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Palm Sunday and Imprisonment

Many years ago when I lived in California, I joined an organization that reached out to inmates in the federal prisons such as San Quentin, Folsom and CMF (California Medical Facility) in Vacaville.  CMF is the flagship correctional facility where prisoners with specialized medical needs such as HIV/AIDS and mental illness are held; for example Charles Manson was housed in CMF for years before transferred to San Quentin.  During our on-site training at CMF, we were escorted by guards inside the entire facility.  We saw the over-crowded open cell dormitories, the level three single occupant and heavily guarded cells occupied by Manson and alike, the pharmacy and hospital rooms filled with prisoners suffering from HIV/AIDS; we experienced two “lockdown” situations.  During a “lockdown”, the sirens blare loudly, all the doors and gates are closed, and inmates stay inside their cells.  Everyone except uniformed correctional officers must stand inside the yellow line against the wall or may risk being shot by the guards.  Sometimes a lockdown can last up to days.  This experience reminds me prison is a dangerous place, you definitely do not have all the rights you normally have when you are outside prison.

Today is Palm Sunday.  Palm Sunday is the celebration of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem before his arrest, trial, persecution and burial in the coming week.  Christians are reminded of the triumphant parade where people waved palm fronds and laid down palm and clothes on Jesus’ path; but also aware of the dark, difficult time of suffering, agony and death ahead. How do we experience solitude in the face of imprisonment?  Imagine our Lord Jesus was wholly God and human.  During the last week of Jesus life on earth, as God, he was fully aware of what was coming.  As human, he would have doubt, uncertainty of the future, fear, humiliation, injustice, pain, suffering and the ultimate persecution and execution on a cross.  This is quite clear in Matthew 28:38 “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death.”  Later he prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will."

This week, we are called to meditate on what our Lord Jesus went through to give us Eternal life.  We are also called on to pray for those confined to solitude not by their own choice.  As an exercise to practice solitude and imprisonment, read Psalm 88.

Psalm 88 (Eugene H. Peterson’s The Message)

1 God, you're my last chance of the day. I spend the night on my knees before you. 2 Put me on your salvation agenda; take notes on the trouble I'm in. 3 I've had my fill of trouble; I'm camped on the edge of hell. 4 I'm written off as a lost cause, one more statistic, a hopeless case. 5 Abandoned as already dead, one more body in a stack of corpses, And not so much as a gravestone — I'm a black hole in oblivion. 6 You've dropped me into a bottomless pit, sunk me in a pitch-black abyss. 7 I'm battered senseless by your rage, relentlessly pounded by your waves of anger. 8 You turned my friends against me, made me horrible to them. I'm caught in a maze and can't find my way out, 9 blinded by tears of pain and frustration.
I call to you, God; all day I call. I wring my hands, I plead for help. 10 Are the dead a live audience for your miracles? Do ghosts ever join the choirs that praise you? 11 Does your love make any difference in a graveyard? Is your faithful presence noticed in the corridors of hell? 12 Are your marvelous wonders ever seen in the dark, your righteous ways noticed in the Land of No Memory?
13 I'm standing my ground, God, shouting for help, at my prayers every morning, on my knees each daybreak. 14 Why, God, do you turn a deaf ear? Why do you make yourself scarce? 15 For as long as I remember I've been hurting; I've taken the worst you can hand out, and I've had it. 16 Your wildfire anger has blazed through my life; I'm bleeding, black and blue. 17 You've attacked me fiercely from every side, raining down blows till I'm nearly dead. 18 You made lover and neighbor alike dump me; the only friend I have left is Darkness.

 (from THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language © 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson. All rights reserved.)

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