Set Free

Texts: Acts 16:16-34; Revelation 22:12-14, 16-17, 20-21; John 17:20-26

With all due respect to Dr Cullen, his eighth budget was not the most newsworthy event of this past week. He was overshadowed by the Privy Council decision in the Bain case, and Bain's subsequent release from imprisonment, at least for the time being. Those images of this tall, thin figure with the enormous grin, surrounded by a pack of journalists asking the most ridiculous questions imaginable, will surely stick in our minds for a long time. No words were necessary, really – the pictures said it all.

I wonder if you had those pictures in your minds this morning as you heard the words of absolution. One of my favourite parts of the liturgy each Sunday is the absolution, and I make no secret of my preference for the form we have in our first liturgy, the one we have been using throughout this Easter Season. Let me remind you again how it goes: Through the cross of Christ, God have mercy on you, pardon you and set you free. Know that you are forgiven and be at peace. God strengthen you in all goodness and keep you in eternal life.

Some of those very words were being bandied about this week as legal experts commented on the Bain case; particularly apposite is that clause "pardon you and set you free". David Bain has been set free, at least for now, but he hasn't yet been pardoned. There's a very important distinction. At this moment, he remains accused of five murders, but he has been set free. That freedom, we might say, is incomplete: he has not been absolved.

His freedom has not come "through the cross of Christ", but through legal decisions. It is a moot point whether or not he has been shown mercy; but what is clear is that he cannot yet know that he is forgiven and therefore he cannot yet be at peace. As we think about the Bain case, then, we can ponder our own position in terms of the absolution.

We, too, have been set free. Our freedom has come through the cross of Christ. Unlike David Bain, we have been shown mercy and we have been pardoned. We know we are forgiven, and therefore we can be at peace. We are, in the words of St Paul, no longer under condemnation (Romans 8:1). Unlike David Bain, we do not stand accused of anything. That is what absolution in its fullest sense means. He has merely been set free, we have been absolved, pardoned, forgiven. Why then does he have the broadest smile imaginable, and I have never seen anyone look even mildly pleased in response to the absolution?

David Bain is not the only reason why I have been pondering imprisonment this week. A friend of mine is writing a theological book about Auschwitz and the whole terrible thing we call the Holocaust, and he has asked me to act as one of his reader-reviewers as the work proceeds. So he sends me instalments, and invites my comments. The process is at an early stage and this week I have been looking at his introduction. As you can imagine, it's pretty grim stuff.

One of the statements that caught my eye concerns the reaction of the prisoners in the camps. In broad terms, and with individual exceptions, of course, this took one of two forms. Given the sheer awfulness and helplessness of their situation, many simply gave up, collapsed into despair and even insanity. Many took their own lives, or longed for death as the only way of ending the torment. That was one common approach, and the other was to become totally focussed on seeking his or her own survival at whatever cost.

At first sight, those two approaches seem to be at either end of the spectrum, but they both have one common element. What human beings tend to lose when we are completely deprived of freedom is any concern for our fellow human beings. We become totally concerned with ourself, either in the sense of seeking our death or in the sense of seeking our survival. As a general rule, in order to be concerned for others, we need to be free – free from fear, free from undue concern about ourselves. St John says perfect love casts out fear (1 John 4:18). Human experience suggests that once fear has been cast out, perfect love becomes possible.

With all this in mind perhaps it's time to turn to our first lesson today, which, of course, is set in prison. At first sight, this is one of those 'oh, dear' stories – do we really have to believe this one? It sounds a bit far-fetched, to put it mildly. St Luke says a violent earthquake occurred, shaking the foundations of the prison. Well, the Milton Hilton has probably been built to withstand fairly strong earthquakes, but a prison in first century Philippi? We might have expected the building to crumble; but no, the building stood tall. The only effect the earthquake had was to fling open the locked doors, which, perhaps, is just feasible, and to loosen everybody's chains, which is surely pushing things a bit far!

But, of course, this is not a story about seismological phenomena. This is an Easter story. This is a story about prisoners being set free through the liberating power of God. St Luke, ever the master storyteller, has set the scene for us with his usual skill. The jailer has been "commanded to guard them carefully", so he has placed them in the inner cell, manacled them, and taken up guard duty himself. What does that remind us of? Perhaps this snippet from the Gospel of St Matthew (27:65-6): "Take a guard," Pilate answered. "Go, make the tomb as secure as you know how." So they went and made the tomb secure by putting a seal on the stone and posting the guard.

Jesus secure in the sealed tomb; his disciples secure in the inner cell of the Philippian prison. And in each case the liberating power of God blows, the Spirit of God, liberates, and the prisoners are set free. The same Spirit that entered the man-made tomb to raise Jesus to new life now enters this man-made prison to bring liberty to the captives.

But that's only half the story; the story doesn't finish there, as we might expect. Because the prisoners don't act as we might expect. We might expect them to do a runner – the doors are suddenly thrown open, the building is shaking from head to foot – the most natural thing in the world for them to do at that moment is surely to make good their escape, to seize the freedom they have been so unexpectedly given.

That's what the poor old jailer assumes has happened, and he prepares to take his own life rather than face the consequences of allowing a mass breakout. But the prisoners are still there. Why? Because of their concern for him. They realise that their escape would be at his expense, and so they stay and save his life. And, of course, this extraordinary display of compassion shown to him by his prisoners bowls him over. He realises that he is in the presence of something or someone far greater than himself. Now it is he who is trembling, and he prostrates himself before Paul and asks the classic penitent's question, "What must I do to be saved?" The jailer and his prisoners are reconciled, they are now brothers in Christ. That's the effect of Easter – the effect of the liberating power we call the Holy Spirit.

In our gospel reading this morning we have part of Jesus' so-called Priestly Prayer, when he prays for unity among his disciples; and in our reading from the Book of Revelation we have a vision of that unity brought to completion in the whole of creation.

And, as so often, St Paul has just the words for us to sum up this Easter gospel of ours. He writes (Romans 8:21-2): The creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed…in the hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. There are those words again – "liberated" and "freedom".

But look at their scope now. Not just for one man accused of slaying his family in Dunedin; not just for a small group of prisoners in first century Philippi, not even just for the rest of humanity. This absolution, this liberation, this freedom is ultimately intended for the whole of creation. That's what started at Easter: that's the liberating power of the Holy Spirit, mightier than even the most violent earthquakes, to which we will return next week as we celebrate the Day of Pentecost.

In the meantime, perhaps we can remember those TV images and promise ourselves one thing. Next time we hear the words of absolution we will try to look at least mildly pleased.