It didn’t take long for Peter and the apostles to irritate enough important people to get themselves thrown into jail. Mind you, the people responsible for incarcerating the apostles were the same people who had been forced to acknowledge that God was working through them (Acts 4:13). They had already spent one night in custody, and now here they were back again. But God didn’t intend for them to remain there this time. They had story to tell, and time was of the essence.
I would have loved to have witnessed the confusion the next morning when the high priest sent for the apostles. I imagine the soldiers returning to tell the high priest the bad news.
“Uh, excuse me Mr. High Priest, but we have a little problem.”
“We do? What kind of little problem?”
“Well, umm, those men . . . the ones you sent us to fetch out of the jail?”
“Yes?”
“They’re not there.”
“Not the—?! What do you mean they’re not there?!”
“They’re gone is all we can tell you. The doors were all locked up solid, and the guards were on duty and awake. But they were guarding emptiness!”
How much fun would that have been? And then some other guys come storming into the room to spill their little bit of tea:
“Hey, guys, did you know those weirdos you put in jail last night are over at the temple right now preaching their hearts out? Who let them out of their cell?”
Who, indeed? I’m pretty confident they were set free the same way I have been set free. The same every believer is set free. Locks were sprung. Doors were opened. Sentences were divinely commuted. Just like the apostles, I’ve been escorted out of my cell and given a story to tell. The one thing I cannot tell is how my freedom was accomplished, other than to say I had nothing to do with it. None of us set ourselves free, anymore than Peter and his buddies accomplished their own escape. But not knowing how God is accomplishing his purposes in and through us doesn’t mean we don’t have something to say. It just means we speak only of God and his working in us, for God working is any prisoner’s only hope of freedom.
So here’s my story, deceptively simple and infinitely amazing all at the same time. I was in a prison I could not escape, locked away behind bars of sin and shame. No one could come in. I could not come out. Until one day when I woke up inexplicably released. The restraints that had reliably and relentlessly held me back were gone. My despair was melting away. Featureless stone walls became open air, and I understood instantly I had been set free.
And you know what? The how doesn’t matter, because my how isn’t likely to be yours. But freedom? The fact of it? The reality? That’s the same for every sinner. Peter and the apostles walked out of a prison cell they didn’t unlock. I’ve done the same. And like those charter members of the Christian movement, I can’t help talking about it, even if I cannot explain it at all.
