December 2001 chaplain's corner

The Chaplain's Corner is a monthly message for chaplains.

Chaplain's Corner - December 2001

Rev. Rich Hines

This message is primarily for those serving as correctional chaplains within the United States, and who call upon the name of Christ as their own Lord and Savior. It's also for all your volunteer workers.

This month, I want to address you servants of Christ that minister His gospel to the incarcerated, during the Christmas Season. From my 20 years as a correctional chaplain, I know that "The Holidays" are an especially tough time for prisoners. Many factors contribute to this. At, or near the top of the list, are the inmates subjective, inward feelings.

Even though most County, State and Federal facilities try hard to make the season better and more special for their residents than the rest of the year, most of the incarcerated suffer from self-pity and feelings of sorrow over being separated from their families on the outside, during the holidays.

Inevitably, it falls to the facility chaplain - to "do something" to raise the spirits of the inmate population. So, many of you are having special services, special Christmas treats, giving away greeting cards, signing inmates up for programs that provide presents for their children on Christmas Day, and many other things. Behind most of this is the idea of alleviating the "suffering of the prisoners." What chaplain, called to love inmates with Christ's love, wouldn't want to do that?

But dear brothers and sisters, there's another side to this. I must confess to you that during my years of correctional ministry I always had some problems with all of this. Or better, with only this. I believe it really is counter productive to the work of the gospel.

I think you should have similar problems with becoming some kind of facility Santa Claus, rather than the one who represents the biblical gospel of Jesus at the time of the year when He is to be celebrated and remembered for His incarnation - His entry into the world as a Man, in human flesh, ultimately to suffer and die a subtitutionary death for sinners and thereby provide the means of reconciliation to God for all those chosen by Him before the foundation of the world.

I always wanted to tell inmates the main thing they should ever feel bad about - at any time of the year, is their own sin and rebellion against God. I always wanted to tell them that Christmas inevitably means they don't have to be separated from God - if they will truly repent and believe His message. And, if they have truly received His forgiveness in Christ, I wanted to tell them that their salvation, even at special "Holidays," means they should rejoice in their new standing with Him.

They should also rejoice in representing Him in the midst of generally a godless system. To show their Christmas thanks to God, saved inmates can be His lights in the spiritually dark place that is the jail or prison. They ought to be rejoicing over this. Of course that means being centered on Christ and God, and not on self. But isn't that the work of the gospel in a life? Yes, it is.

In explaining why he did the things he did, the Apostle Paul related these thoughts - and the Holy Spirit worded it so that it includes all Christian believers, not just Apostles, like Paul.

2 Corinthians 5:14,15

14 For the love of Christ compels us, because we judge thus: that if one died for all, then all died;

15 and He (Christ) died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again.

Correctional chaplains need to prompt inmates to live for Christ and His cause, not for self-centered feelings.

God is always good. His goodness isn't defined only by when we get what we want from Him. For too many professing Christian believers, their faith is unlike the faith of Job. In reality, their faith is like what Satan thought Job's faith was like. Remember Satan's charge about Job's faith? Remember his proposition?

In Job 1:9-11, we read:

9 So Satan answered the LORD and said, "Does Job fear God for nothing?

10 Have You not made a hedge around him, around his household, and around all that he has on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land.

11 But now stretch out Your hand and touch all that he has, and he will surely curse You to Your face!"

Satan's charge was that Job served God only because of God's manifest goodness towards him. Satan was saying in effect, "God, You give him all the goodies, no wonder He serves You." His proposition was that if God took away the outward blessings, Job's service for God (his "fear" of "God") would turn to hate and departure from God.

Amazingly, God (who is always Sovereign, even over Satan) allowed Satan to do a real number on Job. Job experienced much, much worse than most inmates ever experience. It came by the direct attack of the Evil One. Yet Job never totally turned away from God (although he did question God's purpose). In the end, Job even realized his sin in questioning what a loving and good and all-holy God was doing, and repented in dust and ashes (see Job 42:1-6).

Now please don't misunderstand me. I'm not saying it's wrong to do special or nice things for inmates at Christmas in the name of the love of Christ. I am saying it's wrong not to challenge their self-centeredness, their self-pity and to not call them away from self and sin to truly follow and worship Christ for who He is.

The Lord did not call you to the correctional ministry to be a minister of the social gospel, that only provides special gift packets, cards and stamps, etcetera. If He really called you, He called you to be a minister of His gospel. That gospel message always confronts sinners with their sin and then comforts them with the truth of how to be delivered from it. Not only from sin's penalty, but also from sin's practices.

That gospel says:

"the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously and godly in the present age, looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for Himself His own special people, zealous for good works." (Titus 2:11-14)

Far too often what people want, especially inmates, is not what's best for them. Even if they think so, it often isn't even best for others. The supreme thing God in Christ did for us - that should prompt our total devotion, is His redemptive death in our place. Christmas is an appropriate time for inmates to think on this. That, instead of, and more than candy canes, cookies, special turkey dinners, gifts paid for by others for their children or even an early release in time for "Christmas with the family," is what believing inmates should love and praise the Lord for.

