Wednesday, October 21Hope
Let Them Come Themselves
But Paul said unto them, They have beaten us openly uncondemned, being Romans, and have cast us into prison; and now do they thrust us out privily? nay verily; but let them come themselves and fetch us out.
DevotionalWednesday, October 21
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The San Diego Union-Tribune reports that oversight of juvenile justice is shrinking across California, three years after the state closed its youth prisons and sent young people to county facilities. That is all the story gives me. It is enough to bring to God with my jaw tight.
Lord, we moved them closer to home and hoped it was mercy.
Now fewer eyes are on the rooms where they sleep.
You know those rooms. You know the hour after the last count, when a young person decides nobody is coming. Why does the watching thin out right where the weakest are?
In Philippi, Paul and Silas were beaten with rods in public, uncondemned, and locked in the inner cell. At dawn the magistrates sent word to let them slip away quietly. Paul refused.
They have beaten us openly uncondemned, being Romans, and have cast us into prison; and now do they thrust us out privily? nay verily; but let them come themselves and fetch us out.
He was not being proud. He was dragging the thing into daylight, making the officials stand in front of what they had done, so the next person in that cell would be a little harder to hurt. Power loves the word privily.
So do I. I confess it, Lord. I want inspectors for the county and none for my own heart. I keep the phone face down. I let the friend who asks hard questions drift to the edge of the group chat, and I call it privacy. You call it a dark room, and you know what grows in those.
And yet.
They tried privily with your Son. A trial pushed through in the dark. Then a sealed stone with soldiers in front of it, as if a guard could settle what God had not. On the third morning the grave was the one door in Jerusalem nobody could keep shut.
He came out with the nail marks still in his hands, and he showed them. He sees every unit after lights out, and he has said that nothing covered will stay covered (Luke 12:2). For the young person in that room, that is a promise. For me, it is a summons.
So I will not take the back door either. I will ask who is watching. I will let someone watch me.
The stone is still rolled away. The scars are still on him. Lord, put them on me too, if that is what keeping my eyes open costs.
Pray
Lord, I confess that I like being unwatched. I ask for accountability for others and dodge it for myself. I have looked away from rooms I did not want to picture, and I have kept rooms in my own heart locked. Forgive me. Thank you that Jesus was condemned in the dark and raised in the open, and that his wounds are still visible in glory. Watch over every young person in a county facility tonight. Give the people responsible for them, and me with them, the courage to let the light in. Holy Spirit, start that in me today. Through Jesus, the risen one. Amen.
Practice
Before the day ends, find out who is responsible for inspecting the youth detention facility in your county, write their name down, and pray for them and for the young people inside by name of that place.
Carry
He kept his scars in the open. I can stop hiding mine.