February 24, 2018

Prisoner of Hope

“As for you also, because of the blood of your covenant, I will set your prisoners free from the waterless pit.  Return to the stronghold, you prisoners of hope.  Even today I declare that I will restore double to you.”  Zech. 9:12

One woman has a son and is due for an early release.  She is scared to go back home.  Another was to be released in four days and was sobbing as she came for prayer, sharing that she had nowhere to go.  Yet another will be released in the fall after serving five years.  She is uncertain, unsure and unsteady.  There is a young woman who is quite ill.  She is scheduled to be released soon and has no idea what to do or where to go. 

These are among the women who may be our neighbors; who sit in the relative safety and security of a cell where structure exists, routine is established, meals are provided.  These are the women who are afraid to be released because they are more secure in the prison they know than the prisons looming large and unknown in a cold and indifferent world.  They are women who surrendered their possessions at the prison gates, who surrendered their hope.  They walk in an environment of contained hopelessness.  The prospect of unlimited hopelessness is a burden too big for them to bear.

On a street a block away is a woman who sits in the prison of her house, chained to a fear that has gripped her for years.  There is a family whose hope is placed in the lottery, only to lose week after week.  Then there is the widow, who sits in isolation, waiting for anyone to knock on her door.  At the hospital is the man they call terminal, waiting to die.  Under the bridge is the one they call homeless, young and doe-eyed.  There is illness, tragedy, and another crisis.  There are the relationships that don’t work.  There are the jobs that fall apart.  It seems as if hope is gone, vanished and vanquished by life.  There are people in cells of all kinds with locked gates.  Some are wards of the state, some wards of the fallen world.  We might prefer to live in known hopelessness rather than unknown hope.

There is this one man in heaven; His name is Jesus Christ, the Lion and the Lamb.  He died for our addictions, our sins, and our hopelessness.  Jesus was, and is, and shall forever be, the Restorer of our hope.  To the abandoned He says, “I have not forsaken you.”  To the widow He says, “I call you friend.”  To the imprisoned He says, “You’ve not been given the spirit of fear, but of adoption.”  To the lost and brokenhearted He says, “Beloved one, I’ve come for you.”  To the hard-hearted He says, “Just open up so I can touch your heart.”  To the prideful He says, “Little one, lay those crowns you’re holding onto down at my feet.”  Jesus, the Restorer of our hope.  Jesus, the one who turned our valley of Achor into a Door of Hope.  In heaven the doors are open – the door of hope is open to us today.  It is an open door for us to walk through.  Walk through it today and receive hope.