A Jailer tells how he found freedom

*

Freedom …

That’s a big word in any language…

a basic craving of every human heart.

Poets may delight in it

Philosophers debate it

Politicians demand it

Priests dangle it tantalizingly

as all the people dote on it.

But I know it’s value more than most

Because I’ve made a career of depriving them of it.

*

That’s what I do, as a Jailer.

And few people know deeply how freedom matters more than I.

It doesn’t take many days nights listening to their miserable cries

Or days ignoring their constant pleading and begging

to realise just how valuable freedom really is.

And I have used that knowledge well.

I make my prisoners feel the loss.

That’s a big part of their punishment, whether they’re here for a day or a decade.

However long their sentence, believe me, they will feel it

Because I am good at my job.

Not just to incarcerate them (and believe me, no-one is going to escape on my watch!)

but to break them.

They all break in the end!

*

At least,

that’s what I thought until last night.

Last night, when I met two men that none of this could touch

And I ended up the broken one, snivelling on the floor, crying out for help, to be saved.

*

Not that anyone would have expected it to turn out like that from the beginning.

They’d been badly beaten when they were delivered to me.

The police manhandled them roughly into my custody and told me to lock them down tight.  

Which I did, clamping them rigidly in the stocks in my high-security cell.   

No chance of escape from there.

The sergeant filled me in.  Apparently, the whole city had been in uproar over these two.  It started as a row over a slave girl, but quickly escalated as the slave’s owner vindictively accused them of everything from blasphemy to un-Roman behaviour and sedition.  Somehow, these two preacher-men managed to push everyone’s wrong buttons.  A riot was threatening.  The city leaders called for a swift and heavy-handed crackdown.  Paul and Silas got a public beating and jail.  The the crowd, now satisfied, dispersed.

*

Normally, I’d expect one of two responses from men in their position, and I was prepared for either.

The first was the easiest to handle: the beating would have done its job, I’d get no resistance as I threw these pathetic lumps of crushed humanity into the cell and left them there to drown in misery and self-pity.

The second response invariably caused much more trouble.  The beating would awaken a fury and resentment that somehow always got released in my direction. Some would shout their innocence, while others cursed and lashed out violently.  But I was used to that, too, and knew how to deal with it.  No doubt they’d get another beating, administered by yours truly, learning the hard way who was in charge and what I would and would not tolerate while they were in my keeping.

But these men, last night, surprised me.

Unlike everyone I’ve ever dealt with before, they were neither defeated nor furious.

In fact, they were unusually calm and in control of themselves.  

They showered none of the usual resentment onto me and went peaceably to their cells, completely disarming me with their manner.

While clearly in pain, they showed no fear.

There was nothing threatening about them at all, perhaps because nothing about their circumstances seemed to threaten them. 

They seemed above it all.  

Free. 

When, later, they began praying and singing, a calm descended on the whole jail, quietening everyone as we listened. I went to my bed strangely content, assured of a night with no trouble.

*

But I was wrong, of course.

*

At first, I thought I was having a nightmare in which I was caught up in an earthquake.

Then I realized that, in reality, it was my wife shaking me awake.

Then I realized she was shaking me awake because there really was an earthquake!

In terror we grabbed the children and led everybody outside to safety in the open.  

The house, I noticed, withstood the impact well, but a loud crash and burst of dust caused me to turn, to see the front of the jail come crashing down, doors breaking off their hinges as the earthquake shook it down.

I drew my sword and ran to stop any fleeing prisoners but, when none came crawling out, I quickly became convinced I was too late – the prisoners had gone!  

Cursing that I had allowed myself to be lulled into a false sense of security, sleeping instead of manning the guard, I felt despair taking hold of me.  I knew there was only one way this was going to end.  I scoffed at the irony of it: by some act of God or nature, my prisoners had taken their freedom, while I would soon take their place behind bars, someone else becoming my jailer.  If, that is, I was allowed to live to wallow in jail.  That was by no means certain.  Either way my family would lose their home, and I could not bear to think what might become of them.  A madness of shame and disgrace engulfed me.   I knew I could not live with myself any more.  I took my sword and turned its blade towards myself, steeling myself for what I knew I must do.

“Stop!”  a voice cried out for the shadows.   And there they stood.  All of them.  The prisoners were free, but they had not made a break for freedom, and I was completely at a loss to know why.

Hit by the enormity of it all, I sank to my knees.

These men could have run, but instead they chose to stay.

They could have taken my life, but instead chose to save it.

And the way they held themselves in the crisis, with such peace and confidence, revealed

that were already free, in a way I knew I was not.

I begged them to tell me how I could know the same.

Full of questions I led them to my home, and while we attended to their wounds and brought them food, they spoke of Jesus, the Christ, and urged us to believe in him.  As they told us about this man sent from God – his willingness to suffer and die, and how God raised him up from the dead – I came to see the reason for their peace and calmness.  In Christ they knew a love that nothing could ever separate them from.  Nothing in life or death. Nothing that has been, or is yet to come.  No power in heaven or on earth.  No judge nor jailer. No beating nor earthquake.  Nothing. 

And what freedom this gives!   This is what I had seen in these two men.  This is what I was told could be mine in Christ.  

I saw it. I believed it.  I embraced it.   As I went under the waters of baptism I felt my pride, my despair, all my pent-up fear and bitterness, all my acts of cruelty, and all my guilt and shame simply wash away.  At last, I knew what it was to be fully loved and wholly free.   All my family rejoiced with me.

*

When morning came, I laughed as the order came to set Paul and Silas free.   

I laughed because I knew they didn’t need any such permission to be free.

I laughed because I knew that those who sent the order did not have the power to give anything like the freedom these men already enjoyed.

I laughed all the more when, true to form, Peter and Silas simply refused to walk away.  Instead, they insisted that the men who had sent them down should themselves come and lead them out of jail!

What kind of freedom is that, I ask you, that can risk all to challenge injustice and call out evil for what it is, even among the highest ranks of power and authority?

*

The rulers came of course, humble and repentant once they discovered that Paul and Silas were Roman citizens and should never have been treated in such a way. 

But it is not the power of Rome that they should fear.  It is the power of God who raised this Jesus from the dead and who alone has the power to set all people free! 

One day, I believe, even the mighty Emperor will come to acknowledge this.

One day, at Jesus’ name, ever knee will bow. 

One day, the gates of hell will be blown open and the chains of death destroyed by the mighty earthquake of God’s saving grace and all God’s people will walk free. 

I know it! 

I believe it! 

Because today that walk of freedom has made a beginning in me!