A Reflection for Tuesday of the Sixth Week of Easter
Find today’s readings here.
Unlikely things can happen in a prison. Most movies and TV shows would have you believe that the guards and the prisoners, enclosed in the same space, are sworn enemies, that guards treat prisoners like animals and that prisoners salivate for opportunities to harm guards. Violence does win out on occasion, but there are also moments of grace when two individual people, one held captive and one free, realize that they have their humanity in common.
Like the time at the medium-security yard where I worked when a correctional officer had a heart attack in one of the dorms, and a prisoner gave him CPR. Or the night an older officer told me he’d prayed for a young prisoner who had tried to take his own life. Once, while I was leading a Communion service, I noticed an officer in the back of the chapel nodding in agreement—a kind of prayer—to the heartfelt petitions that the men were voicing. The line between the custody staff in green and the inmate population in blue sometimes blurred just a little. This interaction was not always without ulterior motive: Prison legend had it that once a charismatic prisoner chatted up the guards so much that he managed to make an elaborate escape during which he wore an officer’s uniform and drove a prison vehicle right out of the gate at a shift change. (He made it several states away before being apprehended.)
But prison breaks, while dramatic, rarely occur. Today’s reading from Acts describes an ancient prison break. The locked doors of the prison are blown open by a divine act, causing the jailer’s heart to lurch in fear and then, amazingly, to convert to the faith of his prisoners. He not only guides their escape from the facility, he cleans them up and feeds them in his own home: unheard-of behavior for a prison guard. Then he and his whole family are baptized in a victory for the early believers.
Prisons are not always actual buildings. Sometimes the cells and locks that restrain us are self-imposed. The good news of today’s Gospel is Jesus’ promise to send us the Advocate, who will free us from the metaphorical prisons of sin and righteousness and condemnation. The Advocate, the Holy Spirit, will only come among us if Jesus leaves this world. Although Jesus understands that his disciples will grieve his physical absence, he knows that we all will benefit from the keys to freedom that the Holy Spirit offers us. Some of us will take the keys and venture into the unknown of God’s will. Some of us may prefer the known comfort of our prison routine. Like the repentant jailer, we can surprise ourselves. We can make a run for it with the Holy Spirit and break free.
