I would like to pay homage today to the sufferings of mothers. I don't mean to be pessimistic or heavy-handed about this. Mothers are subject to sufferings just by virtue of their being mothers. Russian novelist, Boris Pasternak, once said that "all mothers think their sons are great. It's not their fault if life disappoints them."

We have chosen a pat in the last 30 years that opens mothers up to some exquisite moments of suffering. We send our daughters off to college and grad school, tell them they can do anything in life that men can do. Then they marry and have children. Cultural expectations and maternal emotions conflict almost at once.

If she and her husband have grown accustomed to two paychecks, the loss of her paycheck may be keenly felt. If her husband insists that she go back to work, or if their financial debts require that she go back to work, the tension can be uncomfortable. And there is always the concern about what kind of care other people will give their child. If she doesn't go back to work, what was college for? What will her peers think? And if she is a single mother, how will she have the strength to do it alone, and what choice does she have anyway?

And, then, there is the reality of being cooped up with small children at a time in life when children demand far more than they can give. There is no conversation until the child discovers the power of saying no and asking why. English lit, differential equations and Spanish 2 seem light years removed from dirty diapers, lack of sleep and many hours alone and sometimes feeling lonely and cut off.

Of course, these darlings of the nursery grow up and learn at increasingly earlier ages to know exactly how to push their mother's hot buttons. They become teenagers and defy you. They shrink your time with your husband. They prefer not to be seen in certain public places with you. They spend your money in a prodigal fashion. Your daughters date the wrong boy, want to go to the wrong parties, challenge every assumption you ever held dear about being a woman, and then one day walk in and say as if they had contracted an incurable disease, "O my gosh, mother, I have become just like you." Your sons drive too fast (like their father), leave their dirty clothes lying around (like their father), and mouth off in extremely rude ways (their father long since learned better).

Mothers suffer, and I would like to pay homage today in a small way to those who bear us and bear with us. I want to do that in a manner that is appropriate to the occasion that brings us together here. So, would you follow with me, as we witness the record of a string of sufferings the Apostle Paul endured? Their magnitude and the grinding way in which they persisted and the way he handled them may give comfort to mothers and others who feel at times almost overwhelmed.

Light from a Letter and Good Intentions
Before we look at the specifics of Paul's experience we have access to how he thought about the remarkable sequence of difficulties that afflicted his life. He wrote about them in a letter to the Philippian church. Look with me at Philippians 1:12ff.

In verse 13 he wrote, As a result, it has become clear throughout the whole palace guard and to everyone else that I am in chains for Christ. He was writing while in prison: I am in chains for Christ. This entire chapter is worth reading closely. It's verse 12 that sets the tone for all that follows. Now I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel.

Keeping that statement in mind, our point of departure today is a question. What happened to him? How did Paul end up in Roman custody in the city of Rome? The answer takes us to the last quarter of Acts. We begin in Acts 21:17ff.

Luke wrote, When we arrived at Jerusalem at the conclusion of Paul's third missionary journey, the brothers received us warmly. The next day Paul and the rest of us went to see James, and all the elders were present. Paul greeted them and reported in detail what God had done among the Gentiles through his ministry.

When they heard this, they praised God. Then they said to Paul: "You see, brother, how many thousands of Jews have believed, and all of them are zealous for the law." Thousands of Jews within Israel believed that Jesus was the Messiah, and that did not prevent them from being zealous for the law. But James and the elders of the Jewish Church had an internal political problem.

In verse 21 James and the elders say to Paul, "They have been informed that you teach all the Jews who live among the Gentiles to turn away from Moses, telling them not to circumcise their children and live according to our customs." They have a plan, which they proceed to explain to Paul in verses 22-24.

"What shall we do? They will certainly hear that you have come, so do what we tell you. There are four men with us who have made a vow. Take these men, join in their purification rites and pay their expenses, so that they can have their heads shaved. Then everybody will know there is no truth in these reports about you, but that you yourself are living in obedience to the law."

They made i very clear to Paul in verse 25 that they were not trying to change the decision they made several years earlier. They were not trying to make Gentile Christians submit to Jewish customs; they had only asked them not to be unnecessarily insensitive to Jewish Christian scruples. Paul understood, and verse 26 says, the next day Paul took the men and purified himself along with them. Then he went to the temple to give notice of the date when the days of purification would end and the offering would be made for each of them. Paul was acting like any other observant Jew of his day, and that is exactly what James and the elders wanted.

Good Intentions Go South
Well, the best-laid plans of mice and men can go astray. How should Paul, James or anyone else know who else would be in the temple that day? Verses 27-29: When the seven days were nearly over, some Jews from the province of Asia saw Paul at the temple. They stirred up the whole crowd and seized him, shouting, "Men of Israel, help us! This is the man who teaches all men everywhere against our people and our law and this place. And besides, he has brough greeks into the temple area and defiled this holy place." (They had previously seen Trophimus the Ephesian in the city with Paul and assumed that Paul had brought him into the temple area.) Nasty thing, jumping to conclusions like that. Verses 30-32 show just how nasty things got.

The whole city was aroused, and the people came running rom all directions. Seizing Paul, they dragged him from the temple, and immediately the gates were shut. While they were trying to kill him, news reached the commander of the Roman troops that the whole city of Jerusalem was in an uproar. He at once took some officers and soldiers and ran down to the crowd. When the rioters saw the commander and his soldiers, they stopped beating Paul.

