"Now about that time Herod the king laid hands
on some who belonged to the church in order to mistreat them.
And he had
James the brother of John put to death with a sword....
When Peter came to himself, he said,
'Now I know for sure
that the Lord has sent forth His angel
and rescued me from the hand of Herod...'
(Acts 12:1-2, 11)
The ancient Greeks divided all stories into one of
two categories:
tragedy (a sad ending) and comedy (a happy ending)
If our expectations of how a good God should act
does not accommodate
both tragedy AND comedy in the plot-structure
of our lives we will likely grow embittered towards God
when he chooses to allow a godly believer to die a
seemingly unjust death.
Why did God allow
James to die by the hand of a Pharaoh-like tyrant,
and
choose to rescue Peter in a way that far surpassed the
expectations of a praying church?
I don't know.
Why does God heal some people and allow others to die of
cancer and car accidents?
I don't know.
But I do know this: all of us, James and Peter included,
will spend an eternity thanking God
for the perfection of his wisdom in scripting
all these tragedies into a redemptive story that is
most definitely a happy ending for every believer.
"For I consider that the sufferings of this present time
are not worthy to be compared
with the glory that is to be revealed to us"
(Rom 8:18)