Prison Doors Do Not Stop the Spirit

“So Peter was kept in prison, but the church was earnestly praying to God for him… Suddenly an angel of the Lord appeared and a light shone in the cell. He struck Peter on the side and woke him up. ‘Quick, get up!’ he said, and the chains fell off Peter’s wrists.” – Acts 12:5-7 (NIV)

Herod had just killed James the brother of John with the sword, and when he saw that it pleased the Jewish leaders, he arrested Peter during the Passover festival. He assigned four squads of four soldiers each to guard him, intending to bring him out for public trial after the Passover. Sixteen soldiers. Chains. The inner cell. James was already dead. By every visible measure, the situation was finished. What happens next in Acts 12 is one of the most concentrated demonstrations of miraculous power in the entire book.

But Luke inserts one sentence between the arrest and the miracle that gives us the mechanism of everything that follows: the church was earnestly praying to God for him. Not meeting to discuss what to do. Not petitioning the Roman authorities. Not planning a public protest. Praying. Earnestly. The word Luke uses implies intensity, persistence, the kind of prayer that is not a religious formality but a genuine, urgent cry to a God who is being treated as the only hope available, because He actually is.

The night before the trial, Peter was sleeping between two soldiers, bound with two chains. He was sleeping. The man who in a few hours was scheduled to face Herod Agrippa was sleeping so soundly that the angel had to strike him on the side to wake him up. This detail is either a description of extraordinary peace produced by the Spirit, or a description of the deep sleep of a man who had spent enough time with the risen Christ to be genuinely unafraid of whatever tomorrow held. Probably both.

The chains fell off. The angel led Peter past the first and second guards. The iron gate leading to the city opened by itself. They walked the length of one street together, and then the angel left. Peter came to himself and said: now I know without a doubt that the Lord has sent his angel and rescued me from Herod’s clutches and from everything the Jewish people were anticipating. He went to the house where the church was praying, knocked on the door, and the servant girl was so astonished at hearing his voice that she left him standing outside while she ran to tell the others.

The details that follow are gently comic: the church that had been earnestly praying for Peter’s release initially refused to believe that Peter was at the door. They told Rhoda she was out of her mind, then decided it must be his angel. Peter kept on knocking until someone finally opened the door and found him standing there in person. Even the church that earnestly prays can be astonished when the answer arrives. God is gracious enough to answer prayers that their pray-ers barely believed He would answer.

Today, is there a situation in your life that looks as sealed and guarded as Peter’s prison cell, where every visible door seems closed and every chain seems secure? The church was earnestly praying for what looked impossible. Join them. Keep praying. The same angel who woke Peter is available to whatever cell you are facing.

Prayer

Father, I bring you the situation that looks as sealed as Peter’s prison cell. The chains that seem too secure, the doors that seem permanently closed, the guards standing watch over what I have asked you to change. I choose to pray earnestly and persistently, trusting that you send angels into locked cells for people who are sleeping peacefully in your care. In Jesus’ name, amen.