How
deeply does it hit home that Jesus actually
chose to identify fully with the criminal?
ALOVE considers the King of Kings who chose
to die a criminal’s death.
Jesus was a criminal. He was arrested, tried
by the legal system of the day, deemed guilty
by a selection of the public, and was tortured
and executed by the state authority. That
he was innocent, the victim of an unjust legal
system, does not change the fact that he was,
in his time, a convicted and punished criminal.
He suffered a criminal’s death between
two thieves whom he spoke to and with whom
he identified. One of the criminals was promised
a place with him in paradise that very day.
I have met more than a few prisoners in my
time. My job allows me to go down into the
cells to visit prisoners awaiting trial, to
take them messages from family and friends,
to see what I can do to help them. Now, for
those who have not been fortunate enough to
visit a jail, let me tell you what you are
missing. It stinks. Literally. It smells terribly
of unwashed feet, bad gas, sweat, metal, antiseptic
and fear. There are usually a lot of people
in a very small amount of room and everyone
is nervous, even when they are pretending
to be cool and calm. It is not a place I would
choose to spend any amount of quality time.
There are certain prisoners who have been
through the system before and know what to
expect. Then there are those who are seeing
life from behind the bars for the first time,
and they are in a state of near panic. It’s
dangerous, scary, smelly and awful. The person
behind bars feels very vulnerable, and very
alone.
I’m not sure how deeply it has hit home
that Jesus actually chose to identify fully
with the criminal, with the prisoner. We talk
of Jesus’ incarnation – his putting
on of human flesh – and we are all generally
familiar with the story of his death, but
I wonder if repeated hearings have dulled
the brutal shock of it. The King of Kings
did not just descend to earth to live a human
life. He descended and became a criminal,
rejected, humiliated, beaten, imprisoned,
killed. He chose that way, so that no one
could ever scream out, “God doesn’t
understand!”
Jesus went through the worst, and identified
with those the rest of the world thought were
just good enough to spit on. Even more than
this, Jesus said that whenever we see a prisoner,
we see him. Whenever we visit someone in prison,
we are in fact visiting the Son of God (See
Matthew 25: 31-46). Through those bars, behind
that Plexiglas window, in the face of the
frightened, the convicted, we are somehow
meant to see the face of our Lord. This is
powerful grace.
Jesus’ love did not stop at the edge
of the prison cell. Where are the boundaries
of our love?
