Note: This commentary was delivered by Prison Fellowship President Mark Earley.
This Easter, Chuck Colson and I, along with several dozen volunteers, spent Sunday in the Ohio Reformatory for Women just outside of Columbus, Ohio. It was a remarkable day; so remarkable, that Chuck and I felt we had to share what we witnessed. And what we witnessed was simply this: the transforming power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
When we arrived at the prison, Warden Pat Andrews met us at the gate. She was incredibly helpful, and her attitude throughout showed us that she truly cared for the women in her charge. As she led us through the dining hall, Chuck and I were able to talk with literally scores of inmates, sharing with them the Good News of Jesus’ resurrection, inviting them to the service that would be held in the gymnasium. Most of them reacted politely, but few seemed excited. But that was about to change.
By the time we got to the gym, some five hundred prisoners had packed the place; Warden Andrews opened up a nearby chapel to handle the overflow crowd.
My message to them was simple: We were there because we loved them. Chuck and I were not there because they were so very bad. No, we were there because we believe that God is raising up a new generation of leaders for His Church — right there behind prison bars. I told them how Moses was a murderer, a fugitive from justice before God turned him into one of the greatest prophets of all time. I shared with them how Paul was a self-admitted man of violence, a co-conspirator to murder, before Jesus made him the great apostle that he was.
These women prisoners got it, and their reaction was powerful. They realized that the God of Moses and Paul was their God, too; that He makes great servants out of great sinners; and that when they leave prison, God holds out to them the promise of a life worth living, to be used mightily for His kingdom.
You’ve heard the expression, “God showed up today.” Well, He certainly did on Easter Sunday in that women’s prison in Ohio.
The Spirit came suddenly upon the place and the women. As Chuck and I spoke, inmates were weeping, moaning. Tissues were being passed through the crowd — imagine that in a church today!
Chuck says that this Easter’s joyous celebration was revival — the kind of outpouring he hadn’t seen since his visit to an Atlanta penitentiary in 1976, the year Prison Fellowship got started. There, the Holy Spirit broke down the most hardened convicts Chuck had ever encountered. And that experience was so intense that, perhaps for the first time, Chuck fully realized that God had sent him into the prisons to reach the forgotten in our society.
And now, thirty years into the ministry of Prison Fellowship, God is still showing us the signs of His amazing sovereignty, raising up the least of these, transforming them into Pauls and Moseses and Esthers, into leaders of the Church and society.
You know, that, in a nutshell, is what Prison Fellowship is all about. No, that’s what God is all about. What a powerful Resurrection Sunday. He is risen. He is risen, indeed!
(This update courtesy of the Breakpoint with Chuck Colson.)
