"Lead me to the rock that is higher than I..."

The Rev. Kathi Johnson

C Easter 7 – 12 May 2013 (Mother’s Day)

Text: Acts 16:16-34

Our Redeemer Lutheran Church, Grand Prairie, Texas

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If I wanted to give a title to my sermon today, it would be something along these lines: “What do I do when I hit rock bottom?”

In our lesson from Acts today, that’s exactly where Paul and Silas end up. Arrested, stripped, beaten, flogged, jailed. There they are, in their cell. And just what do they do at rock bottom? Pray and sing hymns to God, so that others may hear about their faith. So that others may hear and learn about Jesus.

And then, there is this earthquake: “so violent that the foundations of the prison [are] shaken.”[1] The cells are all opened, the chains are unfastened, and the prisoners can go free!

And so the jailer ends up at rock bottom, too, when he realizes what has happened on his watch. Not that he has control over the earthquake, but can’t you just hear him – really? On my watch? An event so catastrophic that every single prisoner in my care can just walk right out the front door?

And so, what does he do at rock bottom? He decides to fall on his sword, rather than face whatever punishment there’ll be for the suddenly-empty jail. Paul is still at rock bottom himself when he realizes what the jailer is about to do and calls out to him that the prisoners are not all gone – they are in fact, still accounted for. To the jailer, it must’ve seemed a miracle.

In the next dramatic scene, the jailer calls for lights to be brought in, and he goes into where Paul and Silas are, and then he leads them out. He then asks the question that so many of us ask when we are at rock bottom: “What must I do to be saved?”

It’s such an honest question – such a raw question. He’s not thinking of being saved in the way we might, here in 21^st century Bible Belt America. He’s not asking this question because he’s worried about heaven or hell or spending eternity in some kind of fiery damnation.

He’s thinking something closer to this: I have hit rock bottom, and I don’t know what to do about it. What can I do – what must I do – to be saved? What can I do – what must I do – to have this situation turn around so that I’m not wallowing around at rock bottom anymore?

Paul’s answer to him is extraordinary: “Believe on the Lord Jesus.”

The jailer’s response is just as extraordinary. He takes the men into his own home and he washes their wounds, and then he and his entire household are washed themselves – washed with the waters of baptism. Paul and Silas begin emerging from rock bottom themselves, as they share the word of God with the jailer and his household. There is freedom for the prisoners; there is freedom for the jailer, too.

Last week, I preached about another story in Acts, and I talked about Lydia, the newly-baptized, living out her baptismal life, opening her home to missionaries. Today’s story from Acts has the same idea – in this story, the jailer begins to live out his baptismal life – caring for and feeding these men.

I wish I could say to you that living the baptismal life is always an easy one. I wish I could say to you that the Biblical witness proves to us that the baptized live on Easy Street, never facing anything but merry sunshine and pretty flowers. The Biblical witness doesn’t prove that at all – rather, quite the opposite. What we find in Scripture over and over again is the people of God: struggling, questioning, fighting, facing all kinds of difficulties.

But here’s the other thing we find in Scripture: the good news of the constant love of God. The good news that Jesus has come to earth, died, risen, ascended. The good news that the Holy Spirit comes to us, dwells with us, guiding us, directing us, strengthening us. The good news that we are never at rock bottom alone. We might be at rock bottom, but we are never there alone.

You know, I love the psalms. This collection of poems – songs – written over time and compiled into one place, they show us a complete range of human emotion and experience.

One of the richest is Psalm 139, which begins:

¹ O Lord, you have searched me and known me.

² You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from far away.

³ You search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways.

⁴ Even before a word is on my tongue, O Lord, you know it completely.

⁵ You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me.

⁶ Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is so high that I cannot attain it.

God is so vast, that he lies behind us and before us – he encompasses our history and our future. God’s knowledge is so high – so much higher than our own – that we cannot possibly see everything that he has in mind. This is part of why it is vital for us to come to God often in prayer – to ask God, “What is it, O God, that you would have us do to live faithfully?”

⁷ Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence?

⁸ If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.

⁹ If I take the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea,

¹⁰ even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me fast.

¹¹ If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light around me become night,

¹² even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is as bright as the day, for darkness is as light to you.

Verse 8 might very well be rewritten to say: “If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed at rock bottom, you are there.” There is no point at which God leaves us – high or low or in between – everywhere, his hand leads us and holds us fast. We may believe that we are walking alone in the deepest darkness – but God is there.

And God lifts us. Psalm 61:2 says:

² From the end of the earth I call to you, when my heart is faint.

Lead me to the rock that is higher than I…

And so we are lifted by God in order that we may do as Paul and Silas did, do as their jailer did, do as so many of the faithful before us have done, in spite of so many hardships. We are lifted in order to be used by God in the world: “to touch the lives of others with God’s surprising grace,” as our next hymn says.

Living the baptismal life takes great faith. But let us look again and always at the God in whom we have faith: the God who sets the captive free; the God who saves us; the God who is always with us, everywhere we go; the God who lifts us to the rock that is higher than we are; the God who loves us.

Amen.

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[1] Acts 16:26