The Knock at the Door They Couldn't Believe

Peter came home to Jerusalem from the Roman captain's house by the sea, and the church praised God for welcoming outsiders. But King Herod, grandson of the Herod who hunted baby Jesus, was looking for ways to hurt the church.

He began with James, the fisherman brother of John and one of Jesus' twelve. Herod had James killed with a sword. The crowd liked it, so Herod went after Peter next.

It was Passover week, so Herod locked Peter in prison until the feast was over and set four squads of soldiers to guard him, four soldiers in each. (Sixteen soldiers for one fisherman. Herod was not taking chances.)

Across the city the church prayed through the night. "Lord, bring Peter back to us!"

On the night before Herod meant to bring him out to the crowd, Peter was sound asleep between two soldiers, chained to both, with more guards at the door. (Jesus had once told Peter he would grow old. Peter was not old yet.)

Suddenly a light filled the cell, and an angel stood there. Peter slept on, so the angel whacked him on the side.

"Quick! Get up!"

The chains dropped off Peter's wrists. Clink. Clank. Neither soldier moved.

"Put on your belt and your sandals," said the angel. Peter did. "Now wrap your coat around you and follow me."

Peter followed, sure he was dreaming. They walked past the first guard post, then the second, and came to the great iron gate that led into the city. It swung open all by itself. Out they went, down one street, and then the angel was gone.

Peter blinked in the cold night air. "Now I know it's true," he said. "The Lord sent his angel and rescued me from Herod!"

He hurried to the house of Mary, the mother of John Mark, where many friends were praying, and knocked at the gate. Knock, knock, knock.

A servant girl named Rhoda came to answer. She knew Peter's voice at once. She was so happy that she ran back inside and forgot to open the gate.

"Peter is at the door!" she cried.

"You're out of your mind," they told her. The people who had spent all night asking God for Peter could not believe God had sent him.

"He is! He's there!"

"Then it must be his angel."

(Nobody thought of going to look.)

Outside, Peter kept on knocking. At last they opened the gate, and there he stood. Peter waved his hand for them to hush, told them how the Lord had brought him out of prison, and went off to another place.

By morning the soldiers were in an uproar. Herod searched for Peter and could not find him. He questioned the guards and ordered them to be killed.

But not every gate opened. James had not come home, and one day, just as Jesus had said, Peter would grow old and die for his Lord too. Swords and prisons stayed in the world, and the church kept on praying.

They were praying to someone who had already been locked in the darkest place there is. Soldiers had guarded his tomb, and a stone had been sealed across its door. None of it held him. When John, the brother of James, was an old man, the risen Jesus spoke to him about keys. "I was dead, and look, I am alive forever and ever! And I hold the keys of death."

The one who opened Herod's gate holds those keys too. One day he will unlock death for James, and for Peter, and for every friend in Mary's crowded house.