Escape
Day 504, Sunday, Dec. 28
Acts 12:1-19
King Herod, attempting to please the Jews who oppose the new movement, has James, the brother of John, executed.
He then has Peter arrested, likely planning for him to suffer the same fate. Instead of the defeat for the Christians that Herod intends, the jailing becomes an opportunity for God to show his power by sending an angel to free Peter from prison.
Even Peter doesn’t at first believe what is happening; he believes to to be a vision. Yet after he is out of the prison he accepts it as real. “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 hoping would happen.”
Peter goes to where the believers are gathered, leading to an amusing scene where the servant who comes to the door when he knocks is so excited and flustered that she runs to tell the assembled people that Peter is at the door—forgetting to open the door to let him in.
But Peter keeps on knocking and is finally let in and shares what has happened with the assembly.

-Rev. Mark Fleming

Sunday meditation

Psalms 50:7-15
“Listen, my people, and I will speak; I will testify against you, Israel: I am God, your God. I bring no charges against you concerning your sacrifices or concerning your burnt offerings, which are ever before me. I have no need of a bull from your stall or of goats from your pens, for every animal of the forest is mine, and the cattle on a thousand hills. I know every bird in the mountains, and the insects in the fields are mine. If I were hungry I would not tell you, for the world is mine, and all that is in it. Do I eat the flesh of bulls or drink the blood of goats?
“Sacrifice thank offerings to God, fulfill your vows to the Most High, and call on me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you will honor me.”

Prayer focus
Lord, free us from the chains that bind us that we may witness to you in our world.