The Midnight Hour (or Bizarre but Blessed Beginnings)

June 1, 2025

What is your craziest road trip? Let’s keep rolling with Pastor Wes’ movie trivia from last week.  The name of the crazy road trip movie with Steve Martin and John Candy is . . . Planes, Trains and Automobiles. Chevy Chase starred in . . . the Vacation series.  And what’s the classic with two ladies in a convertible at the Grand Canyon?   Thelma and Louise.

Well, our first lesson today features a crazy road trip, indeed. It’s actually the beginning of Saint Paul’s second missionary journey.  After visiting the congregations in Galatia that he established on Adventure #1, and after a bizarre dream, Paul and Silas set sail westward on the Aegean Sea and take their first steps in Greece.

Why is that significant on this day celebrating the Lord’s Ascension?  Well, we know that right before Jesus has his own crazy road trip ascending into heaven, however that transpired, Jesus makes it clear that his first disciples will be witnesses for him in Jerusalem, and then Judea and Samaria, and even to the ends of the Earth. That’s why we like to say here Christ Our Shepherd that we want skin in the game locally, regionally and globally.  Paul’s adventures all over the Greek and Roman world are fruition of Jesus’ request that his gospel be taken even to the ends of the earth.  And in this lesson, Acts 16, the gospel has arrived in Europe.

The town is Philippi, and here Paul experiences probably the craziest week of his ministry so far.  Paul ends up breaking through 3 cultural barriers in addition to maybe breaking a few ribs of his own along the way.

Paul’s customary first move when arriving in a new town is to find the local synagogue.  But as we heard in our first lesson last week, Paul—maybe finding no established Jewish synagogue of men—ends up discovering some women worshiping by a river.  Paul does something no respectful traveling rabbi would do:  he engages the women in conversation, sharing his story of Jesus.   A woman named Lydia is so compelled that she actually asks if she and her whole household can be baptized.  I am really pumped that this Thursday, our COS Footsteps of Paul travel group will be in Philippi, and in the very river tradition declares Lydia was baptized, we will affirm our own baptisms.  I’m pumped.

Well, just like in the movies, after a calm start, the trouble begins. And that’s where our lesson today picks up the Acts 16 narrative. We encounter a slave girl who has the spirit of divination. Apparently, her owners send her about the city and charging people who want to know their future.  When she comes upon Paul and his crew, she gets so excited that she announces them as “slaves of the most-high God who can proclaim to you the way of salvation.”

Now at first, I wonder if such declarations were appreciated by Paul. It’s pretty nice to have strong recommendations and good publicity, right? That would be amazing if someone announced us with flattery wherever we went. “This is Janet one of the best dressers in the community. This is Leroy who offers wise advice for financial success. This is Lisa who has the one of the best voices in town.”

But apparently, this young fortuneteller was too much of a good thing. After several days of following Paul’s gang wherever they went and never ceasing the announcement, Paul lost his patience.  He turned on the girl and spoke to the spirit or demon or brokenness inside her and said “I order you in the name of Jesus to come out.”  Freed from her demon, the girl had to be relieved.   This young lady, with an incredible gift, knew she was a slave to two men, these pimps so to speak, who abused her life and gift.  Maybe she just couldn’t help declaring that Paul was not slave to any man, but to the God of salvation, freedom, and grace.

Interesting question for us:  So often we see in society people with amazing gifts and talents, fantastic fortune-like abilities.  Yet they ca still seem in bondage, right?  Still slaves to some ideology or falsehood.  How about us?

Well, the good news is that Paul frees the girl. The bad news, as Paul will encounter time and time again in his ministry, if he messes with people’s money-making, they are gonna come after him hard!   And still today, any time we work to make people more free—in terms of racism, sexism, or systems of greed, whatever—you are probably gonna have to pay a bit of a price.  Working for justice ain’t for the timid.  Sure enough, the girl’s owners arrange for a crowd to attack Paul and Silas.  Their clothes are ripped, they’re beaten, flogged and thrown into prison.

How many of you remember the movie, The Shawshank Redemption, with Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman?  Last summer, our family toured the jail where that was filmed.  Not too far from where LuAnne grew up in Mansfield, Ohio, it was built as a Reformatory, but then shifted to include maximum security holdings.  You could see the electric chair they used.  Luke and I walked through the isolation wing which was kept at 92 degrees year-round.  I was getting really dark feelings and was happy to leave. I’m not sure what Paul’s jail felt like in Philippi, but again, our tour group will get to see the legendary site in just a few days.

