The Thin Place at the County Jail
The Thin Place at the County Jail.
“ The thin place is where the veil between this world and the next is so sheer that it is easy to step through.” (Barbara Brown Taylor, Home By Another Way).
This term from an ancient Celtic tradition has stood the test of time. The idea of a thin place between heaven and earth has captured our imaginations, and yet is not just a metaphor. Thin places are literal as well.
The traditional thin place as the Irish understood it has been described in many ways: where the veil between heaven and earth is so thin as to be porous, permeable, practically transparent; where the space between the divine and the human has narrowed; where eternity and time intersect; where the boundary between heaven and earth has collapsed; where the wall between heaven and earth have made them indistinguishable; where the doors between heaven and earth have cracked open enough to walk through, temporarily or permanently; the place where eternity and time seem to join together.
Those descriptions of thin places have recently been expanded to include… wherever God has chosen to reveal Himself and make Himself known with unusual intimacy; wherever the sacred interaction with God’s presence is more pronounced and accessible; wherever the Holy Spirit is released in a particularly powerful way; a physical space where one can more directly and intensely experience God’s presence. A thin place is when the Spirit of God opens the skylight of the earth’s roof and provides easy access to and from heaven. A thin place allows traffic between heaven and earth.
Johnny Cash – I Got Stripes (Live at Folsom Prison) (youtube.com)
“Then God said, ‘Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness… So God made man; in the image of God He made him; male and female He made them.” (Gen. 1:26-27).
The Premise: The Sanctity of Human Life. Every human being is created in the image of God, and so every person on earth is sacred. Every person deserves to be treated with dignity and respect and love. Every person is valuable to God and carries God’s holy fingerprint. Therefore, God has called each person to participate in preserving the sanctity of human life in each other. The Lord is asking us to fulfill His teachings by bearing each other’s burdens. Every person we see is extraordinary, set apart to represent and reflect a holy God. That person we love to reject, ignore or underestimate is not a “mere mortal,” as C. S. Lewis once said. Every human being has a sacred center, sometimes well-hidden, but nonetheless a sacredness that forms our main identity. A prisoner inmate, a nursing home resident, a child in an orphanage, a down-and-out person in a shelter, a shut-in elderly, a long-standing patient in a hospital, members of a group home for the disabled, a soldier on the front line, residents of a mental facility… These are all people that are enmeshed in situations which sometimes make it difficult to recognize God’s image in them, but the profound truth of the matter is that they are all invaluable image-bearers.
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). 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.” God in His mercy is always poised to demonstrate His lovingkindness to those in desperate 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 spiritually present with the least important, the overlooked, the neglected in a meaningful way. Jesus knows what it’s like to suffer, and He knows what it feels like to be constrained, in chains and awaiting death. 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 is right alongside each prisoner. 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 ones 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). The profound reality is that when we ignore the needy, we are ignoring Jesus as well, to our peril.
Making a Thin Place out of a Prison Cell. “This man Solzhenitsyn had learned in the prison camp the one thing you would have expected him not to learn, what it really means to be free. He realized that we can be free only if we are free in our souls; that a man in a prison camp who has learned to be free inside himself is freer than the freest man.” (from the British author Malcolm Muggeridge).
“And it was only when I lay there on rotting prison straw that I sensed within myself the first stirrings of good. Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through countries, nor between classes, nor between political parties either – But right through every human heart, and through all human hearts. All the writers who wrote about prison but did not themselves serve time there considered it their duty to express sympathy for prisoners and to curse prison. I have served enough time there. I nourished my soul there, and I say without hesitation: Bless you, prison, for having been in my life!” (Russian author Alexandr Solzhenitsyn after being release from a Gulag prison camp).
“You can never learn that Christ is all you need, until Christ is all you have… There is no pit so deep that God’s love is not deeper still… I talked with my Savior in prison. Never before had I such close fellowship with Him. It was a joy I hoped would continue unchanged. I was a prisoner – and yet – how free!… I was not brave. I was often like a timid, fluttery bird, looking for a hiding place. Coward and wayward and weak, I change with the changing the sky; today so eager and brave, tomorrow not caring to live. But God never gives in, and we two will win, Jesus and I.” (Corrie Ten Boom, imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp for harboring Jews. Her story is told in the book, The Hiding Place).
“I was taken to prison, and here have lain now a full twelve years. I have continued with much contentment, through grace, but have met with many turnings upon my heart – from the Lord, from Satan, from my own corruption, by all of which glory be to Jesus Christ! I never had in all my life so great an insight into the Word of God as now. Those Scriptures that I saw nothing in before, were made, in this place and in this condition, to shine upon me. Jesus Christ has never been more real and apparent than now. Here I have seen and felt Him indeed.” (John Bunyan, jailed for twelve years for preaching the gospel in England in mid-1600’s, at which time he wrote one of the most famous books of all time, The Pilgrim’s Progress).
