No genie in a bottle

They arrested the apostles and put them in the public jail. But that night an angel of the LORD opened the prison gates, led the apostles out, and said to them, ‘Go and stand in the Temple, and tell the people all about this new life.’ The apostles obeyed, and at dawn they entered the Temple and started teaching. (verses 18-21a)

Read Acts 5: 12-26

You can’t confine God’s Spirit like a genie in a bottle. Sometimes people think they can control the power of God in the world. Atheistic regimes think they can persecute the church into oblivion, Heretics think they can change God’s truth to fit their own leanings, Institutional religion thinks it can reshape the work of God to fit its own interests. But God’s Spirit is no genie at the beck and call of humankind.

This is how it was with the apostles. All sorts of attempts were made to quell their message. They were warned, reprimanded, threatened, imprisoned and persecuted, yet nothing could prevent God from working through them. Their message was a liberating one about a new kind of life God wanted to give. Because its source was God, not people, there was no stopping it.

It’s reassuring, isn’t it, that God’s power and love are so unquenchable.

Dear God, thank you for the strength and resilience of your message of the new life and for its power to transform lives. Amen.

by Richard Hauser, in ‘Guidance for each Day’ (LCA, Openbook, 2002)

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