“I was in prison and you came to visit me … ” Matthew 25:36
I pulled up to the guard shack and handed the officer my ID. “I am the preacher today,” I told her as she wrote my name and license plate number on a clipboard and handed me my pass for the day. It was just barely 7:30 am, but the SC heat was already making itself known. I passed the guard towers and walls lined with spirals of razor wire to a parking lot where I said a final prayer, checked my phone one last time and headed inside.
I emptied my pockets, took off my shoes and belt, and placed my Bible on the conveyer belt that would check them all for contraband. I passed through the metal detector to meet a guard on the other side who patted down my outstretched arms and checked the soles of my feet.
I gathered my belongings on the other side and waited for the buzzer. I handed my license to a guard behind bulletproof glass who delivers a badge to me through a metal drawer. I wait for another buzzer and pass into the underground concrete tunnel that will bring me to another series of doors, a stairway, and two more steel doors before I finally enter into the open courtyard.
There were men filing in and out of buildings dressed in grey jumpsuits. I pass through another set of doors and finally arrive at the library where Billy, Monty, and 26 other men are waiting for morning chapel.
Then the singing began. With clapping hands and unaccompanied voices, the prisoners began to sing.
I know it was the blood,
I know it was the blood,
I know it was the blood for me.
One day when I was lost
He died upon the cross.
I know it was the blood for me.
My visit that day came at a time when I had recently finished reading Bryan Stevenson’s exposing look at the American justice system, Just Mercy The stories of blatant racism, false convictions, and unjust penalties that have often plagued American courts rang in my ears as loudly as the steel doors that had closed behind me on my way to visit these men.
But by the end of our time together, I could only hear those voices. Voices singing of a freedom that no one could ever take away. A freedom that many living outside of those four walls has never experienced.
“Continue to remember those in prison as if you were together with them in prison.” Hebrews 13:3
Thursday Circle 