Tuesday of the Sixth Week of Easter

http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/051512.cfm

The crowd in Philippi joined in the attack on Paul and Silas,
and the magistrates had them stripped
and ordered them to be beaten with rods.
After inflicting many blows on them,
they threw them into prison
and instructed the jailer to guard them securely.
When he received these instructions, he put them in the innermost cell

and secured their feet to a stake.

 

Saint Luke tells us an amazing, delightful story in today’s passage from the Acts of the Apostles. First we hear of the brutal treatment Paul and Silas suffered in Philippi for the witness to Jesus. they were stripped and beaten with rods. But Paul’s letter to the Philippians mentions none of that. I think of that epistle as his most affectionate:

For God is my witness, how I long for all of you with the affection of Christ Jesus.

In fact, he has hardly a cross word to speak to his people there. If I were stripped and beaten with rods in a particular city I think I might have more than a few negative thoughts about the city, the state and the whole d___ed country where I suffered so. But Paul has given birth to a church there and, like a devoted mother, he does not remember the birth pangs.

In fact, in the letter, he seems to share with them more about his suffering and his rich graces than in any other letter. Because they suffered with them they know what he is talking about:

I want you to know, brothers, that my situation has turned out rather to advance the gospel, so that my imprisonment has become well known in Christ throughout the whole praetorium and to all the rest, and so that the majority of the brothers, having taken encouragement in the Lord from my imprisonment, dare more than ever to proclaim the word fearlessly.

The Philippians understand how fertile and fruitful suffering can be. They recall his and their own fearlessness during that time of tribulation. So when he writes to them from another city (perhaps Rome) he can write with perfect humility about his miserable conditions and know they get it.

They need not commiserate with him about his plight. For it is not a plight at all; it’s an opportunity to announce the gospel. No environment, no situation could be richer for the spread of the gospel than confinement in a city jail:

But, even if I am poured out as a libation upon the sacrificial service of your faith, I rejoice and share my joy with all of you. In the same way you also should rejoice and share your joy with me.

From that Roman jail he writes (or perhaps records) that wonderful song about the humiliation of Christ:

“Though he was in the form of God he did not deem equality with God something to be grasped….” (Philippians 2)

With their shared experience and his abundant joy he can exhort them to keep the faith:

So then, my beloved, obedient as you have always been, not only when I am present but all the more now when I am absent, work out your salvation with fear and trembling…. Do everything without grumbling or questioning, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine like lights in the world.

The Acts of the Apostles and the Letter to the Philippians still invite us to endure our trials for the sake of Christ, however they might come. Saint Paul invites every generation of Christians to experience with him the rich blessings of trials, disappointments, heartache and fidelity.