‘Thou hast broken my chains asunder’ (Psalm 113, 10). How well these words apply to the feast we celebrate today of St Peter in Chains, which recalls his escape from prison, as recorded in Acts 12, 1-18.
It is a feast from which much modern Christianity flies, seemingly ashamed to profess its belief in the miraculous, even, at times, going so far as to deny such fundamental truths as the Incarnation and the Resurrection.
For us, however, we know that Our God is ‘Mighty to Save’ (Zephaniah 3, 17). One reason is that we see His power at work in our lives, healing us from our sins and short-comings. We can cry out in the words of Wesley’s hymn, that, by the grace of God, ‘my chains fell off, my heart was freed.’
The result of this is that we want to praise God for His goodness and mercy to us. As Psalm 113 continues: ‘Thou hast broken my bonds asunder: I will offer up the sacrifice of praise!’