Then the high priest and all his associates, who were members of the party of the Sadducees, were filled with jealousy.
They arrested the apostles and put them in the public jail.
But during the night an angel of the Lord opened the doors of the jail and brought them out.
"Go, stand in the temple courts," he said, "and tell the people all about this new life."
At daybreak they entered the temple courts, as they had been told, and began to teach the people.
When the high priest and his associates arrived, they called together the Sanhedrin-the full assembly of the elders of Israel-and sent to the jail for the apostles.
But on arriving at the jail, the officers did not find them there. So they went back and reported,
"We found the jail securely locked, with the guards standing at the doors; but when we opened them, we found no one inside."
On hearing this report, the captain of the temple guard and the chief priests were at a loss, wondering what this might lead to.
Then someone came and said, "Look! The men you put in jail are standing in the temple courts teaching the people."
There are several expressions that can require even a person raised in the church to reach for a Christianese lexicon. These are phrases like "born again", "saved", "mountain top experience", "speaking the truth in love," "on fire for God", "give a testimony" and the one that always brings to mind the hunting dogs my grandparents used to stud, "loving on". Those of us with a more liberal theology need be careful not to spill our cocktails as we chuckle at such silliness. I admit I often succumb to a bit of an internal eye roll when I hear these phrases tossed into every day conversations; I am often quick to categorize the speaker and filter my conversation accordingly. Yet I know that while the languages of certain Christians vary, what we really want for others and for ourselves is the same, we want to be free.
For some people "salvation" or "saved" are the words they feel best represent the freedom offered in Christ, others prefer "liberation", "healed" or "recovering". All imply this breaking out of the figurative chains that hold us back and being released towards an eternity with God, victorious over our struggles. The majority of churches place the focus of this as happening only after one has died however I see this new life healed and freed for eternity as being possible now.
In Acts chapter 5 the disciples are busy performing many miraculous signs and wonders, in fact some people are being carried into the street hoping that contact with even just Peter's shadow would rid them of their illnesses. More and more people are beginning to believe in Jesus - being saved if you will and the numbers of followers continues to grow. The High Priest and his associates stand in the shadows watching all of this and they aren't happy, they are actually said to be jealous. They throw the disciples in prison but in the middle of the night the angel of the Lord appears to the disciples, releasing them, telling them to return to the temple court. When the High Priest hears the disciples are back healing and teaching he goes to the jail only to find the doors still locked, and the guards are guarding a now empty cell. Salvation, liberation, whatever you want to call it, God is showing how there is nothing created by humans that He can't bust us out of. No matter what people come up with to confine us or to imprison us, God can always set us free. We do not need to spend eternity or even the rest of our lives in the invisible prisons of expectations, control, abuse, addiction, insecurity that often times we feel to be our condemnation. God is creating us to be people who aren't limited to what we've done, what has been done to us or what others want to believe about us. If we are willing to trust and follow God, those chains will be broken, bringing us to possibly a premature eternity where freedom, new life and salvation is celebrated now.