Going to Rome | Acts 27:23-26
Acts 27:23-26
Going to Rome
Do you think we’ll get much snow this year? We live in Tennessee, so you never know. We might get a little. We might get a lot. We might not get any. I remember my first snow day as a student at Mount Juliet High School after moving from Aurora, Colorado. It wasn’t a whole day. We were dismissed early. I don’t think I’ll ever forget it. I walked outside back when the high school was over on Mount Juliet Road and I saw one snowflake up in the sky.
I remember thinking boy I’m never gonna get an education in this town. You just never know how much snow you’ll get in Tennessee.
It reminds me of a sign I once saw that said “store closed today – not home yesterday yet.” We can laugh at that snow day back in 1977 but I will tell you this, when my kids were in school in the 90s and I had to pick them up in the middle of the school day because school officials couldn’t decide whether or not to call a snow day, it took us over three hours to get home. We lived less than 5 miles from the school.
You might be wondering what snow days in Tennessee have to do with the text we just heard today from the book of Acts so let me read it again:
read verses 23-24
In our text today Paul was trying to get to Rome. In the story I told about snow in Tennessee Craig, Paige, and Michael were trying to get home.
Our current worship series is Fresh Starts. The apostle Paul knew a lot about fresh starts, and lots of other kinds of starts. When we first met Paul in the Book of Acts, back when he was known as Saul, named after the 1st king of Israel, he was kind of a bad guy as far as the church was concerned. He threw those who believed in Jesus in jail left and right. He even traveled to Syria to round them up. And, of course, that is when he had his first real “fresh start.” He encountered the risen Christ, the one who would destroy the Christian faith became its champion.
From Acts 21 to our text today, a period of over two years, Paul, himself has been a prisoner, first of the Jewish authorities, and then of the Roman government. He is on a ship, headed to Rome to make an appeal to the emperor which he had the right to do as a Roman citizen. Paul was in trouble with the Jewish authorities, because he came to believe that Jesus was the fulfillment of all the hopes of Israel – the long awaited Messiah, and the fulfillment of the law, the sacrifice of all sacrifices that would never need to be repeated. Paul came to believe Jesus was the once and for all sacrifice for all people, and that landed him in trouble with the Jewish authorities.
The thing that got Paul in trouble with the Roman government was that Paul came to believe that Jesus is the Lord of all, the one in control of everything and not the emperor.
So he was on his way to Rome to sort all that out. But wouldn’t you know it, stormy weather, ship, captains and crews and other factors complicated the voyage. The first century equivalent of the 21st century snow day, but Paul really believed that he needed to speak to the emperor. According to the accounts of all the sources I have read, Paul was not a shy person. He had talked to a lot of officials, governors and kings. He really believed he needed to speak to those in power in Rome about Jesus.
Have you ever been there? Have you ever felt like there was something you really needed to do for the Lord? —- maybe nothing as dramatic as speaking to the emperor of the known world, maybe just getting back to church or having faith in God… But then comes the shipwrecks and ship captains and stormy weather, and all kinds of other things.
Paul knew what that was like before the text we heard read today. He has been shipwrecked four or five times. Note — those were not metaphorical shipwrecks — they were ships hitting the rock or coral, planks busting open, saltwater pouring in and real danger of drowning, shipwrecks. In the middle of all of those kinds of things happening, Paul has a dream, so let’s hear it again.
Verses 23-24
Paul knew he could do what God had for him to do because of the angel that came to him. Things got even more rocky along the way. It was not Paul’s first or last shipwreck. He would get snake bit on the island of Malta, and other things would happen, but he did make it to Rome. He did make his appeal to Cesar.
Maybe you’re like me maybe you’re thinking sure would be nice to have a sweet angel come and say “Craig, you are going to be all right. You are going to be able to do what God has for you to do.”
It makes me wanna pray, “Lord, I’m not asking for much, just an angel to come and tell me that I can do whatever you have for me to do.”
We can hear a text like our text today and a thought like that can easily cross our minds. However, the reality is we have something even better that an angel in a dream. Do you know what we have that Paul did not have? The New Testament. True, he was in the process of writing 1/3 of it but he didn’t have it. We don’t know what letters in the New Testament he may have read. We have the Book of Acts. Paul did not have it. He was sort of living the book of Acts. We have the witness of the martyrs and we have the whole history of the church. We have the word of God, we have the Bible, we have the faithful spirit of God — and we might even have an angel or two thrown in here and there from time to time as well.
In closing, I’m going to make a confession. I try to avoid negativity, but I do want to share what maybe one of, if not my least favorite hymns in the Methodist hymnal or any other hymnal. The title is “He Never Has Failed Me, Yet.”
Now, if that’s your favorite hymn, I apologize, but here’s what I don’t understand. I don’t understand where that “yet” comes from. It sounds like whoever is singing the song is on the verge of discovering where God is going to fail them; but God is not gonna fail, we can do what God has for us to do, whether that’s appeal to Caesar, or share our faith in a way that others can experience God‘s blessings for them because God has not failed us and never will. Amen.