Acts 16:25-30 What Must I Do To Be Saved?
About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them. Suddenly there was such a violent earthquake that the foundations of the prison were shaken. At once all the prison doors flew open, and everybody’s chains came loose. The jailer woke up, and when he saw the prison doors open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself because he thought the prisoners had escaped. But Paul shouted, “Don’t harm yourself! We are all here!” The jailer called for lights, rushed in and fell trembling before Paul and Silas. He then brought them out and asked, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” They replied, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved you and your household.” Then they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all the others in his house. At that hour of the night the jailer took them and washed their wounds; then immediately he and all his family were baptized. The jailer brought them into his house and set a meal before them; he was filled with joy because he had come to believe in God he and his whole family.
In 1815, Napoleon Bonaparte was captured and sent to St. Helena, France’s version of Alcatraz, an isolated island prison. Several escape attempts were devised, including a submarine or lowering him 300 feet down a cliff to a waiting rowboat. Napoleon never made the attempt. In 1994 an inmate of St. Helena did what Napoleon couldn’t; he escaped. He used a bar of soap to make an impression of a guard’s keys, whittled his own key out of a wooden chair leg, left a recording of himself snoring in his cell, and floated away on a driftwood and Styrofoam boat. With a page torn out of an atlas for a map, 15 cans of beans and a fishing pole, he sailed 2000 miles to Brazil. Or so he later said. Maybe he actually just bribed a guard and sailed off on a friend’s yacht.
Prisoners will find a way to escape. They’ve got all the time in the world to think about nothing but crazy schemes for getting out. You have to figure that some are constantly on the look out for any possible weakness in their imprisonment. People have used disguises and deception, tunnels, home-made weapons, outside accomplices. So prison wardens have to think like a prisoner to keep that from happening. The jail keeper needs to imagine the desperation of a lifer, someone with no hope of parole or release. He needs to be as clever and creative as they are going to be. I suppose he could just ask the prisoners how to escape, but I don’t think they’d tell him.
But that’s what the jailer at Philippi did. He asked a prisoner, Paul, how to escape. Only he wasn’t asking as someone on the outside, a jailer, wondering what the prisoners were thinking. He wanted to know, “How do I escape? Me, a prisoner, too.” The jailer himself was feeling the desperation of the condemned, the hopelessness of never being free. “What must I do to be saved?”
It’s a question he asked of a man who could have simply walked out of prison if he had chosen to, but he didn’t. But there had to be more to it than that. If you want to know how to escape, you ask someone who got away, not somebody who seems to be quite content staying locked up. Paul wasn’t the only one who stayed; none of the prisoners escaped. But the jailer came to Paul and Silas, because if anyone knew how to escape, it was these two prisoners.
The jailer knew, first of all, why they were in prison. They had come to Philippi to preach salvation in the name of Jesus Christ. But there was a slave woman there possessed by an evil spirit who followed them around telling everyone, “These men are servants of the Most High God, who are telling you the way to be saved.” It was the truth, but it wasn’t exactly the sort of endorsement they were looking for. So Paul commanded that the demon come out of her in the name of Jesus Christ.
And suddenly, she was free! This was a wonderful act of compassion on Paul’s part, as well as proof that Jesus Christ is who Paul said he was. But the woman still wasn’t entirely free. She was still a slave, and her owner was upset because he had been making good money from the demon’s fortune-telling. So he had Paul and Silas thrown in prison. The charge? Advocating customs unlawful for Romans to practice or accept. There was no law against what Paul was preaching, so they called it a crime to just not live like everybody else. “Do as the Romans do, or else.”
Now, the jailer knew all this. He watched his prisoners. He saw how Paul and Silas acted. Sitting there in chains, they were free. They were at peace. They were praying and having a sing-along, singing hymns in praise to God. Maybe their singing slowly lulled him to sleep, that is, until an earthquake shook him awake, and the cell doors all flew open. If the jailer was asleep, he woke up to see the open doors and assumed the worst. If he perhaps had been awake the whole time, maybe he assumed the earthquake would have also knocked down some walls, letting the prisoners out another way. Either way, he was in big trouble; he’d get the blame for this act of God. At best, he’d be forced to serve out the remainder of their sentences, being punished in their place. At worst, he might be put to death for his own crime of sleeping on duty.
