Faith Quake

Read Acts 16:11-34.

A story from another time...

I didn't even know what I needed to be saved from. Except, at that moment, there was this deep, desperate desire to be saved from...well, something. From the sword in my hand, for one. You see, I've been a jailer for as long as I can remember. It's my job to keep the prisoners secure. Some are here because they've done horrendous crimes. Others are here because they've made one of the officials mad. These two, well, they were there because they had caused economic harm to some people, and that got them thrown into jail.

So it was my job to keep them confined, keep them off the streets. I was asleep when the earthquake happened. Earthquakes weren't an everyday occurrence, but they weren't uncommon, either. So when this one shook me awake, I didn't think much about it, until I heard and felt stone shifting. Then I looked out and saw that the jail was in chaos. The walls had fallen down. The doors were open. I quickly pulled on some clothes and went to check it out. Sure enough, all the cells were empty.

It was at that moment I first knew I needed saving. When the city magistrates found out that I had allowed the prisoners to escape, there would be a horrible death waiting for me. I knew. I had heard the stories. How do you think I got my job? It didn't end well for the guy before me. I couldn't bear the thought of the public humiliation, the pain I would go through. Death I could handle. The rest—not so much. So I made a quick decision and pulled out the source of my salvation: my sword. Better to kill myself and be done with it than to go through all that they would put me through.

Just as I was about to do the deed and end my miserable life, I heard his voice: "Stop!" I obeyed (not really sure why) and looked around. There was this slightly balding, nearly blind man calling out to me. "Stop! We're all here!" I looked closely and sure enough, all of the prisoners were gathered around this man. Why had they not fled? Why were they still here? I looked again through the dust at who it was who had called to me, and I realized it was that Paul guy. The celebrity. Or, at least the one I had heard about. He'd been preaching about salvation and some guy named Jesus all over the region. His reputation proceeded him.

It was when I looked at him that I dropped my personal source of salvation (my sword) and called out to him. "What must I do to be saved?" As I said, at that moment, I didn't even know what I needed to be saved from (that answer would come later as Paul taught me about sin and salvation and the hope we have in Jesus). I just knew I needed what he had. I needed to be saved from the life I was living, the hopelessness and the despair that were all we ever really got from the gods worshipped here in Philippi. "What must I do to be saved?"

That single question was all it took. Paul shared with me about Jesus, and once I professed belief in Jesus, that I believed it was true, all of it, he found some water and baptized me. And not just me, my whole household, even though they didn't come to believe fully until a bit later. Paul explained to me that the Gospel (I think that's what he called it) is expansive, welcoming us even before we are aware of it and long before we fully understand it. There, in the aftermath of an earthquake, I found my world shaken, turned upside down. There, in the midst of the chaos of a broken jail, I found my world put back together, the right way this time.

What did I have to do to be saved? Believe in the Lord Jesus, and I was saved—me and my entire household. Thanks be to God!