There is nothing else like it in all creation, and it’s ours for the asking.
Today we give thanks for Theodore of Tarsus; Archbishop of Canterbury (19 September 690) and can be found at http://www.satucket.com/lectionary/Theodore_Tarsus.htm .
Please keep up your thoughts and prayers and hopes for Ukraine and Russia, Israel and Palestine and our schools. And, as we listen to what the Spirit of God is saying to us, let us live to love and serve, and to teach others to love and serve, while pondering anew what the Almighty can do. John
Let us pray:
O Lord God, Creator and Sustainer of all humanity, be with us in Psalms and hymns in our troubled times in order that we might overcome such times. Bring us to peace especially with those who seem to hate us and enable us to show them the Way, the Truth and the Life, Amen.
onewhoponders 