He didn’t wait to see what fate awaited him; he was going to kill himself. This jailer who dealt with countless men in trouble, full of desperation, every day, now felt desperate and trapped; until a prisoner showed compassion on him. Paul yelled for him to stop. “We’re all here.”
The jailer felt himself a prisoner. If it had only been chains and iron bars and brick walls holding him, he might have asked someone who escaped from prison how he could do the same. But this jailer was held by his fear of death, by the guilt of his sins, by the dreadful knowledge that there is a God who judges the heart. So he brought his question to two men who were content to sit in prison, but who knew a freedom and peace with God that he so desperately needed. “What must I do to be saved?”
Now I know that the focus of this Sunday is the Baptism of our Lord, and our own need for the cleansing waters of baptism. And we’ll get to baptism soon, but Paul didn’t tell the jailer, “The very first thing you have to do is wash yourself; get yourself baptized.” No, he didn’t mention baptism, not right away. He said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved.” Even that wasn’t telling the jailer, “This is what you have to do.” It’s not a command. It’s not an escape plan. It’s an invitation. Just know that Jesus has already saved you. You don’t have to do anything. He’s your Savior. Trust him. Rely on him. Simply know the peace he gives.
By the end of that long night, Paul was able to teach this jailer a lot more about Jesus, and the jailer and his whole family were baptized. They were washed, as we have been, with the water connected to the words and promises of our God. They were marked and sealed by this sacrament as redeemed children of God.
The jailer took Paul home, fed him and washed his wounds. A nice bath probably felt pretty good to Paul about that time. But water can only do so much. The water of baptism could not make us clean if it were not for the blood that Jesus shed for our sins, when he willingly took the punishment of all of sin’s prisoners on himself, in our place.
The reason why we can answer a question like, “What must I do to be saved?” with a simple answer, “Nothing; there’s nothing you have to do,” is because Jesus has already done it all, fulfilled the whole law in our place, died on the cross for our sins, and cried out triumphantly, “It is finished.”
The question that was on Christ’s mind in our Gospel lesson today at the Jordan River was, “What must I do, to be their Savior?” He came to John to be baptized, even though he had no sins to wash away. Remember how John said, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me for baptism?” John didn’t get it. But Jesus said it was necessary to fulfill all righteousness. “You don’t have to understand it, but this is what I must do to be your Savior.”
And that was the thought that carried him through life. “This is what I must do to be their Savior.” Everything he did, he did out of love for us. And when the cross approached, and he dreaded the suffering and the humiliation, he said, “Not my will, but thine be done. If this is the only way, then this is what I must do now to be their Savior.”
That’s the love that washes over us in our baptism. It may be many years since the drops of water touched your brow, but the grace and love of your Savior still clings to you. Now the only question for us is not, “What must I do?” but, “What can I do?” How can I thank my Savior for his salvation? How can I show the world what a difference it makes to know the peace and freedom of living in God’s kingdom of grace? How can I now glorify my God and praise his name in every place, time, and circumstance.
If I’m stuck at home in this pandemic, like a prison, I don’t have to escape. I can praise God there. If I’m out and about, I’m not a free man, free to do whatever I want, but a prisoner of Christ, a willing and joyful servant and slave, obliged to do what he commands, and glad to do so. We are slaves and free at the same time, just as we are each sinners and saints at one and the same time, set free from sin by God’s grace and forgiveness, even as we continue to struggle with the temptations and sins and failings that are like a ball and chains we can’t get rid of. Those chains of temptation and the weak sinful flesh can’t hold us. You can break free. You are free. Live in freedom. Use the power of your baptism to daily say, “No, I won’t let sin control me or take away my privilege to do what is good and right, for the sake of Christ who washed me clean and saved me.”
Live free. Paul said in Galatians, “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not allow anyone to put the yoke of slavery on you again. After all, brothers, you were called to freedom. Only do not use your freedom as a starting point for your sinful flesh. Rather, serve one another through love.” The chains of sin are obvious, Paul says: sexual immorality, lust, anger, pride, hatred, envy, selfishness—obvious once you’re free, not so obvious when you’re a prisoner to them.
