Keep Washing Your Hands

ACTS IN 90 DAYS

A reading for Tuesday, September 15, 2020: Acts 23:23-35.

"Then he ordered that he be kept under guard in Herod’s headquarters."

If you have read the Gospel account of the arrest and trial of Jesus, then the story in Acts 23 should be eerily familiar. There are false charges, a plot to kill Paul, an appeal to the tribune to do the dirty deed of killing, the refusal of the authorities to see the charges as warranting the death penalty, and finally sending Paul to Herod's palace... in an effort for the governor to wash his hands of the whole matter. It's the same story. Keep washing your hands religious leaders and political authorities, for the world still refuses to live according to God's ways for life.

The good news, and there is still good news even in this story, is that Paul will get a chance to make his defense of the gospel to the highest power in the known world. His "day in court," so to speak, is coming and Jesus Christ will be proclaimed. We still have the same opportunity today. Thanks be to God.