Jesus’ First Week Home from Prison

THE WEEK OF JESUS’ resurrection is his first week home from prison after a very public arrest, trial, imprisonment, and death sentence. Jesus’ closest friends do not recognize him; they are frightened and mistake Jesus for everything from a ghost (Luke 24:37) to a thieving gardener (John 20:15).

Biblical interpreters have spent thousands of years trying to make sense of why the seemingly joyful event of Jesus’ resurrection is haunted by unrecognition. Many have presumed that Jesus rises from the grave with a body that is somehow different—flesh that bears the marks of the execution but has somehow been transformed. If Jesus has come back with a changed body, the argument goes, then the fear and lack of recognition that his disciples show toward him make sense.

Perhaps. But after many years of friendship with people who have been locked up and released, I have come to see that the stories of Jesus in the wake of his resurrection look startlingly like the experiences of every other formerly incarcerated person in the wake of his or her release. Miraculous bodies and transfigured flesh are not needed to explain the fear and awkward renegotiation of relationships that pervade the Easter stories: Jesus is home from prison, and his church simply doesn’t know what to do with him.

Prison changes you

The first time I read the resurrection as a story about Jesus’ re-entry, I was a chaplain sitting on the linoleum floor of a double-wide trailer at the back of a women’s prison. I was with members of the prison’s dance ministry. We had dedicated our Eastertide devotionals to the resurrection stories, and in that circle of women who were getting ready to be released from prison, I realized how common these experiences of Jesus really are.

We had just read John 20:1-18, the story of how Mary finds the tomb empty, and yet when Jesus comes to stand before her, “she did not know that it was Jesus” (20:14). I asked the group why one of Jesus’ closest friends and followers might not recognize him. A woman who I will call Tammy shared how just that week, right before her phone time cut off, her mother told her how proud she was of the changes Tammy had made in her life.

“You don’t even seem like the same person,” Tammy’s mother had said.

“I know that’s right!” our dance leader, Jean, said in response. “I’ve changed so much I can barely recognize myself.”

As we talked, I realized that the dance team members were not speaking in hyperbole. Prison had changed each of them in radically painful and positive ways. One woman had been in for more than 20 years. In that time, she had only been visited by two family members; she knew she would not be recognizable to the others when she was released. Another woman laughed at how she had put on weight in prison—a combination of living both drug-free and at the mercy of what was available at the canteen.

The laughter dropped when she shared that at her children’s last visit, it took them a moment to realize their own mother was standing before them. We talked about what it would be like to go home soon, a changed person, and not be recognizable to your closest friends and family.

We also wondered what it would be like to be second-guessed, feared, and to have to prove yourself. All four gospels mention that Jesus’ friends are filled with fear at his resurrection (Matthew 28:4, 8, 10; Mark 16:5, 8; Luke 24:5, 37; John 20:19). We noticed that, in these Easter stories, Jesus is constantly telling people “Peace. Peace. Peace be with you,” whenever he comes into a room. Jesus takes the initiative to dispel everyone else’s concern about his presence among them.

We talked about how Jesus is brave and vulnerable to share the story of what happened to him by showing his hands and his feet—the scars of his incarceration—over and over again. Jesus was willing to speak openly about his incarceration so that others could know him for who he is, and this group of women was committed to doing the same.

Unrecognizable

In Matthew’s telling, there is no way to forget that Jesus has a record; the gospel makes clear that Jesus’ release from the tomb is a continuation of the story of his involvement with the justice system. The reader is given details about the security measures taken at the tomb, the guards posted where Jesus’ body is being held, and the process by which these safety and security measures were decided.

In Matthew’s gospel, the resurrection smacks of the criminal; it is called a “deception” pulled off by Jesus, the well-known “imposter” (27:63-64). Jesus is imagined as a con man running one last con. After a quick 10 verses about the resurrection itself, Matthew describes what is essentially a government cover-up—the payoffs and instructions that create an official story concerning how Jesus managed to disappear from his state-supervised tomb (28:11-15).

While Matthew tells the story of Jesus’ release from a government perspective, John and Luke highlight the personal and relational aspects of Jesus’ return to his family and friends. In both gospels, Mary Magdalene is lifted up as one who stands with Jesus throughout his incarceration, even standing at the foot of the cross during his public execution (John 19:25).

