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Grace and Prison – “You Visited Me”

Grace and Prison – “You Visited Me”

Grace and Prison – “You Visited Me.” 

The Lord God seems to have a special place in His heart for the prisoner. He has gone on record as listening to the “groans of the prisoners” (Ps. 79:11; Ps. 102:20), of wanting to “set the prisoners free” (Ps. 146:6-8; Ps. 107:10; Isaiah 61:1). God in His mercy is always poised to demonstrate His lovingkindess to those in desperate need. He deeply cares about the prisoner because those who are locked up in a cell certainly qualify as needy:  forgotten, unimportant, ignored in polite society. Prisoners are seen as dispensable and among the least valued in our world. Prisons, too, tend to be places where the inmates are not appreciated as being made in God’s image, and so they often have to suffer dehumanizing environments. Much like the nursing home and the orphanage and the homeless shelter, “out of sight, out of mind.” And we could add, “out of sight, out of heart.” The Lord Yahweh went out of His way to release the captives in Ps. 107:10-16. And don’t forget that Jesus quoted Isaiah 61:1 as His mission statement at the start of His ministry, which included, “to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound.” Those passages and their hints at spiritual Jubilees will be discussed in articles later on, but for now the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats in Matthew 25:31-46 will certainly confirm the Lord’s heart for the imprisoned, for all who are suffering or in need.

“… Then the people who have done what God wants will reply, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and make you our guest, or needing clothes and provide them? When did we see you sick or in prison, and visit you?’ The King will say to them, ‘I am telling you the absolute truth, so take this to heart! Whenever you did these things for one of the least of these brethren of Mine, you did them for Me!” (please read the entire parable, Matt. 25:31-46).

Christ so closely identifies with those who suffer in the world that He somehow attaches Himself to each sufferer and literally ‘feels their pain.’ He even thinks of the sufferer as “brethren,” (v. 40) of being in the same family as Him. Jesus has welcomed every needy person in the world into His presence, and He has invited Himself into their presence as well. Jesus is present with the least important, the overlooked, the neglected in a spiritually meaningful way. Jesus knows what it’s like to suffer, He is familiar with poverty, rejection and loneliness, He is well-acquainted with grief and shame. The Lord is saying in this parable that He is personally present with that person in the midst of his suffering. When we care for the needy, therefore, we end up caring for Christ as well. When it comes to those who are forgotten or devalued, Jesus weaves together His identity with theirs. When we are serving the hungry in a soup kitchen, we are also filling the plate of a hungry Jesus. When you dress the wounds of a soldier on a battlefield, we are welcoming Jesus into the foxhole with you. When we visit a prisoner in his jail cell, we’ll find that Jesus occupies the same cell, and of course the top bunk belongs to Him. If we offer a spare room to someone who needs a bed for the night, we are welcoming Jesus as a guest as well. If we offer the shirt off our back to a half-naked man on the street corner, be aware that we are clothing Jesus in His “distressing disguise.” (Mother Teresa). The miserable have captured the heart of Jesus to the extent that He joins them in their misery. He is a presence in their poverty. Jesus so closely identifies with the needy that when we care for the needy, we care for Him who is standing right there in solidarity. In a sense, Jesus seems to love hiding in the needy. So somehow here’s a gospel mystery… Each believer is hidden inside Christ, while at the same time Christ is hidden in us when we suffer (Col. 3:3). Are we hiding inside each other? The reality is that when we ignore the needy, we are ignoring Jesus as well, to our peril.

“How happy and blessed are you whose hope is in the Lord his God; Who made heaven and earth, the sea and all that is in them; who keeps truth and is faithful forever; who executes justice for the oppressed; who gives food to the hungry. Lord Yahweh sets the prisoners free” (Psalm 146:5-7).

One of the greatest saints of the 20th century, one of its brightest shining lights, was Mother Teresa of Calcutta. She came to base her whole calling on this particular parable. Her vision was to serve Jesus on the desperate streets of Calcutta, India, caring for the homeless, the sick, the dying. She sought to “satiate the thirst of Jesus by serving Him in the poorest of the poor.” Her Order, the Missionaries of Charity, literally saw God in the poor, they perceived a spiritual reality in the poor. She longed to “bring joy to the suffering heart of Jesus,” and saw the face of Jesus in the destitute and dying. To her dying breath, she held fast to the words, “As you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me.” These words seemed to summarize the Gospel for her. She taught her fellow missionaries what she called “Gospel on five fingers” – You-did-it-to-me – one word for each finger. In the words of one of her biographers, she wanted her missionaries to “always remember the poor – not only to respect the dignity of the child of God in each one, but also to realize the supernatural reality of God’s presence in each of them.

As Jesus continues the process of transforming each of us into His likeness, then we will begin to develop a heart that is the same as Jesus, much like Mother Teresa. The lifestyle and inner nature of Christ was to empathize with the needy, to tangibly care for those who suffer. We will grow to be increasingly comfortable associating with the lowly, just like Christ. Perhaps we can’t all be a Mother Teresa, but we certainly can develop a Jesus-heart, one that loves “the least of these” in our little corner of the world.

As we consider the prisoner in his cell, what better time is there to be a living extension of God’s mercy and visit Him there? Is there a better opportunity in which we could show His grace? If for some reason we don’t think prisoners deserve lovingkindness, then isn’t that the whole point of grace in the first place?