I do not think I understood what Easter meant until I started working in prison. I was a nineteen-year-old kid when I began volunteering with the chaplain of a medium security prison in Massachusetts. As a naïve white teenager from a middle-class family, I was thrust into a world that I did not understand. I will always remember the day I was responsible for counseling sessions while the chaplain was away. The prisoner who walked into the office invoked all of my Hollywood stereotypes. A huge black man with shaved head stood glaring at me. He was facing a long sentence and a restraining order that would keep him away from his children even after release. What could this puny white kid in a cheap tie know about his life and problems? It turns out the man was Muslim, so I did not even share the same faith. I shared literally nothing in common with this man, and yet he was looking to me for help. I needed the hope of Easter.
The absurdity of my cross-cultural ministry in prisons has made one thing clear: I think we need Easter because we do not really understand Christmas. The message of the holiday seems simple enough: God is born into our world. There are even songs that proclaim Emmanuel—God with us. However, we just do not want to believe it. How can the Lord of the Universe really understand what we are going through? Our lives are messy. If we are honest, we do not even want Him to get close. Rather keep Jesus far away in our post-card conception of Bethlehem. We confine the Savior of the World to a manger, and tie him down with “swaddling clothes” (Whatever those are!). “Emmanuel” may adorn our Christmas cards in fancy letters, but we have forgotten what it means in our lives.
We have not accepted Christmas, so in His mercy God presents Easter to drive the message home a second time. The message is the same—a loving God trying to convince us that He truly has been born into our broken lives. However, the sacrifice on the cross can no longer be confined to a manger. Crucifixion is hardly the stuff of holiday postcards! A loving God has chosen extreme suffering to prove that He really can relate to human brokenness.
Strangely enough, this Easter suffering is the source of our hope and the answer to the bitter, discouraged prisoner sitting in front of me. I had to admit that I had nothing in common with him. Indeed, it would be arrogance for me to even speak encouragement into his life. However, we share a Jesus who understands. Whether it is betrayal by friends, the prejudice of a community, the punishment of a father or even violent trauma—Jesus has served the sentence. This prisoner may come from a different life and a different faith, but because of Easter we could have a conversation.
Ten years later in the prisons of South Africa, the conversation remains the same. For whatever reason, the Lord has called me to be the Director of a prison ministry. We serve nine different Correctional Centres in the Western Cape, and I am continually thrust into cross-cultural ministry that confounds my experience and capability. Good thing Jesus is already there.
Happy Easter!
