Acts 12: Praying Anyway - Darren Rowse
Think of almost any movie you've loved. Somewhere in the story, there's a moment where everything falls apart. The plan has failed, help isn't coming, and the hero comes face to face with something they simply cannot beat. Storytellers have lots of names for it: the ordeal, the abyss, the crisis. It's the point where you genuinely don't know how things are going to turn out.
We keep telling stories like this for a reason. It's not just that they make for good drama. It's that every one of us has lived through moments like this. A health scare, a financial crisis, a relationship falling apart, a season when faith feels thin. So what do you do when you find yourself at the bottom?
This week at One Church, Darren Rowse continued our series in Acts, taking us into Acts 12, a chapter where the early church hits its own lowest point. You can watch the full message in the video above, or listen to the audio version below.
The bottom of the circle
Darren began with Joseph Campbell, who in 1949 wrote about the "hero's journey," the shape he noticed in myths and stories from right across history and culture. Someone ordinary is called out of their familiar world into a place they didn't plan to go and can't control. They meet a mentor, face enemies, and eventually hit a low point at the bottom of the circle. Then they come through it changed, often carrying something back for the people at home.
George Lucas read Campbell before making Star Wars, and you can trace the same shape through The Lord of the Rings, Inside Out 2, and most of the films and books we love. But Darren wanted to focus on just one part of the circle: the low point. And he was clear that he wasn't talking about something theoretical. Individuals have these moments, but so do families, workplaces, churches and even whole cities. Some would say our whole world is in one right now, with the rise of AI, the climate crisis, the cost of living, wars, political polarisation and a mental health epidemic.
In Acts 12, the hero of the book of Acts, the church, is at the bottom of the circle.
When the heat comes from the throne
Darren set the scene. It's around AD 44, about twelve or thirteen years after Jesus ascended. The king is Herod Agrippa, who, like his grandfather and uncle before him, got where he was by being very good at politics. Raised in Rome with friends in the imperial family, he came home and worked hard at looking like a devout Jewish king, because that's what won people over.
And then, in just a handful of words, Luke tells us that Herod had James, the brother of John, put to death with the sword.
It's easy to rush past this on the way to the miracle, but Darren urged us to slow down. James was one of the first four disciples Jesus called. He was one of the three who saw Jesus transfigured on the mountain, one of the three taken further into the Garden of Gethsemane on Jesus' last night. He spent three years living, eating and travelling with Jesus, and another dozen years helping to lead the church. And Luke gives his death just eleven words.
The church had faced opposition before: arrests, floggings, imprisonments and even the stoning of Stephen. But something had shifted. Until now, the persecution had come from the religious establishment. Stoning was a religious penalty, and Stephen's death had the feel of a mob out of control. The sword was different.
"It is what the state uses when it has decided that you are a problem. It's legal, it's official, there's a signature on it."
Seeing that killing James was popular, Herod seized Peter too. Because it was Passover, he couldn't put him on trial yet, so he threw him in prison under the watch of sixteen soldiers. This wasn't just security. Peter had escaped from prison before, and Herod was sending a message.
So this is where the church stood. One of the Twelve was dead. Their best-known remaining leader was in a cell with a death sentence hanging over him. The most powerful man in the land had done it, with Rome behind him, the religious leaders applauding and the crowd on his side. No appeal. No plan. No one coming to save them.
What the church did instead
Darren asked the question he believes this passage is asking: what do the people of Jesus do when the heat comes on?
They couldn't fight. They had no soldiers, no money, no standing. They couldn't riot; they were too few and the crowd was against them. They could have scattered, as they had after Stephen's death in Acts 8. Or they could have gone quiet. They'd been told to stop preaching in Jesus' name before and refused, but back then the worst they faced was a flogging. Now James was dead. The rules had changed.
Instead, Luke tells us: "So Peter was kept in prison, but the church was earnestly praying to God for him."
Darren admitted that some of us might find that answer a little disappointing. It's the Sunday school answer. We've all heard people say "we'll pray about it" and wondered if they actually would. We've all seen "thoughts and prayers" posted online, which Darren described as "the sympathetic noise you make when you walk past a problem you have no intention of doing anything about."