Zach Williams – Chain Breaker (Live from Harding Prison) (youtube.com)
My Simple Journey Each Week to the County Jail:
It is vital that this jail ministry not become an obsession which takes over my life. It is a calling for now, and I will continue in the passenger seat as God drives the car. But this is not my primary vocation, or something that should dominate me in any way. Working in the County Jail is a privilege and depends totally on God working behind the scenes and ahead of the action. Following Christ is my primary vocation, my spiritual calling, and He asks me to focus primarily on growing in the Faith and keeping my family, not this ministry, at the center of my life.
Reminders to myself before I go each time on Tuesdays and Thursdays: Jesus will be strongest when I am at my weakest; I come in the Name of the Lord, not my church’s name, or my name, or the jail ministry’s name; I soon will be visiting Jesus in His “distressing disguise.’ (Mother Teresa).
On my car ride to the jail: I “pray myself hot” with praise and thanksgiving; I ask for God to prepare my heart and spirit for whatever comes and whomever I meet; I ask for the joy and peace that can be seen by the inmates, leaving far behind any worries of my own; I thank God for the privilege of serving Him in this way; I place my time there in the very middle of His will.
As I enter the cell block: I have been assigned to the cell block with the Major Offenders (those who have been charged with serious felonies including murder and drug-trafficking, etc.). I enter the area singing/praying, “Holy Spirit, you are welcome here; Fill this place and flood the atmosphere.” That’s my spiritual air purifier so the Spirit is free to roam as He wills in the cell block; I ask God if there is anyone in particular I should meet with first, and if I get a nudging, I go to that cell door and ask for it to be opened by a guard. Because of the nature of this particular cell block, they will not allow group meetings of any kind.
I engage in one-on-one, free-flowing conversations with my friends, lasting between 15-30 minutes each; We sit across from each other at a table in the cell block area in full view of all the cells; Eye-to-eye contact is really important, as is a welcoming handshake between us; I use the jail intercom in the cell block to request another cell door to open when needed, and generally I go up to the cell door first and ask if he wants to have a chat today; When sitting with each man, I try to continuously ask God at a deeper level if there is any question I should ask this person in particular, or any topic I should bring up with him; I have no system of engagement, I have a non-system of depending on God to guide us in our conversation by my sincere and respectful interest in them; I have discovered that many of the men have had a church background when they were children, so I ask them if there is any gospel song they remember from that time that they want to revisit; If so, they tell me the song, and when I go home I write out the lyrics and bring them back the next day to each man who requests it, and I become a singing “fool for Christ” who sings that song right there in the cell block for all to hear; I always ask follow-up questions that will help him share what is on his mind and communicate that I am actively listening; They usually come to me now with questions about Scripture, since they each have a Bible that was given to them; We discuss everything from personal fears, frustrations and concerns, to good memories, to ways he can keep his hopes up, to ways he is planning on remaining in the Faith when released; We discuss Bible passages that he doesn’t understand; I don’t force the Faith onto anyone, but it is clear that I love talking about the Scripture and Jesus (which is why many of them call me the “preacher-man”); I always close with prayer with each man after asking him for special prayer requests; Before returning to his cell, I make sure we have a hearty handshake, letting him know that I will always try to be a faithful listening ear and will see him as a child of God. If/when a man desires to have a different identity and wants to follow Christ, we talk about baptism in the jail, and thank God we have had a number of them.
The Sacred Jailbreak Within. Perhaps one other reason God has such a soft spot for prisoners is because prison is such a vivid physical picture of being imprisoned spiritually without Him, incarcerated in our spirit, our mind, our soul. Jail is what our spirits look like without the freedom found only in Christ. Psalm 107:10-18 gives us a bleak description of people hopelessly imprisoned in a dark, windowless dungeon, a picture of our spiritual captivity before the arrival of Jesus Christ. This is a realistic picture of the inner prison of the heart before redemption and deliverance. Weaving together many translations of Ps. 107:10-18, the following paraphrase can best be understood at the spiritual level, and is what salvation looks like when we are delivered from our spiritual captivity. I have written the following in the more direct and personal first person instead of the more impersonal and distant third person.
“We are those who sat in darkness, locked up in a gloomy prison, living in the shadows that were as dark as death. We were prisoners in absolute misery, bound in chains. All this because we defied the instructions of Lord Yahweh, we despised the counsel of our God, scorning the thoughts of the Most High. So Yahweh humbled our hearts through suffering, and if we fell down, there was no one there to pick us up again. We cried out to the Lord in our distress, and He saved us. He rescued us from our miserable plight. He delivered us from the gloomy darkness and the deathly shadows. He shattered our chains of captivity, He broke the jail wide open. We thank Yahweh for His goodness and lovingkindness, His faithful love for us, His wonderful works for the children of mankind. He broke open those gates of bronze, He smashed the iron bars, and He shattered those heavy jailhouse doors. Yes, we cried out to Lord Yahweh in our distress, and He saved our lives from the Abyss, the pit of destruction, from certain death. We will thank the Lord for His mercy, faithfulness, and goodness!”
This would be the testimony of our fallen heart if it could talk. What better way to paint a picture of sin holding us captive, hopelessly locked into a dark dungeon without any true freedom. The truth is that we aren’t strong enough to break those chains. Only Jesus has “bound the strong man” and mercifully liberated us in a dramatic spiritual jailbreak.
