A Death that Doesn't Matter?

February 24, 2009

Today's Reading: Leviticus 20-21 and Acts 12

I’m sure that all of you know the story of how Peter was in the jail and then the angel comes in and frees him. I’m not really certain what the takeaway value of this story. I suppose that we can say that whenever we are put in jail for our beliefs, we can just have others pray for us, and angels will spring us.

You know what I never hear about in this story? What happens to the guards. For some reason, there were a lot of them. I believe that there were four squads of four soldiers each. Do you really need sixteen guards for one prisoner? I think the Incredible Hulk had less guards. I guess they were thinking he would rain tongues of fire on them.

Anyway, Peter was chained up sleeping between two guards, and in the midst of this sick prison life, Peter was able to walk out.

Now, it sounds like the guards were sleeping on the job, and so they probably woke up and one of them said something like: “hey, wasn’t there somebody in here with us?” Then the other one probably said: “Oh, crap.”

Something that I never noticed about this story is what happened to the guards. Apparently, they told Herod, and when they could not find Peter, Herod had these guards put to death.

Boy, that kind of sucks, doesn’t it? I mean, it wasn’t like these soldiers were evil, right? I mean, they were probably just ordinary guys recruited out of high school, and got sucked into service. I wonder if they were married, and if their salaries covered their living expenses.

If you watch the extended edition of The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, there is a part where Faramir is looking at some men that his army has killed. He wonders if the men from Sauron’s army are truly evil, or if they are under some spell, or something.

Something tells me that if Acts 12 was made into a movie, they would depict the guards as complete jerks, so that when they got executed, we would be happy, like they got what was coming to them.

I suppose that this is just one example of how people who serve dictators are punished along with them, whether it is just or not. I guess that sums up just about everyone that Joshua’s army killed.

It kind of feels like some people are just raised up so they can be killed as, what, examples? Can it really be that simple? Of course it isn’t. Do you really think those lives didn’t matter to God, that they couldn’t repent? No, life is precious, and even those who are on the other side are important to God.