But that's not what's happening here. The word Luke uses for "earnestly" is the Greek word ektenōs, which means to be stretched, to strain, to be extended to your limits. Picture a runner at the end of a race, stretching out to be first across the line. Luke uses this language for prayer in only one other place: Jesus in Gethsemane, praying in such anguish that his sweat fell like drops of blood.
"Jesus is not doing thoughts and prayers here. Jesus is stretched out before God, emotionally, spiritually, physically stretched and straining before God."
This was how the church prayed for Peter. And it wasn't a one-off. Darren read through the first eleven chapters of Acts and counted more than seventeen times the believers prayed. They prayed before making decisions, prayer was one of the four marks of the church in Acts 2, the building shook when they prayed after Peter and John's arrest, and Stephen prayed as he was being stoned. Prayer was the rhythm of their life. As John Stott put it, the church turned to prayer, "the only power which the powerless possess."
James and Peter, side by side
Before we picture this prayer meeting as a room full of bold faith, Darren reminded us of something. This same church had almost certainly gathered to pray when James was arrested too. Two beloved followers of Jesus, the same church praying to the same God. One dies by the sword. The other is walked out of a maximum security prison by an angel.
And Luke doesn't explain it. He sets the two stories side by side and lets them sit there.
Darren acknowledged that for many of us, this is not an academic question. Some have prayed stretched-out, straining prayers and seen a Peter-style rescue. Others prayed in exactly the same way, with exactly the same faith, and buried their James.
"I can't tell you why. Luke doesn't, and I won't pretend to know more than he does."
What Darren does believe is that unanswered prayer is not a sign that our faith is weak or our prayers weren't good enough. There's far more going on than we can see. And what we can take heart from is this: a church that prayed for James and watched him die gathered again just days later, still grieving, still confused, perhaps even angry with God, and prayed anyway.
Sleeping through the storm
On the night before his trial, Peter is asleep. Chained between two soldiers, with guards all around him and a likely execution in the morning, he's sleeping so deeply that the angel has to strike him to wake him up.
Darren, who admits he can sleep through almost anything (including two young adults coming and going past the bedroom at all hours), said this is on another level. And it reminded him of another night, when Jesus slept in a boat through a storm while his terrified disciples shook him awake. Peter must have wondered that night how anyone could sleep through a storm. Now here he is, sleeping through his own. Somewhere between that boat and this cell, Peter learned the peace that goes beyond understanding, and Darren believes that only comes through relationship with Jesus.
Then comes the rescue, and Darren pointed out how the work gets shared. The light, the falling chains, the guards who don't stop them, the iron gate that swings open "by itself" (the Greek word is where we get "automatic"): that's all God. Peter doesn't have to pick a lock or overpower anyone. But the angel's instructions sound a lot like a parent getting a groggy teenager out the door: get up, get dressed, put on your sandals, wrap your cloak around you, follow me. Peter isn't carried out. He has to get dressed and walk.
Those instructions should sound familiar. This happens at Passover, the festival remembering the night God told Israel to eat with their belts fastened and sandals on, ready to walk out of slavery by morning. Scholars such as Susan Garrett describe Acts 12 as another exodus. God does what only God can do, but he tells us to put on our sandals and start walking.
Even then, Peter doesn't realise it's real until the angel leaves him in the street. He has been walking around inside a miracle without knowing it. How often is that true for us? Only in hindsight do we see that God was at work.
The answer knocking at the door
Peter heads to the house of Mary, John Mark's mother, where the church is praying. A servant girl named Rhoda comes to the gate, recognises his voice, and is so overjoyed that she runs back inside without letting him in. Darren noted the gentle irony: the last time Peter met a servant girl, he denied knowing Jesus.
The prayer meeting, who have been praying all night for Peter, tell Rhoda she's out of her mind. She keeps insisting. They keep saying it must be his angel, his ghost. And Peter keeps knocking. Luke's verbs suggest this goes on for a while. The church is arguing about whether God has answered their prayers while the answer is standing at the door. Given the choice between "God has done what we asked" and "Peter's dead and Rhoda's seen a ghost," they went with the ghost.
That raised two questions for Darren. Is it possible to pray for something you don't really believe will happen, and God answers anyway? Is it possible to pray for something and not recognise the answer when it's knocking on your door? He believes the answer to both is yes.
