{"id":1671,"date":"2006-12-20T02:10:29","date_gmt":"2006-12-20T02:10:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jesuscreed\/2006\/12\/houdini.html"},"modified":"2006-12-20T02:10:29","modified_gmt":"2006-12-20T02:10:29","slug":"houdini","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2006\/12\/houdini.html","title":{"rendered":"Houdini"},"content":{"rendered":"

Erik Weisz was the great Houdini<\/a> — no matter how they tied him up, he could escape. He had, of course, all kinds of secrets to his clever ways, but always he managed to get out of the bonds. The psalmist, too, is bound:
\n“Though the bonds of the wicked are coiled around me, I have not neglected your teaching” (119:61).
\nI wonder if it is not the next verse, though, that shows how the psalmist “escaped” from the ropes and bonds of his enemies:
\n“At midnight I rise to give you thanks
\nfor your righteous laws.” (119:62)
\nWas his daily habit of rising at midnight — I’m suggesting that it was a daily habit –\u00c2 what we now call the “office of readings” and “night prayer” or even “compline” — that gave him the joy and the confidence to escape?
\nAt midnight, he says, he arose to give thanks to God or to praise God. He arises at midnight — in the middle of the night — to give praise to God. “Thanksgiving,” Charles Spurgeon once said, “turns night into day.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Erik Weisz was the great Houdini — no matter how they tied him up, he could escape. He had, of course, all kinds of secrets to his clever ways, but always he managed to get out of the bonds. The psalmist, too, is bound:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":298,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1671","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-psalm-119"],"yoast_head":"\nHoudini - Jesus Creed<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2006\/12\/houdini.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Houdini - Jesus Creed\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Erik Weisz was the great Houdini — no matter how they tied him up, he could escape. He had, of course, all kinds of secrets to his clever ways, but always he managed to get out of the bonds. The psalmist, too, is bound:\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2006\/12\/houdini.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Jesus Creed\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2006-12-20T02:10:29+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"xscot mcknight\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Houdini - Jesus Creed","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2006\/12\/houdini.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Houdini - Jesus Creed","og_description":"Erik Weisz was the great Houdini — no matter how they tied him up, he could escape. He had, of course, all kinds of secrets to his clever ways, but always he managed to get out of the bonds. 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