All Shook Up

Rebecca Sheridan
Sunday, June 1, 2025
Acts 16:16-34

    In our first reading from Acts this morning, an earthquake shakes the foundations of the prison where Paul and Silas are so that all the prisoners’ chains are unfastened.  We don’t generally think of earthquakes or other natural disasters as good things, but in this example, the earthquake is God showing up in a powerful way, giving freedom to Christians who are wrongfully imprisoned and inspiring faith for the jailer in his family.  In a frightening and uncertain situation, God brings faith, hope, and joy!  God shakes us up not to punish, but to save us.
    In your own life, can you think of a time when you were “shook up?”  It is difficult to believe, but it is nineteen years since my beloved grandmother died, almost to the day.  I was a senior in college, and this was my first experience with someone very close to me dying.  Needless to say, my world was shaken.  I found it difficult to imagine what life would even be like without my grandma – she was the matriarch of our family, and the glue that held us together.  I still miss her and feel her loss greatly even after almost twenty years.  But soon after her passing, my aunt handed me a stack of papers after going through my grandma’s belongings.  They were copies of some of the sermons I had preached in my college campus ministry.  My grandma had literally slept with them under her pillow, I learned.  I had been thinking about becoming a pastor, but hadn’t really talked openly about it to anyone that I was exploring going to seminary.  I am still sad that my grandma never got to see me as a pastor, but finding these sermons for me was lifechanging – I think somehow she knew.  She was my biggest supporter and the one who had taught me the faith, more than anyone else in my life.  God helped me in this difficult time of transition in my life – losing my grandma, graduating from college, figuring out what would be next for me like going to seminary, to give me hope for the future despite the uncertainty of the moment.
    We live in uncertain times with “earthquakes” in our lives that shake us so that we are changed.  We like to be in control, but when unexpected things happen outside of our control we are reminded that ultimately the future is in God’s hands, not ours.  These times of change and uncertainty can be quite frightening:  losing a job, going through a divorce, navigating the loss of a loved one, enduring treatment for a scary health diagnosis.  Our faith in Christ assures us that whatever shakes us up, Christ is with us, and Christ will help us find hope, healing, and even joy in the midst of uncertainty.
    In the reading from Acts, we learn that Paul and Silas are put in prison because they take away a girl’s ability to tell the future.  Her owners are not concerned about her well-being, but about the profit she is making for them, in what was almost certainly an exploitative and abusive Roman pagan practice.  How dare these men take control out of their hands, these slave owners must be thinking?!  Paul helps this girl see that it is a better life for her trusting that the future is in God’s hands, even without knowing what the future holds for them or for her.  After the earthquake, when the jailer sees all the prison doors open, he is about to kill himself, because the Roman punishment for escaped prisoners is death.  He is shaken enough to despair, but thankfully, none of the prisoners have left.  The care and concern Paul and Silas show for the jailer leads him and his entire household to faith in Christ, and they are baptized without delay!  It is important to note that at the time, Judaism was allowed by the Roman government, but Christianity was not tolerated.  The jailer and his family take a risk in confessing faith in Christ and being baptized.  The future is still uncertain for everyone involved!  We know that Paul himself with eventually be martyred in Rome.  Yet these early Christians are able to trust that the future is in God’s hands and that God’s future, no matter the consequences of faith, is a hopeful one.
    In our gospel for this morning, Jesus prays for us.  It’s still amazing to me to know that Jesus prays for us, not just for the disciples in the room with him at that moment in the gospel of John, but for all people who follow him throughout time and space.  Jesus is preparing his followers for his death on a cross and his ascension through this prayer.  Understandably, they are anxious about a future without Jesus bodily present with them.  He assures them and us that no matter what happens, the future is in God’s hands, and that he is with us in spirit, because he and God the Father are one.  At his death on Good Friday, there is also an earthquake.  The temple curtain is split in two.  The saints who have already died are raised, Matthew tells us.  Once again, as in our reading today from Acts, the earthquake is a sign of God shaking things up for good.  Redemption has come, despite the tragedy of Christ’s death on a cross.  Victory has come over death itself.  We are changed forever because of Jesus’ death and resurrection.
    And so it seems appropriate that we celebrate the baptism of the Chen and Chan household today just as the jailer and his family are baptized in the book of Acts.  Jesus has changed their lives for the better.  We don’t know what the future holds for them or for us, but we know that we are all in God’s hands, thanks to the gift and promise of baptism.  We hear Jesus’ invitation at the end of the book of Revelation today:  let everyone who hears say, “Come.” Let everyone who is thirsty come.  Let anyone who wishes take the water of life as a gift.”  And Christ is coming again soon, thanks be to God!  No matter what shakes us, no matter what the future holds, Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ will come again.  So today, we live with hope and joy.  Amen.