Tuesday in the Sixth Week of Easter, May 11, 2021

Acts 16:22-34

The crowd in Philippi joined in the attack on Paul and Silas, and the magistrates had them stripped and ordered them to be beaten with rods. After inflicting many blows on them, they threw them into prison and instructed the jailer to guard them securely. When he received these instructions, he put them in the innermost cell and secured their feet to a stake. About midnight, while Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God as the prisoners listened, there was suddenly such a severe earthquake that the foundations of the jail shook; all the doors flew open, and the chains of all were pulled loose. When the jailer woke up and saw the prison doors wide open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself, thinking that the prisoners had escaped. But Paul shouted out in a loud voice, “Do no harm to yourself; we are all here.” He asked for a light and rushed in and, trembling with fear, he fell down before Paul and Silas. Then he brought them out and said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” And they said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus and you and your household will be saved.” So they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to everyone in his house. He took them in at that hour of the night and bathed their wounds; then he and all his family were baptized at once. He brought them up into his house and provided a meal and with his household rejoiced at having come to faith in God.

In St. Luke’s account of the historical event of the suffering of Saints Paul and Silas in the city of Philippi, we see how God brings good out of evil: the jailer and his family become Christians through the beating and imprisonment of his missionaries.  We see here the mystery of God’s Providence.  As St. Paul himself would later write, “And we know that to them that love God all things work together unto good: to such as, according to his purpose, are called to be saints” (Romans 8, 28).  

This account also shows us the mystery of the life of the Christian.  The fervent believer who bears witness in the world to Christ, in whatever way, is hated by the wicked and is mocked, demeaned, his livelihood is threatened, and he is even physically harmed.  In the depths of his sufferings, the believer prays and sings hymns to God in his heart or aloud, in worship of God, in asking for the grace to persevere, and to bear witness to other “prisoners”, one’s neighbors in this world, who are marked for death because of their sins.  The prayers and hymns prepare the way for God’s intervention, in which the foundations of the world are shaken, the doors of the prison of this world are flung open, and the chains of those destined for death are loosened.  Though freed, the saints continue to preach the Gospel and baptize those who hear them.

We see as well how the materialist, whose whole existence is in the things of this world alone, may be saved.  The jailer is ready to kill himself when he thought his prisoners has escaped.  In order to forestall bribery, the ancient authorities executed in terrible ways jailers and guards who allowed prisoners to escape.  The jailer here saw no hope for himself in this world, and no world beyond this one in which he would be held accountable.  Yet the fact that Paul and Silas had remained when they could have fled, gave him pause.  It would have seemed to him that they had remained in order to spare his life, and this would certainly explain their behavior to us.  The miracle of their being freed, coupled with their mercy on him, brought the jailer to his knees and to ask what he must to do he saved.  

“Believe in the Lord Jesus and you and your household will be saved.”  Paul and Silas sum up what we must all do to be saved in just a few words.  One did not “believe” in the gods of the Greeks and Romans.  One accepted their existence and the need to placate them.  To “believe in” the Lord Jesus meant to enter a relationship of complete trust with him, and to believe who he was and what he taught, and to live as he lived.  This would result in salvation.  The jailer’s request could also be understood to mean, What must I do to be saved, as in “from the authorities, when they hear about the prison doors being opened.”  The answer, is the same: Believe in the Lord Jesus.  The certainty of belonging to God and the prospects of eternal life in heaven make any physical suffering a means to an end.

“His household rejoiced at having come to faith in God.”  From the depths of despair to the pinnacle of rejoicing, God brings those who live on darkness into his own marvelous light, and deigns to use us to help.