Acts 12:1-25 | Sometimes It Looks Like God Is Failingਨਮੂਨਾ

NT Wright brings up a fascinating perspective on Acts 12 that’s pertinent to those times when it seems like God is failing. He writes that he doesn’t think James’s mom would like Acts 12 very much. On the night before Peter is to be killed, the church is fervently praying and an angel miraculously springs him from jail. But not her son, James. James is already dead. You can imagine her asking: “How come Peter got out and my boy didn’t?”

Here’s when Wright writes a curve ball: “I suspect the early Christians wouldn’t have asked that question; they took random persecution for granted” (The Challenge of Acts, p.55.)

It’s ironic. These early Christians lived with far more day-to-day suffering. No vote. No voice. No bill of rights. No predictable police force that’s held accountable. No antibiotics, painkillers, or what we would call basic medical care. Simple infections could kill you. High infant mortality. High risk for mothers in childbearing. When you just expect that some of your children will die. Not to mention risk of death for yourself simply for following Jesus. And yet they didn’t seem to think that God was failing.

And yet we, who have been so blessed when compared to the rest of human history, seem far more inclined to accuse God of failing when we face suffering. (To be sure, some of us face broken bodies. Others of us face disease. Some are wracked with pain. Others of us face the horror of persecution, war, and political corruption. And death still touches all of us. Perhaps it’s not fair to compare suffering. It’s simply to point out that by and far, people today generally have it better than they did.)

Acts 12 anchors the whole event during the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Strange, that this was the same time Jesus suffered and died—probably an intentional move by Herod Agrippa. His grandpa once tried to kill Jesus too. He failed, but his uncle, Herod Antipas, had a hand in crucifying Jesus. Like grandpa, like grandson. Like uncle, too.

There’s something here. Jesus suffered and died. We should also expect to. Jesus promises it. Sometimes that suffering seems futile and meaningless, but God will always use it and redeem it. Acts even tells us the apostles found it an honor to be worthy to suffer for Christ’s name (Acts 5:41).

Suffering is not good. But even out of the worst suffering, God will bring good. A woman in my church shared a quote with me: “God allows what HE hates in order to accomplish what HE loves.” The picture of Jesus on the cross comes to mind.

The worst suffering imaginable became God’s most redeeming event. God does not promise to spare us from all suffering. But he knows what it’s like. We can turn to him. And when we suffer, he suffers with us. When God seems to be failing, he is often working in the most profound ways.