So, let me suggest you think about and teach this passage as a Christmas message-

Hebrews 2:14-17 - Note how it talks about the reason for His birth as a human being - His incarnation.

14 Inasmuch then as the children (that word, "children" in the near context, refers to human beings God intended to save and bring to heaven) have partaken of flesh and blood, He Himself likewise shared in the same, (Christ came fully as a flesh and blood human being - but why?) in order that through death (some translate "through His death") He might destroy (really, reduce to inactivity) him who had the power of death, that is, the devil,

15 and release those who through fear of death were all their lifetime were subject to bondage.

16 For indeed He does not give aide to angels, but He does give aide to the seed of Abraham (that means true believers).

17 Therefore, in all things He had to be made like His brethren, in order that He might become a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.

What is Christmas? Any dictionary will tell you it is the celebration of Christ's birth. But, from a biblical perspective, what really happened when Christ was born of Mary in Bethlehem of Judea? What happened was God became a Man. He took on human flesh, or as it is called in theology, He became incarnate. Bible believers should celebrate the incarnation of Christ.

Christmas means God became incarnate in a human body. But we must not stop there, we must ask, "Why?" The reason Christmas (the Incarnation) happened was so that God could die as a human in the place of humans and thereby appease (propitiate) His own holy law about it's demand that their sin be judged. Then, those that would by faith trust in that substitutionary death to pay for their sins, could be reconciled back to Him.

1 Peter 318 says:

"Christ also suffered once for sins, the Just for the unjust, so that He might bring us to God,..."

The true benefactors of that substitutionary death, the death of "the Just for the unjust" according to the passage in Hebrews 2, have their enemy, the devil, rendered inoperative in their life - verse 14. They are released from the slavery to the fear of death - verse 15. They are given aide - verse 16, and mercy - verse 17. Further, verse 17 explains their sin has truly been propitiated (appeased), so they can now enter into the presence of an all-holy God.

Other "Christmas (Incarnation) Scripture" tells us they are brought into God's family and forever changed.

Galatians 4:4-7

4 ...when the fulness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law,

5 to redeem those who were under the law, in order that we might receive the adoption as sons.

6 And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying out, "Abba, Father!"

7 Therefore you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.

These precious and eternal promises ought to make any possessor of them rejoice, even in the darkness of prison, even at Christmas.

This life is short. James called this present lifetime a "vapor" which means steam escaping from a kettle (James 4:14), that's very brief. Add to that the truth found in Romans 8:18, where Paul said "the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us (i.e. true believers in Christ)." And Peter (1 Peter 5:10) compared the sufferings of this life which are only for "a while," to the "eternal glory" God gives His own through Jesus Christ.

Help the Bible-believing Christian inmates get an eternal perspective. Once they learn to practice meditating on the best things, they won't have a heart that gets caught up in the "Holiday Blues."

Those without Christ, have nothing good to look forward to, but by God's grace, they can truly respond to the gospel message you give them. That ought to make all the difference in their spirits while they are incarcerated.

Giving inmates Christ on His terms, is the only real way to relieve their mental suffering. Every Scriptural reference to God relieving the suffering of prisoners has to do with turning them from their sin to Himself, not with making them feel a little better about their physical incarceration. Bible believers can even see their incarceration as the Lords discipline and training for His glory and their ultimate good.

Some further Scriptural thoughts on all this is found in Hebrews 12:5-17

5 ..."My son, do not despise the chastening of the LORD, nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him;

6 For whom the LORD loves He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives." (quote from Prov.3:11,12)

7 If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom a father does not chasten?

8 But if you are without chastening, of which all (true children of God, saved people) have become partakers, then you are illegitimate and not sons (not truly saved people).

9 Furthermore, we have had human fathers who corrected us, and we paid them respect. Shall we not much more readily be in subjection to the Father of spirits and live?

10 For they (human fathers) indeed for a few days chastened us as seemed best to them, but He (God) for our profit, that we may be partakers of His holiness.

11 Now no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.

All this in verses 5-11 can apply to those in jail and prison. Believing inmates can see all that has happened to them as the Lord's discipline. That discipline is for their own good to bring them to holiness.

12 Therefore (on account of what God is doing through His discipline) strengthen the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees,

13 and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be dislocated, but rather be healed.

14 Pursue peace with all people, and (pursue) holiness, without which no one will see the Lord:

15 looking carefully lest anyone fall short of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up cause trouble, and by this many become defiled;

16 lest there be any fornicator or profane person like Esau, who for one morsel of food sold his birthright.

17 For you know that afterward, when he wanted to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place for repentance, though he sought it diligently with tears.

May Christ truly be central in your life, and the lives of those you shepherd for Him this Christmas, and throughout the new year. We (Aurora Ministries) are praying for you and your ministry.

Rich Hines - Minister To Chaplains