Jesus, Andy Dufresne and the spiritual prison break

Andy Dufresne in Shawshank Redemption provides an intellectual “prison break” for his fellow inmates, once again demonstrating Christ’s commission to set the prisoners free from their institutions. 

The spiritual prison break

Andy Dufresne sought to bring knowledge to his fellow inmates in order to uplift them, help them to have something to fall back upon and strengthen them when they left prison. The key moment in the film regarding this is the shot where the prisoners break through a wall of their institution in order to expand the existing library, the symbolism here very obviously that of a prison break representing new freedom, the freedom of the mind, the intellect. In the end the master of the institution, Warden Norton, threatens to plunge the prison back into its pre-enlightened darkness if Andy does not cooperate with his money-laundering schemes: “And the library? Gone... sealed off, brick by brick. We'll have us a little book barbecue in the yard. They'll see the flames for miles. We'll dance around it like wild Injuns!” Like Warden Norton who has no interest in uplifting the prisoners, seeking only their dumb compliance to the institution, the “Church” as an institution has failed the commission of the true upliftment and liberation of the human spirit, keeping bums on the seats while clone-like congregations listen to arcane, unquestioned preaching and go through religious motions that bear scant relevance to their lives.

Jesus Christ came to earth to set us free from prison: not a physical prison, but the prison that has been created in our minds. Anyone who thinks that the freedom that Christ brought is a physical one would be very disillusioned upon examining early Church history: the foremost propagators of the faith like Paul and Peter were frequently thrown into a physical prison. Rather, it is for the freedom of the human spirit from the human condition and from human institutions of the mind and soul that Christ came to dwell among us. He lived as one of us, experiencing the human condition with its joys and sorrows with us. He showed us a hope beyond this world and then died on the cross so that we could inherit his spirit and experience his freedom completely. This he did by changing our hearts of prison stone into hearts of flesh and blood, becoming his living ambassadors to this world. We are Jesus through partaking in his spirit and, like Andy Dufresne in his prison, we have to have a walk and a talk that gives fresh hope and knowledge to a world that is sinking into prison darkness.

Matthew 25:34 “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’ 

37 “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38 When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39 When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

40 “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

Why would we visit people in prison? Why did Christ not mention “hospital”? Prison implies guilt for a crime: we are all guilty until set free by Christ. It is then our job as those set free by Christ to visit those still bound by their guilt to show them the hope beyond the prison walls of the human condition. We see prisoners all around us every day, people who are bound by this condition, by our fallen nature. From the everyday reminders, the drudgery of work and school, to the evil of which people are capable on a personal and a global scale, nobody can really say that life, on the whole, is great. We see people hurt by the metaphorical roadside, people robbed of the truth and of the fullness and freedom we have in Christ. Are we going to preach judgment and condemnation at them, give them cold comfort with platitudes from the Bible, “placebos in the form of easy answers, ‘try hard’ sermons and the latest ‘get rich’ formulas” instead of dealing with “the ugly and messy relational process of meeting people’s real needs” (in Johnson and Van Vonderen's The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse) or will we sit down and experience life with them, just as Jesus did for us? Will we take them to the "brood of vipers" that is the materialistic, performance driven church of today, or will we take them to the house of healing, the centre of Christ's uncompromising, unconditional love as the good Samaritan did? Will we, by being Jesus to these people, show them hope and true freedom, just as Jesus did for us, or will we judge and condemn them because of their sexual preference or the type movies they watch or the kind of music that they listen to?

“Setting the captives free” is always equated with setting people free from their captivity to sin. Visiting someone in prison could then be equated to visiting someone in their sin – that is, being with them when they are in their “unsaved” state, experiencing the human condition right there with them and being a friend to them. Not someone with a Gideon’s Bible in the back pocket and a “Jesus Saves” agenda, but being Jesus for that person: sitting down and having a drink with them, laughing with them, crying with them. Maybe we should, like Andy Dufresne, have that invisible cloak that shields us from the despair of the human condition, but stop pretending that we are not fellow prisoners of this physical world, show that we are subject to the same fears and desires but with this difference: we are not governed by them; we have hope.