"Easter isn't about colored eggs and bunnies for people in prison…"
-Chuck Colson, founder of Prison Fellowship
Genesis 37 begins a pretty detailed account of an inmate in an Egyptian prison. His family had sold him into slavery and his owner, a Roman captain of the guard, sentenced him to an Egyptian prison—the kind without light or running water—and probably worse, as this was 3500 years ago. Joseph, our inmate, was there for 13 years and since the resurrection did not occur for another 1500 years, Joseph didn’t get any annual Easter visitors.
But, this Sunday, Christians of every denomination will be in jails and prisons all over the world sharing the hope of the Easter story. They'll be handing out Bibles, and praying with men and women who are starving for a message about the freedom they can experience through Christ who paid the penalty for our sins. The word “Easter,” in fact, comes from an old Latin word for “new dawn.” It means “light-filled,” and holds within its meaning the potential of opportunity.
As Colson said, for incarcerated people, Easter isn't about colored eggs, or bunnies. For them, the price Jesus paid on the cross is a very tangible expression of the kind of love that most have never experienced. The new dawn of the Easter message opens the door to a peace that passes all understanding and asks every sinner, in or out of incarceration, to have faith in a God who loves them unconditionally.
For 13 years Joseph held on with an Easter kind of faith. There was no Bible in Roman times, so he didn’t get one of those either, but Genesis 39:21 says, "the Lord was with Joseph in the prison and showed him his faithfulness.” The story ends with Joseph freed and appointed to a high position in Egypt. In his wisdom, he not only saved the country from starvation, he forgave and saved the very brothers who sold him into slavery.
This Sunday, over 3 millennia since Joseph kept the faith in a dark cell, carriers of the Good News will teach the life-changing truth to those in prisons and jails everywhere that God loved them so much he sacrificed His Son so they could experience the fullness of salvation and the gift of forgiveness. We at 2nd Chance Indiana pray that hearts will awaken to God’s redeeming love and that prisoners will find peace and new life in Jesus.
Faith works,
Jim
