Anyone who thinks there is no sense of humor in the Bible is denying the humanity of God’s people. We are a funny lot. Funny like odd or peculiar, or we just do things that sometimes seem a little less than perfect and it’s totally fine. But funny.

That’s a truth that certainly can’t go unnoticed by our Maker. Sure, God gets angry with us; he weeps with us. Jesus is our advocate. He intercedes. The Holy Spirit is our ever-present protector and guide.

But let’s get real. We give God things to laugh at, too. We can’t exactly do our comedy, you know, behind his back.

One of my favorite examples of this is Rhoda. I don’t think I know her quite as well as my friend Eutychus, but every time I come to her again in the Book of Acts, I think there’s a certain delight about her. Who among us does not laugh or at least snicker when we read her story?

Probably most of the people who were at the house praying for Peter heard the knock at the door, but it was Rhoda who went to open the door. Perhaps some thought they were too devout or too focused on prayers to answer. Not Rhoda. It was she who heard Peter, from the other side of the door, the living answer to their prayers, most likely asking to come in. How great is that!

Even a servant girl knew what it meant to be devoted to prayer, to be faithful. Her example to us: serve, and be faithful. And when she heard the living voice of the man for whom they had all been praying, she did not open the door but ran to tell all of the others. Such a human, funny thing to do.

I think about Rhoda at Friday’s persecuted church prayer meeting, imagining sometimes that one of the people we pray for might be set free and climb up the Commons stairs to the boardroom where we are praying. Knock. Knock. Knock.

The charge brought against one man in the Middle East was engaging in “propaganda activities against the regime through establishing a house-church.” Recently put in shackles and handcuffs, he was transferred to a prison. “Unbearable and inhumane” is the way one report describes the conditions of the prison to which he was sent. He is not the only Christian incarcerated there.

Back in 2005, a high-school biology teacher turned pastor was sent to prison inhis country—criminal activities like starting a church and engaging inevangelistic witness with students and young professionals proved too much forthe government in his African nation. His wife and children have not been allowed to visit him. His whereabouts are not known. It’s been 20 years.

A woman in Asia is serving a sentence of 13 years that began in 2017. During her trial she was accused of recruiting new members and missionary work.Damning evidence against her included possession of Christian books including Pilgrim’s Progress and Streams in the Desert.

A few weeks back, a couple came to our Friday prayer meeting for the first time. They’ve been doing a Bible study online with a group of people from another country. The government in her country arrested one of the women in their online study. She was interrogated and eventually released. For now, at least, she is safe.

But the couple was so shaken that they came to pray for her and others with us. We were delighted to welcome them. And there’s a lot to pray about. Their friend is still out of prison, her case dropped. They were shaken and relieved.

Rhoda and the others must have been equally shaken, or maybe more so. She was in a prayer meeting, a persevering intercessor, with an ear listening for anyone at the door, jumping up to answer the door, perhaps doing so in order that the others, more pious than she, might be able to continue in their prayers.

Whatever way God calls us to serve and to pray, may we willingly serve, pray and be faithful in both.

Week by week, our prayer list seems to be getting longer. The countries where people are incarcerated grow in number: people from Cambodia, China, Cuba,Eritrea, India, Iran, Kazakhstan, Morocco, North Korea, Pakistan, Vietnam. Wepray for these and others. We do our best every week, and we send out prayer requests to others who might join us in prayer even though they can’t make it to our noontime prayer meeting.

We do, on occasion, find out that someone has been released. This is a pleasant shock for us. We do not want to see their names again until heaven, when we will see their radiant faces.

We encourage one another to pray.

I love Rhoda because she is fervent in her prayers, ever the servant, responding to the knock on the door, but then getting so excited that she has to tell the others before even opening the door and letting in the Apostle they were all praying for. What other thing had she set aside to come to her prayer meeting? I can see one of our prayer meeting regulars doing the very same thing. And then she realized…

Look—it’s Leah Sharibu or Gao Zhisheng or Zafar Bhatti—people we’ve prayed for and gotten to know by name, me just getting ready to say their names out loud--and in our excitement forgetting to let the prayed-for person into the room. God is with us, using even us. Prison doors are real, but they are nothing to our God who hears our prayers for people, near and far, young and old, free and bound.

Lord, cast away the cords, burst the bonds.

When it comes to persecution, Rhoda’s interchange with Peter and the door isn’t the last laugh. We aren’t the only ones laughing.

He who sits in the heavens laughs;
the Lord holds them in derision.
Then he will speak to them in his wrath,
and terrify them in his fury, saying,
“As for me, I have set my King
on Zion, my holy hill.”
Psalm 2:4-6