"If I'm honest, it describes my prayers pretty perfectly, because I often pray with a confusing mixture of faith and doubt."
What you do in a crisis shows what you really believe. This church believed enough to pray, even when they weren't sure an answer would come. And God answered anyway.
The shape of Easter
Darren briefly noted how the chapter ends: Herod, who set himself against God's people, meets a gruesome end, and Luke adds one of his familiar refrains, "the word of God continued to spread and flourish." In the face of a king's persecution, God's word keeps marching on.
Then he pointed to the shape of the whole story. It opens with a death. It happens at Passover, the same festival when Jesus was arrested. A condemned man lies in the dark, asleep like the dead. Then light, an angel, chains falling away, a gate that opens without anyone touching it, and the man walks out. The first person to realise he's alive is a woman, so overjoyed she can't do the obvious thing. When she tells the others, they say she's out of her mind and decide it must be a ghost.
Luke has told this story before. It's the last chapter of his gospel. The stone rolled away. The women who were first to know and weren't believed. The disciples who thought they were seeing a spirit. It's the shape of Easter.
And that tells us who this church was praying to. Not a force, not a distant God, not thoughts sent out into the universe, but someone who has been to the very bottom of the circle himself and came back from death carrying what we need.
"Easter really happened once, but it's not just something that Jesus did, it's something that Jesus does."
Jesus brings life out of death, light out of darkness, hope out of despair. That's the line of work he's in, then and now. And he's the one we can bring our moments of crisis to.
Darren closed by sharing that in recent weeks he has been asked to pray for more people than in the whole previous year. He confessed that he often walks away feeling his prayers were clumsy and inadequate, full of stumbling words and quiet doubts. And yet, Sunday after Sunday, people have come back to tell him about restored relationships, unexplained healings and long-awaited jobs. Not because the prayers were good, but because God moves when we pray, even when our prayers are a mixture of faith and doubt.
One way to live it out this week
Choose one thing and pray for it every day this week. It might be a crisis you're in right now, someone else's crisis, or the needs of our world. If life feels calm at the moment, give thanks for that and pray for our church as we head into Vision Sunday next week. Set a reminder on your phone or stick a note on your bathroom mirror, and stretch yourself a little: give it real time, not just a passing thought. And if you're not sure you even believe, try it anyway. You don't have to have it all worked out to pray, and talking to God might be the best way to discover what you believe.
A prayer for your week
Jesus, thank you that you are with us,
and that you invite us to bring you the burdens we carry,
the places in our lives that feel dark and the situations that feel like death.
Thank you that you are the one who brings life out of death,
light out of darkness and hope out of despair.
You are not put off by our doubts or our stumbling words,
and your work does not depend on us but on you.
So we stretch ourselves out before you and ask you to do the impossible again.
Amen.
Personal Reflection
Where in your life right now do you feel closest to "the bottom of the circle," and how have you been responding to it?
Have you ever prayed with a mix of faith and doubt? What would it look like to keep praying anyway?
Looking back, can you see a time when you were "inside a miracle" and only recognised God's work in hindsight?
Small Group Discussion
When you've been at "the bottom of the circle," what did you actually reach for first? What does that tell you about what you really trust?
Read Acts 12:1-5. If you'd been in that Jerusalem church the week James died, would you have wanted to run, go quiet or keep praying? Why?
Where does "thoughts and prayers" show up in your own life? What's the difference between that and stretched-out, straining prayer?
James died and Peter walked free, and Luke doesn't explain why. Do you find that silence comforting or frustrating? How has unanswered prayer shaped your faith, for better or worse?
Darren said a disappointing answer to prayer doesn't mean your faith was weak. Do you believe that? Where did the idea that it does come from?
The church kept praying days after burying James, maybe while angry or disappointed with God. Is it okay to pray when you're angry or disappointed with God? What might that sound like?
God opened the gate, but Peter still had to get dressed and walk. Is there something you're waiting on God for where you might need to "put on your sandals"?
Have you ever missed an answer to prayer that was "knocking at the door," or only seen it in hindsight? Share the one thing you'll pray for each day this week, then pray for one another.