Expect The Unexpected (Acts 12:1-24) 

I visited Highgate cemetery in north London the other day. I didn’t know quite what to expect apart from the obvious! What I found to my surprise was a tourist attraction that charges you £10 just to see a load of graves, albeit some famous ones! I found it strangely challenging, sobering. The famous buried alongside the unknown and ordinary folk was a message in itself. The dates were challenging, some had lived a lot less than I have to date!

Sometimes when I pray, I don’t know quite what I expect. Often I am surprised by God’s answers. I sometimes forget what I have prayed… God doesn’t!

The early church had already experienced persecution. Now it is Herod who decides to arrest ‘some who belonged to the church’ (v 1) to persecute them. James, son of Zebedee and John’s brother, is summarily executed. When Herod saw that it pleased ‘the Jews,’ he seized Peter too and put him in prison (vv 2-4).

Why James and not Peter? – Jesus had warned all the disciples of the coming persecution. John 15:20 tells us how Jesus said that if they hated him, they also would be hated because of him. None of the disciples were promised a ‘free ride’ in life. Today, around the globe, many, many Christians face severe persecution and death. Some die for their faith, others flee, some are imprisoned, all suffer loss in this life in one way or another.

Peter is guarded very closely (v 4); one man guarded by four squads of four soldiers each, presumably in shifts. Herod really didn’t want to lose him and intended to make a spectacle of Peter with a public (rigged) trial. Meanwhile the church was earnestly praying for him (v 5).

I am not sure I could get to sleep in prison, bound and chained between two guards, knowing that it is very likely going to be a short trip to the executioner following a show-trial in public. Yet sleep, Peter did.

There is no way Peter expected an angel to appear! Light shone in his cell. Where were the guards? The angel struck Peter on the side and woke him up – a fascinating detail. As the angel spoke, Peter’s chains fell off (vv 6-7). It must have taken a few moments to get dressed, get his sandals on and wrap his cloak around him, before he was ushered out of the prison. It is interesting that Peter considered it a vision and did not understand the reality until outside the prison gates (vv 8-11).

Miraculously they pass two sets of guards and an iron gate and Peter is left on the city street, as the angel disappears. Verse 11 actually says: ‘Then Peter came to himself…’ It was not a vision or dream, he really was free. The totally unexpected had overtaken the expected! The prospect of an all too soon execution had now turned into an unexpected escape! Peter rightly acknowledges God’s hand at work in his life once again (v 11).

You might have expected Peter to make a run for it out of the city straightaway but he doesn’t. He goes to the house where he knows his brothers and sisters are gathered and praying for him (v 12). Poor old Rhoda! She has gone down in history as the girl who didn’t open the door first time! She knew it was Peter but didn’t let him in! Overtaken by the unexpected answer to their very prayers, her impulsive reaction was to tell the others first.

The reaction of everyone else is our lesson for today. They had been praying but when the very thing they had been praying for happened, they thought Rhoda was out of her mind! Even when she insisted they thought it was his angel, not actually him – whatever that means! (v 15).

When they do open the door of course, there is astonishment and presumably a lot of noise because Peter had to quieten them down before telling them what had happened. After that he leaves for a safer place, presumably not wanting to put the other believers at risk (v 17).

If we truly believe in the power of prayer and that ‘prayer changes things’, then why are we surprised when God moves and answers? Firstly, we have to believe that when we honestly come before him in sincerity of heart, he hears our prayers. How he chooses to answer, however, is up to him, but we should expect an answer, and always we should be open to an unexpected answer!

When we pray, we enter into the spiritual battle in the spiritual realm (Ephesians 6). In some way we don’t understand, our prayers matter and do turn the course of events, but how they turn is always in God’s hands. No doubt they had prayed for James too, but he was executed.

Can we trust God to answer in the way he chooses and accept that some things we will not understand this side of heaven, or even then? That depends on our understanding of, and personal relationship with our God. If we believe he is Almighty and able to do all things, all wise and always does what is right and is utterly just, loving and good then we simply have to accept that he will always in the end do what is best.

Sometimes it is a miracle, sometimes an angelic encounter, sometimes it is a mighty deliverance. Often we wait and sometimes for a long time. Sometimes the answer is No.

Whatever your prayers are at the moment, let us all trust in the character of God and accept His will for our lives, whilst always being open to expecting the unexpected!