ACTS 12

One thing to look for whenever you hear or read of a miracle is how realistic it appears to be. That might seem to be strange advice since my definition miracles are not ordinary events. But even when a miracle occurs, the reactions of the human beings in the story must ring true. Take the account of Peter's escape from jail as an example.

Acts 12:6. “The very night before Herod was going to bring him out, Peter, bound with two chains, was sleeping between two soldiers, while guards in front of the door were keeping watch over the prison. 7. Suddenly an angel of the Lord appeared and a light shone in the cell. He tapped Peter on the side and woke him saying, 'Get up quickly.' And the chains fell off his wrists.” 

If you remember the situation at the time, Herod had just finished killing the apostle James and was no doubt planning to execute Peter the next day. An elder in our church back in New York once gave a sermon on this story and admitted, somewhat tongue-in-cheek, that he felt it was the hardest event to believe of anything in the Bible. His problem wasn't with verse 7. After all, as C. S. Lewis once said (and I paraphrase), "Who knows what is normal behavior for an angel." The elder's problem was with verse 6, trying to understand how Peter could manage to sleep soundly under such conditions; he felt that it just wasn't consistent with human nature. By the way, I think I have the answer to Peter's behavior:

Jesus said to him[Peter]... “'Very truly, I tell you, when you were younger, you used to fasten your own belt and to go wherever you wished. But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will fasten a belt around you and take you where you do not wish to go.' (He said this to indicate the kind of death by which he would glorify God).” John 21:18-19a

Of course, Peter could sleep soundly; he knew that he wasn't going to die for a long time to come.

Let's go back to the jailbreak. Verses12-17 describe how Peter heads straight to the house where he knows the others are hiding. If you re-read this passage, you will see that the account is filled with realistic and even comic touches of human behavior: 

    1. Rhoda gets so flustered that she leaves Peter knocking at the door while he is desperately trying to get safely inside; 

    2. The group praying for Peter's release doesn't believe it when it actually happens (sort of like the story of a special prayer group assembled to ask God for rain, but none of them bother to bring their umbrellas); 

    3. Peter attempts to shut them all up so he can explain what happened; and lastly 

    4. He decides that he had better not press his good fortune by sticking around, and so he skips town.

All of this is just how we would expect normal human beings to react under these circumstances. It has the ring of truth. For contrast, try to read some of the apocryphal miracle stories from the Middle Ages with a straight face. The people in such stories act in a totally ludicrous manner.