To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast, click here
In the long-running CBS reality show Survivor, the worst thing that can happen to a contestant is being voted off the island.
When it came to the reality of being incarcerated in America’s most secure federal penitentiary, the worst thing that could happen was having to spend one more day on the island.
The island was Alcatraz – the small, rocky islet that sits in the middle of San Francisco Bay, a mere mile and a quarter from the city’s shoreline. But the intervening waters – frigid, swirling and shark-infested – have long been considered an uncrossable barrier. Between 1934 and 1963, when Alcatraz was the crown jewel of America’s prison system, no inmate ever made it to shore and ultimate freedom.
At least, we’re pretty sure nobody made it.
On the evening of June 11, 1962, Frank Lee Morris and two brothers – John and Clarence Anglin – successfully exited their cells, walked through an unguarded corridor, shimmied down a 50-foot drainage pipe, and set out on the water aided by homemade survival gear.
They were never seen again.
A fourth inmate, Allen West, failed to rendezvous in the corridor with the other three. He cooperated with authorities and revealed some of the fascinating details of the escape plan.
As criminals, Morris and the Anglins were hardly the “the worst of the worst.” They were serving lengthy sentences for burglary, bank robbery, and grand theft auto.
Even though they hadn’t spent much time in school, it certainly appears they were paying attention in shop class. Over a period of six months, they fashioned life preservers from 50 raincoats and other items they stole from the prison. The design was inspired by an article Morris had found in the March 1962 edition of Popular Mechanics called “Your Life Preserver – How Will It Behave If You Need It?”
They cobbled together a six-by-fourteen-foot rubber raft. The seams were hand-stitched and sealed with liquid plastic available in the prison workshop. Utilizing relentless digging, they widened the ventilation ducts beneath their sinks – just enough to squeeze through.
They also concocted their own recipe for papier-mache out of soap, toothpaste, concrete dust, and toilet paper, and sculpted amazingly lifelike dummy heads. Each one was topped by snippets of hair gleaned from the barbershop floor.
The fake heads, which were left behind on their pillows on the night of their escape, were sufficiently lifelike to fool the guards until 7 am the next day.
By that time, the trio had a magnificent headstart on the road to freedom.
What happened next? No one knows.
While a few personal effects of the three men were found along the shore days later, there has never been definitive proof of either their deaths or their survival. In 1979, the FBI concluded that the three men almost certainly drowned in the freezing waters of the bay.
Conspiracy theories, of course, have run rampant for more than six decades. The U.S. Marshals Service has never closed the case. That’s going to change on September 1 of this year – Morris’ 100th birthday – when he will no longer, at least officially, be a wanted man.
If Frank Lee Morris is still alive, just think what a story he has to tell.
There are no “jailbreaks” on the pages of Scripture, although several key characters, all unjustly imprisoned, are set free by divine intervention. Joseph is summoned from jail by pharaoh because of his ability to interpret dreams. An angel unlocks Peter’s prison door and leads him away prior to his going on trial for his life. Paul and Silas, singing hymns in the depths of a Philippian dungeon, are set free by an earthquake.
If we’re talking metaphorically about deliverance from a realm of misery into a world of hope – going from darkness to light – the Bible has a lot to say.
The most significant verse may well be Colossians 1:13, where Paul writes, “For he rescued us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son.”
“Transferred” is an English rendering of μετέστησεν (metestesen), a Greek word that has an interesting history. In the ancient world it was often used to describe the wholesale relocation of a human population from one country to another.
The Assyrians practiced this centuries before the birth of Christ. Having conquered a particular nation, they sent all of its citizens packing – usually hundreds of miles away – to an entirely new geography. This was an extreme tactic of social control. It was rarely greeted with joy by those conquered.
But things are different when it comes to Jesus.
Paul says that God, in an incredible act of mercy, has transferred, delivered, and relocated all who call on the name of his Son.
We automatically become subjects of a new kind of kingdom.
We tear up our old passports – the ones that could only plunge us deeper into the daily crush of egos, lusts, bitterness, and envy.
Out of the blue, we’re granted a new sort of citizenship. We live under a new constitution. We’re blessed by an entirely different basis for security and significance – one that springs from God’s generosity instead of our own crazy efforts at self-improvement.
To put it simply, we change our spiritual address from a dark prison to a sunlit landscape.
That’s what it means to meet Christ.
And if that has happened to you, just think what a story you have to tell.