But we’ve been set free to live in Christ and live for Christ in purity and love, as he lived for us and gave himself for us to be his own people and possession forever, now and in the perfect and unending freedom of heaven. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them. Suddenly there was such a violent earthquake that the foundations of the prison were shaken. At once all the prison doors flew open, and everybody’s chains came loose. The jailer woke up, and when he saw the prison doors open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself because he thought the prisoners had escaped. But Paul shouted, “Don’t harm yourself! We are all here!” The jailer called for lights, rushed in and fell trembling before Paul and Silas. He then brought them out and asked, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” They replied, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved you and your household.” Then they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all the others in his house. At that hour of the night the jailer took them and washed their wounds; then immediately he and all his family were baptized. The jailer brought them into his house and set a meal before them; he was filled with joy because he had come to believe in God he and his whole family.
In 1815, Napoleon Bonaparte was captured and sent to St. Helena, France’s version of Alcatraz, an isolated island prison. Several escape attempts were devised, including a submarine or lowering him 300 feet down a cliff to a waiting rowboat. Napoleon never made the attempt. In 1994 an inmate of St. Helena did what Napoleon couldn’t; he escaped. He used a bar of soap to make an impression of a guard’s keys, whittled his own key out of a wooden chair leg, left a recording of himself snoring in his cell, and floated away on a driftwood and Styrofoam boat. With a page torn out of an atlas for a map, 15 cans of beans and a fishing pole, he sailed 2000 miles to Brazil. Or so he later said. Maybe he actually just bribed a guard and sailed off on a friend’s yacht.
Prisoners will find a way to escape. They’ve got all the time in the world to think about nothing but crazy schemes for getting out. You have to figure that some are constantly on the look out for any possible weakness in their imprisonment. People have used disguises and deception, tunnels, home-made weapons, outside accomplices. So prison wardens have to think like a prisoner to keep that from happening. The jail keeper needs to imagine the desperation of a lifer, someone with no hope of parole or release. He needs to be as clever and creative as they are going to be. I suppose he could just ask the prisoners how to escape, but I don’t think they’d tell him.
But that’s what the jailer at Philippi did. He asked a prisoner, Paul, how to escape. Only he wasn’t asking as someone on the outside, a jailer, wondering what the prisoners were thinking. He wanted to know, “How do I escape? Me, a prisoner, too.” The jailer himself was feeling the desperation of the condemned, the hopelessness of never being free. “What must I do to be saved?”
It’s a question he asked of a man who could have simply walked out of prison if he had chosen to, but he didn’t. But there had to be more to it than that. If you want to know how to escape, you ask someone who got away, not somebody who seems to be quite content staying locked up. Paul wasn’t the only one who stayed; none of the prisoners escaped. But the jailer came to Paul and Silas, because if anyone knew how to escape, it was these two prisoners.
The jailer knew, first of all, why they were in prison. They had come to Philippi to preach salvation in the name of Jesus Christ. But there was a slave woman there possessed by an evil spirit who followed them around telling everyone, “These men are servants of the Most High God, who are telling you the way to be saved.” It was the truth, but it wasn’t exactly the sort of endorsement they were looking for. So Paul commanded that the demon come out of her in the name of Jesus Christ.
And suddenly, she was free! This was a wonderful act of compassion on Paul’s part, as well as proof that Jesus Christ is who Paul said he was. But the woman still wasn’t entirely free. She was still a slave, and her owner was upset because he had been making good money from the demon’s fortune-telling. So he had Paul and Silas thrown in prison. The charge? Advocating customs unlawful for Romans to practice or accept. There was no law against what Paul was preaching, so they called it a crime to just not live like everybody else. “Do as the Romans do, or else.”
Now, the jailer knew all this. He watched his prisoners. He saw how Paul and Silas acted. Sitting there in chains, they were free. They were at peace. They were praying and having a sing-along, singing hymns in praise to God. Maybe their singing slowly lulled him to sleep, that is, until an earthquake shook him awake, and the cell doors all flew open. If the jailer was asleep, he woke up to see the open doors and assumed the worst. If he perhaps had been awake the whole time, maybe he assumed the earthquake would have also knocked down some walls, letting the prisoners out another way. Either way, he was in big trouble; he’d get the blame for this act of God. At best, he’d be forced to serve out the remainder of their sentences, being punished in their place. At worst, he might be put to death for his own crime of sleeping on duty.