Salvation. “He saved us.” The word for save here is “Yasha,” which means to be set free into the wide open; to be delivered in a time of desperate need; to be saved from destruction and certain death. “Salvation” literally means to become spacious and refers to “the sense of deliverance from an existence that had become confined, compressed, or cramped.” (Eugene Peterson). When Jesus delivers us from our inner spiritual prison, we are liberated into a wide open, broad, expansive place.
There are three passages in psalms that describe this soul freedom beautifully:
Psalm 118:5 = From my distress, I called upon the Lord. He answered me and set me on a large place. After being in a tight spot, the Lord placed me into a broad space. Because I was hemmed in, I called on Lord Yahweh. He answered me and gave me room.
Psalm 31:8 = Lord, you have not given me over into the hands of the Enemy; You have liberated me and set my feet in a wide expanse, a good and spacious land. You have given me the freedom to roam at large, where I can freely move. You have given me room to breathe.
Psalm 18:19 = The Lord rescued me because He delighted in me. He brought me out to freedom into a wide open space. My soul has been delivered because of God’s love for me, and my soul finally has some elbow room! (The word for “wide open space” is the opposite of a straitjacket. Without Jesus, our soul will never be freed from our spiritual straitjacket).
The messianic Jewish Bible scholar, Brother Rex Andrews, points us to Psalm 118:5, and notes that the Hebrew word for “distress” suggests a siege, a heart held captive to a siege. Without Jesus, we are in extremely constrained circumstances, surrounded by enemies, with no way of escape. Enemies include our fallen human nature; our inclination to sin without the ability to change ourselves; the ongoing spiritual warfare conducted by the Adversary and his demons; a broken society that makes it difficult to do the right thing; our wounded past that needs healing; deep-seated patterns that are impossible to overcome. But this is the Good News: Jesus makes a way where there is no way. He breaks the enemy’s battle lines, destroys the siege, and sets us free from our enemies. Jesus is our only hope to accomplish this act of liberation, release us from captivity, and grant to us the freedom to be enslaved no longer to our sinfulness.
Freedom: (Greek, “aleutheroo”); to liberate from captivity or bondage; to deliver from a certain fate; to set free from a hopeless addiction or dependence; to remove the shackles of confinement; to save from an internal prison of woundedness; to remove whatever it is that has us bound; to enjoy a carefree, childlike spirit after being squelched or limited in some way. “If you continue in my teachings, abiding in what I have said and done, you will truly be my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. And if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed… If you make yourself at home in my Word and make yourself a student of mine, you will intimately experience the Reality of Christ, and you will be spiritually liberated into freedom. And when Jesus, the very Son of God and the Author of Truth, liberates you, you will be completely free.” (John 8:31-32, 36).
In Christ, We are Freed From:
… A certain destiny of condemnation, a guilty verdict on Judgment Day;
… The automatic impulse to satisfy our sinful nature;
… Being subject to the inner decay and corruption of our fallen world;
… Moral confusion in a world with no absolutes;
… The emptiness and futility of selfish ambition;
… The tendency to deceive ourselves and others;
… A broken and unsatisfying relationship with God;
… The stain of shame and guilt from our past;
… The tyranny of the Self;
… Our vulnerability in the spiritual warfare with Satan and the forces of evil;
… Our stubborn and foolish ignorance of the truth;
… Our frustrated and powerless attempts at perfecting ourselves and others;
… A pointless life with no hopes of an ultimate purpose and meaning;
… A nagging, troubling uncertainty about life after death;
In Christ, We are Freed Up to Enjoy:
… A new spiritual DNA, while our sinful nature is disintegrating;
… The unspeakable relief of forgiveness of our sinful nature, the consequences of sin, and our past sins;
… The wonderful prospect of being able to grow in goodness and wisdom;
… The certain hope of eternal life with God in the land of Glory;
… The deeply satisfying friendship with other believers who form our new family in God;
… The transforming experience of worshipping God in all sincerity with adoration and reverence;
… The guidance of a godly moral foundation from which to make moral choices and God-honoring decisions;
… The experience of a heavenly peace that passes understanding;
… The fresh air of grace, God’s unearned and merciful favor;
… The assurance that we will become increasingly like Jesus in character and innocence;
… Our adoption by the Father into His family through the Holy Spirit, free to roam in His kingdom;
… God’s welcome to join the intimate fellowship between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit;
… The growing ability to think with the mind of Christ;
… The agape love that is being poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit;
… A fulfilling and meaningful life following Jesus into the adventure of Faith;
… The stimulating and exciting pursuit of knowledge and understanding of God’s world and His truth;
… The resurgence of the creative imagination as we are living into the inspiration of the Holy Spirit;
… The profoundly life-giving absorption in the Word of God, the holy Scriptures;
… The satisfying ability to love and forgive others at a deeply genuine level;
… The supernatural power of the Holy Spirit transforming our whole being into a new creature;
… The significant privilege of approaching the Almighty God in prayer and intercession;
… The profound encouragement of God’s intimate presence with us in life’s inevitable dark valleys;
… A renewed, hopeful and grateful appreciation of the gift of life.
“When Jesus makes you free, you will be free indeed!” (Refer to John 8).