Sunday's Conversation

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As mentioned in the previous post, we took our conversation to the Hermitage Starbucks last night. After a few week detour in conversation, we resumed discussing the book of Acts with chapter twelve.

In this chapter, Peter finds himself imprisoned under Herod Agrippa I. Just for further clarification, this is NOT the same Herod that presided over the trial of Jesus; that was Agrippa I's uncle, Herod Antipas. Nevertheless, Agrippa I had already imprisoned and executed a number of those belonging to the Church, including James, the brother of John, one of Jesus' twelve disciples. So Peter (another of the twelve disciples) sits in prison on the night before his "trial", chained between 2 soldiers and guarded by 14 more. One would expect that he would be in fervent prayer through all hours of the night, instead, he sleeps. How could this be? How could he be so peaceful in the face of a death that would surely be incredibly heinous and excrutiating? Several opinions were expressed in response to this question last night. One was that he fully expected God to deliver him, thus he need not worry. Another was that he was secure that God's will would be done--whatever that may be. Greg added the thought, "Peter had already faced his greatest weakness and pain--denying Christ on the night of his arrest. After that, everything seemed to be uphill."

As it turns out, God did deliver Peter from prison that night. He awoke as his chains fell off his wrists and followed an angel of the Lord out of the prison, past the 14 guards, and through the iron gate leading to the city (which opened by itself). After he and the angel get a block into the city, the angel leaves him. It is only now when Peter "comes to himself" and realizes that journey of deliverance had really happened. Until then, he thought he had been dreaming (this gave rise again to the conversation from a few weeks ago about God's purpose for creating the dream world). One of the coolest portions of the evening, in my opinion, was when we spent some time sharing about some of the "iron gates" that had been locked in our lives and that God alone had mysteriously swung open. Had we noticed it then, or like Peter did we need to look back from a block away to see it? We also spent some time discussing some of the "iron gates" in our lives that remained locked and what our feelings about those were. It was at this point that we were joined by Ted, an art teacher at Tulip Grove Elementary, who I'd been talking to prior to the start of this conversation. He brought some really cool thoughts and perspectives to the conversation and I personally was surprised at his openness to a group of strangers. Thanks for hanging out Ted, hope to see ya again!

The conversation went on, but as for this post, well it's getting a little long. As I find myself deterred from reading long posts regardless of the quality of the content, I shall say farewell for now. Back to the daily grind...