In the Shawshank movie, the wrongfully accused prisoner named Andy keeps talking about finding hope in prison. His buddy, Red, doesn’t want to hear it. He thinks it’s foolish to look for hope in their circumstances.  One day, Andy barricades himself in the warden’s office and plays a Mozart opera over the prison PA system. The music is so beautiful that the prisoners—even the hardened, angry, violent ones—pause their daily activities to listen. And as Red listens to the opera, he understands a little bit of the hope that Andy feels. He says, “I tell you, those voices soared, higher and farther than anybody in a gray place dares to dream. It was like some beautiful bird flapped into our drab little cage and made those walls dissolve away. For the briefest of moments,” says Red, “every last man at Shawshank was free.”

That’s the hope-centered attitude Paul brings to his Philippian prison!  In verse 25, we come to what might be the most striking in all of Acts.  “About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them.”

What?  These men were not in a synagogue or a church service. They were in a dungeon—cold, bruised, and chained. And yet, they worshiped.  What kind of faith does that?  What kind of trust sings in the dark?  It’s the kind of faith that knows God is not just the God of the mountaintop, but also the God of the valley, as Psalm 23 reminds us.  It’s stunning that Paul and Silas don’t just endure prison—they transform it into a sanctuary.

In the letter Paul will later write to his friends in Philippi, he summarizes this spirit “Rejoice in the Lord always. Again, I say rejoice.”  Philippians 4.4.  Who knows, maybe he sang that as one of his hymns that night, (sing) “Rejoice in the Lord always, again, I say rejoice.”

It's a good gut check for all of us, right?  Do I worship God only when life is rolling my way or also when the chips are down?  Am I a fair-weather worshiper?  Here in 2025 we still notice that Paul sang in the darkest of times.  And so too, Scripture says “the other prisoners were listening to them.”  There in that jail, the other prisoners didn’t just hear songs—they heard hope.  And that can happen in our lives too.  People are watching us, and listening to us, observing how we handle tough times in addition to easy ones. In our hospital rooms, when money is tight, when all is not right in our lives, what do they see?  Can they find some hope in our behavior?  Will they feel a glimmer of promise in our faith-filled behavior as those prisoners long ago did with Paul?

Well, here we could queue some music.  Maybe Eric Clapton’s “After Midnight.”  Or Wilson Pickett’s “I’m Gonna Wait Till the Midnight Hour.” Or Elvis Presley’s “Jailhouse Rock.”  But after midnight, God shows up in the form of an earthquake.   Suddenly, the foundations of the prison are shaken. The doors fly open. Everyone’s chains fall off.  The inmates are free to flee.

Now we all saw what happened in New Orleans last week, right?  10 inmates had a chance to escape prison and they took it!  Run, rabbit run.  But what’s astonishing is that even though they know they’re unjustly imprisoned, Paul and Silas don’t leave.  For they know this earthquake is not designed for their freedom, but for the jailer’s.

How?  Well, the jailer was about to take his own life. Thinking the prisoners had escaped, he knew Roman punishment awaited him. But Paul cries out, “Don’t harm yourself! We’re all still here!”  The jailer can NOT believe it.  And in the grace shown to him, the jailer is open to hearing Paul’s message, how this Jesus fuels Paul’s approach of support and kindness.

The earthquake has shaken things loose in more ways than one.  Paul’s chains fall off.  But so do the chains of this Roman jailer’s world view.  He takes Paul and Silas to his own home, cleans their wounds, feeds them, and asks that his whole family is baptized into the freedom of Christ.

I wonder if there is an important lesson here:  Our Christ-won freedom is for our benefit, but also for others.  Freedom in Christ always comes with a mission.  God set you free from addiction—not just so you could be clean, but so you could help others get free.  God forgives you of your sin—not just for your peace, but so you bring God’s light to others still in the dark.

As I read it beautifully put somewhere, “Paul and Silas chose to stay behind—so that the jailer could move forward. That’s what love does.”

Wild road trips?  Paul, Silas, and Timothy are certainly on one. Demons, healings, beatings, floggings, incarceration, earthquakes, singing. And that’s just one stop of many!  Just one chapter. But through it all, the hope of Christ is prevailing and growing.  Again, at his ascension, Jesus commanded folks to be his witnesses locally, regionally, and globally. And I think Jesus would have told Paul he is off to an awesome start in this new land of Macedonia, Europe.  He's broken through 3 cultural divisions, between men and women, slave and free, Jew and Greek.  Having broken them down, he builds those folks up, witnessing that in Jesus, once divided people are can be held together in God’s love.  As he’ll write to his friends in Galatia, “There is neither Jew nor Greek. There’s neither slave nor free. There’s neither male nor female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus.”

So, friends, happy road-tripping this summer.  But on this Ascension Day, remember Jesus’ hope for all who love him, that we would be his witnesses wherever we go.  And that mission transforms any trip into an adventure worth living.  In Jesus’ name, Amen.