Paul's good faith effort to help James and the elders of the Jewish Church to put down rumors led not only to a worse rumor about Paul, but it led to a mob scene in which impassioned men were beating Paul and trying to beat him to death. And how doees Paul later assess that dangerous turn of events in his life? Now I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel.

Fortunately, the Roman cohort, attached to the temple precincts acted quickly to save Paul, but verse 33 reports the unpleasant and uncertain sequel. The commander came up and arrested him and ordered him to be bound with two chains. Judging from verses 35-36 being in custody had its advantages. When Paul reached the steps, the violence of the mob was so great he had to be carried by the soldiers. The crowd that followed kept shouting, "Away with him!"

And then there is a serious case of mistaken identity in verses 37-38. As the soldiers were about to take Paul into the barracks, he asked the commander in Greek, "May I say something to you?"

"Do you speek Greek?" he replied. "Aren't you the Egyptian who started a revolt and led four thousand terrorists out into the desert some time ago?"

Paul reassured him that he was a Jew, not an Egyptian, and secured from the Roman commander permission to speak to the corwd. The first 21 verses of chapter 22 record Paul's personal story of his spiritual journey. It is his retelling the story Luke has already told in Acts 9.

By all accounts the mob listened to what Paul said. They must have been somewhat entranced as he told of his vision on the Damascus Road and a subsequent trance, while he was praying in the temple. It sounded like stories from the Torach come to life. All went well until he reached the flash point in verses 18-21.

Paul said, "I saw the Lord speaking. 'Quick!' he said to me. 'Leave Jerusalem immediately, because they will not accept your testimony about me.'

"'Lord,' I replied, 'these men know that I went from one synagogue to another to imprison and beat those who believe in you. And when the bloody of your martyr Stephen was shed, I stood there giving my approval and guarding the clothes of those who were killing him.'

"Then the Lord said to me, 'Go; I will send you far away to the Gentiles.'" well, as soon as he mentioned the Gentiles, the fury of the mob rekindled. Verse 22: The crowd listened to Paul until he said this. Then they raised their voices and shouted, "Rid the earth of him! He's not fit to live!"

The logic of the Roman commander's next order makes sens in the charged atmostphere of first century Judaism. Verse 34: The commander ordered Paul to be taken into the barracks. He directed that he be flogged and questioned in order to find out why the people were shouting at him like this.

The next few verses make for fascinating reading. As they stretched him out to flog him, Paul said to the centurion standing there, "Is it legal for you to flog a Roman citizen who hasn't even been found guilty?"

When the centurion heard this, he went to the comander and reported it. "What are you going to do?" he asked. "This man is a Roman citizen."

The commander went to Paul and asked, "Tell me, are you a Roman citizen?"

"Yes, I am," he answered.

Then the commander said, "I had to pay a big price for my citizenship."

"But I was born a citizen," Paul replied. Those who were about to question him withdrew immediately. The commander himself was alarmed when he realized that he had put Paul, a Roman citizen, in chains.

And how does Paul later assess that near miss in the Roman barracks? Now I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel.

The Roman commander was under pressure to act, but it was not at all clear what he should do. So, he called a meeting before the Jewish authorities. He was hoping for something rational to guide him. He ordered the chief priests and all the Sanhedrin to assemble. Then he brought Paul and had him stand before them.

It started badly and became worse. Paul looked straight at the Sanhedrin and said, "My brothers, I have fulfilled my duty to God in all good conscience to this day."

At this the high priest Ananias ordered those standing near Paul to strike him on the mouth. Then Paul said to him, "God will strike you, you whitewashed wall! You sit there to judge me according to the law, yet you yourself violate the law by commanding that I be struck!"

They managed to get that straightened out, but Paul knew what the Roman commander did not know, viz., that there was no way for him to get a fair hearing in that courtroom. So Paul threw some bait on the table, and the meeting broke down.

Then Paul, knowing that some of them were Sadducees and the others Pharisees, called out in the Snahedrin, "My brothers, I am a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee. I stand on trial becaues of my hope in the resurrection of the dead." When he said this, a dispute broke out between the Pharisees and the Sadducees, and the assembly was divided. (The Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, and that there are neither angels nor spirits, but the Pharisees acknowledge them all.)

Verse ten summarizes the chaos well. The dispute became so violent that the commander was afraid Paul would be torn to pieces by them. He ordered the troops to go down and take him away from them by force and bring him into the barracks.

The Pastoral Center of Gravity
Paul's good faith effort to help James and the elders of the Jewish Church to put down rumors led not only to a worse rumor about Paul, but it led to a mob scene in which impassioned men were beating Paul and trying to beat him to death. He is resuced by the Romans only to be put in chains and suspected of being a terrorist. His attempt to tell his story to the furious crowd ends in even greater mayhem, and he came within an inch of being flogged. A second attempt at reasoned discourse ends in complete mayhem and the danger of being torn to pieces.

And how does Paul later assess this dangerous and unending turn of events in his life? Now I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel.

C.S. Lewis once said that when things are going bad, they get worse and worse. When you mothers have those moments when you can't stand it any more, it is not as though strange events have overtaken you. And remember Paul, who suffered likewise and later saw his suffering advance the gospel. Trust God to do the same with yours.