Rev 21:5 See I make all things new.
Pouring rain and predawn darkness on I-30, and I elect to stay behind the 18 wheeler. I have left early enough to make the 6:45am gate time. Only a few weeks before Christmas and the volunteer roster will be really thin. Thin enough, it occurs to me, as I hit the defrost button on the dashboard, that I might be called upon to speak. What would I say? “Don’t worry” is the biblical advice. My limited recall version of Luke 12:11-12 came to mind. My prayer, set to the rhythm of the windshield wipers, is “Holy Spirit, give me the words to say to your people.”
“Hello, my name is Paul”, I say into the microphone. Of the forty people in the room, forty minus two are wearing scrub suits of coarse white cotton. Forty minus two are wearing green “puffy” jackets. In the free world, we make about 2500 decisions in the course of an average day. In prison, the “men in white” are allowed about 250. “I’m the new guy,” I continue, “and I’m here to tell you that Jesus makes all things new.”
Jesus got arrested, I tell them. The police roughed him up. They threw him in “the hole”. That particular hole is still there today; I describe for them briefly the cistern below Caiaphas’ palace in Jerusalem. Jesus was convicted. “How many of you,” I ask, “have see the movie ‘Passion of the Christ’.” Many nods, some hands go up. In the movie, as Jesus climbs the hill to his final torture session, he stumbles. As he goes down, the movie director has him say, “see, I make all things new!” From which Gospel does that come? I ask. God speaks in a lot of places, if we are listening. Music scores, movie scripts…
No gospel. “See I make all things new!” it is in the book of Revelation, when Christ comes in power and glory, that the One who sits on the throne says, See, I make all things new”.
“Guys,” I tell my audience, “without the resurrection the rest of this is baloney.” We can have a ‘holy living’ club, we can tell each other what a great guy Jesus was, but the power of Christ is in the resurrection. “I am seventy-six years old,” I continue. “I am getting near the exit ramp. I’m getting near the exit ramp, but I’m not too worried. Because God loves me. And He loves you too. He loved me before I loved Him- I know a few things about that. And I’m not too worried, because Jesus makes all things new.”
I am new to prison ministry. My background is in overseas medical missions- my standard conversation starter is that I have spent a year of my life in African mission hospitals volunteering, one month at a time. When I started at Telford, a maximum security prison in East Texas, I was struck by the idea that I was once again in ministry to a foreign land. I do not know the culture, I do not know the subtleties the language really, few people pass from the land of Telford to the outside world and few people from the outside visit Telford. We are there, as short term visitors from the outside, to empower the residents who live there to proclaim the gospel in a spiritually dark place. To let them know that God loves them. To let them know that Christ himself has walked among them. And to let them know that Jesus makes all things new.
Paul