He didn’t wait to see what fate awaited him; he was going to kill himself. This jailer who dealt with countless men in trouble, full of desperation, every day, now felt desperate and trapped; until a prisoner showed compassion on him. Paul yelled for him to stop. “We’re all here.”
The jailer felt himself a prisoner. If it had only been chains and iron bars and brick walls holding him, he might have asked someone who escaped from prison how he could do the same. But this jailer was held by his fear of death, by the guilt of his sins, by the dreadful knowledge that there is a God who judges the heart. So he brought his question to two men who were content to sit in prison, but who knew a freedom and peace with God that he so desperately needed. “What must I do to be saved?”
Now I know that the focus of this Sunday is the Baptism of our Lord, and our own need for the cleansing waters of baptism. And we’ll get to baptism soon, but Paul didn’t tell the jailer, “The very first thing you have to do is wash yourself; get yourself baptized.” No, he didn’t mention baptism, not right away. He said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved.” Even that wasn’t telling the jailer, “This is what you have to do.” It’s not a command. It’s not an escape plan. It’s an invitation. Just know that Jesus has already saved you. You don’t have to do anything. He’s your Savior. Trust him. Rely on him. Simply know the peace he gives.
By the end of that long night, Paul was able to teach this jailer a lot more about Jesus, and the jailer and his whole family were baptized. They were washed, as we have been, with the water connected to the words and promises of our God. They were marked and sealed by this sacrament as redeemed children of God.
The jailer took Paul home, fed him and washed his wounds. A nice bath probably felt pretty good to Paul about that time. But water can only do so much. The water of baptism could not make us clean if it were not for the blood that Jesus shed for our sins, when he willingly took the punishment of all of sin’s prisoners on himself, in our place.
The reason why we can answer a question like, “What must I do to be saved?” with a simple answer, “Nothing; there’s nothing you have to do,” is because Jesus has already done it all, fulfilled the whole law in our place, died on the cross for our sins, and cried out triumphantly, “It is finished.”
The question that was on Christ’s mind in our Gospel lesson today at the Jordan River was, “What must I do, to be their Savior?” He came to John to be baptized, even though he had no sins to wash away. Remember how John said, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me for baptism?” John didn’t get it. But Jesus said it was necessary to fulfill all righteousness. “You don’t have to understand it, but this is what I must do to be your Savior.”
And that was the thought that carried him through life. “This is what I must do to be their Savior.” Everything he did, he did out of love for us. And when the cross approached, and he dreaded the suffering and the humiliation, he said, “Not my will, but thine be done. If this is the only way, then this is what I must do now to be their Savior.”
That’s the love that washes over us in our baptism. It may be many years since the drops of water touched your brow, but the grace and love of your Savior still clings to you. Now the only question for us is not, “What must I do?” but, “What can I do?” How can I thank my Savior for his salvation? How can I show the world what a difference it makes to know the peace and freedom of living in God’s kingdom of grace? How can I now glorify my God and praise his name in every place, time, and circumstance.
If I’m stuck at home in this pandemic, like a prison, I don’t have to escape. I can praise God there. If I’m out and about, I’m not a free man, free to do whatever I want, but a prisoner of Christ, a willing and joyful servant and slave, obliged to do what he commands, and glad to do so. We are slaves and free at the same time, just as we are each sinners and saints at one and the same time, set free from sin by God’s grace and forgiveness, even as we continue to struggle with the temptations and sins and failings that are like a ball and chains we can’t get rid of. Those chains of temptation and the weak sinful flesh can’t hold us. You can break free. You are free. Live in freedom. Use the power of your baptism to daily say, “No, I won’t let sin control me or take away my privilege to do what is good and right, for the sake of Christ who washed me clean and saved me.”
Live free. Paul said in Galatians, “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not allow anyone to put the yoke of slavery on you again. After all, brothers, you were called to freedom. Only do not use your freedom as a starting point for your sinful flesh. Rather, serve one another through love.” The chains of sin are obvious, Paul says: sexual immorality, lust, anger, pride, hatred, envy, selfishness—obvious once you’re free, not so obvious when you’re a prisoner to them.
But we’ve been set free to live in Christ and live for Christ in purity and love, as he lived for us and gave himself for us to be his own people and possession forever, now and in the perfect and unending freedom of heaven. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
