Prisons, Power, and Freedom

This past Sunday at our worship service we heard a story of a great deliverance, by none other than Almighty God, the Creator of everything. We all listened with rapt attention as Steve shared a synopsis of his life story. If he would share the whole story, I would guess many of us would simply be amazed that he survived. His lostness was clearly evident: prisons, addictions, hurting others (especially his parents), and disdain for himself. The man was in great need of a savior.

For many, maybe most, of us sitting in the chairs listening, on the other hand, Steve was describing a world quite foreign. It is not hard for us to get caught up in the drama, to feel some sense of the despair changed to hope, and to rejoice that the God who called Steve is the true God, the one we worship and seek to serve. Yet don't we often wonder if we are any where near the end of our rope, where God is, like Steve was? Oh, we have felt like we were at times, but looking at our lives with a little more objectivity we easily feel we weren't quite as lost even though theologically we will readily agree that we were. The Bible does declare that we are all in the same boat spiritually.

Before coming to the worship service on Sunday morning I read Paul's letter to the believers at Ephesus. (I find it fruitful sometimes to read entire books of the Bible if I can, without stopping to meditate on a specific verse or a short passage.) One of the themes I noticed anew was Paul's emphatic description of my life in Christ as one marked by power: Christ's power, the power of the evil one, and the power of Christ in me. Paul doesn't just talk about regular power, but great power. This is the power Steve was talking about, the power displayed and easily seen from, as he described it “a front row seat” to the miracles. What about from where I sit, and from where you sit?

Are we sitting in the front row seats? Rest assured, God is not just working in prisons that hold human beings like trapped animals; bodies visible, but spirits entrapped even more. The thought crossed my mind as I sat listening on Sunday, “When he finishes, I should go take the mic and talk about the prisons we easily live in that are not brick and mortar and bars of iron.” Since time was a concern, I am writing instead. These prison walls are not as easily seen, or as easily described. Yet they do exist. Paul wrote that anyone who commits sin is a slave to sin, a prisoner. For a life to be a full Christian life it must be a resurrected life, a life based on the power of the Risen Christ Jesus living inside. What impact does a story like Steve's have on us? His story is dramatic, but we often see our lives as basically ordinary and unexciting, especially by comparison.

Thomas Merton wrote:

A Christian

bases his entire life

on these truths

(of the centrality of the resurrection and its role in our lives).

His entire life

is changed

by the presence

and the action

of the Risen Christ.

He knows

he has encountered

the Risen Christ,

as Paul encountered him

on the road to Damascus.

Such an encounter

does not have to be dramatic,

but it has to be

personal

and real.

Our prisons are real. And they are our prisons. God is not about saving me from Steve's prison. He is about saving me from mine, and you from yours. As we enter this season of lent, may we each embark on a path of discovery, and a path of acknowledging what the walls of our prisons are made of. Christ died to set us free. May we never ever settle for less than the powerful freedom he invites us to know.