Unsurprisingly, the one who stuck by Jesus while he was in prison is the first to come and care for his body after his death. Yet somehow, even with Mary’s faithfulness to Jesus, not only does she not recognize him, she mistakes him for a thieving gardener. John 20:15 says: “thinking that he was the gardener, she said, ‘Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him.’” Mary does not recognize Jesus until he looks her in the face and speaks her name.

Mary is not the only one who cannot recognize Jesus. In Luke’s telling, Jesus appears to two unnamed disciples on the road to Emmaus. He walks and talks beside them, and they cannot see Jesus for who he is (24:16). Immediately after this, Jesus appears to the disciples as a group, and Luke tells us “they were startled and frightened, thinking they saw a ghost” (24:37).

Jesus needs space

Many of the women who sat with me several years ago in that double-wide trailer are out of prison now. We recently had something of a reunion, gathering for breakfast and Bible study at my house. Over French toast casserole and pot after pot of coffee, we returned to these stories of what it was like for Jesus to get out of prison.

Some of us had not seen each other since release. We started our readings with laughter, humor easing the way into deeper waters. We laughed our way through Luke 24:36-43, the part of the story where the disciples could not recognize Jesus and he responds with, “Do you have anything here to eat?” The women remembered how much time they spent thinking about that first meal out.

While we were still laughing, a woman named Veronica, who had been our choir leader on the inside, shook her head and said, “They’re scared of him, and he just wants something to eat!”

Her joke hit close to home. Jesus’ experience—just wanting to eat with his church friends but being received with fear instead—was shared by nearly every woman in the room. As our laughter trailed off, the stories came tumbling out. They talked of showing up to church only to have their motives for coming to church questioned. One woman told of how the church members assigned to encourage her in her re-entry had expressed surprise when she got herself to church all by herself rather than asking one of them for a ride.

“It’s like, they believe you, but they don’t believe you,” said Loyane.

Lu chimed in, “Some people receive you and some people are like, ‘I gotta check you out.’”

Many of these women are in formal mentoring relationships with Christians who have volunteered to help them through their re-entry process. They expressed how valuable these relationships are, but they also told stories about the doubt and misperceptions that often seem to be lurking just below the surface.

“If I don’t call you for three days, that doesn’t mean I’m on drugs,” said one woman, “it means I’m busy at work!”

The misperceptions are not always about fear. Women expressed that sometimes people do not know how to receive them because of how well they are doing. The misperception is that formerly incarcerated people need more help and guidance than they really do.

“Every Christian helper who has been sent my way can’t seem to understand that I’ve done 27 years in prison, I have a solid walk with Christ, Bible knowledge, and a college education. They are amazed at this stuff, and they don’t know how to handle me. They can’t save my soul or get me an education. I just need clothing and companionship,” said Deb.

Jean and Veronica, always leaders among us, were the ones to name how much it hurts to be misunderstood. They described being furious, tearful, and devastated.

And for the first time in my reading of Jesus as being a formerly incarcerated person, I noticed that Jesus gets mad about this stuff, too. Mark’s gospel tells us that Jesus “rebuked the disciples for their lack of faith and their stubborn refusal to believe” (16:14). When Mary finally recognizes Jesus in John’s gospel, he tells her to back off. Jesus needs space—even from his closest supporter—when she falls into the common trap of not being able to see him for who he is (20:17).

New patterns

In The Executed God, theologian Mark Lewis Taylor uses Jesus’ arrest, imprisonment, and execution to offer insight into the experiences of what he calls “lockdown America.” Likewise, the stories of Jesus coming home from prison can offer insight into the experiences of those coming home today. According to the Bureau of Justice’s National Prisoner Statistics Program, between 600,000 and 700,000 people are released from prison each year in the United States. What can we learn from the resurrection about what it might mean to welcome Jesus home well?

In John 21:15-19 Jesus asks Peter three times, “Do you love me?” Peter did not stand by Jesus in his trial and sentencing. Because of this, he and Jesus must have a hard conversation after Jesus is released about what Peter’s prior absence means for their relationship going forward. If Peter is willing to follow a formerly incarcerated Lord, the task is simple: “Feed my sheep.” But Jesus is quick to acknowledge that simple acts of care will mean that Peter will have to go to places where he is uncomfortable. Following Jesus will ultimately lead Peter to prison. Acknowledging that our Lord has a record does not change the basics of the Christian message, but it does change where one goes and how one acts once there.

Jesus’ own patterns of ministry are changed by his experience of death and resurrection, prison and release. In the resurrection stories, we no longer see him going to formal places of worship. Rather, he meets his followers where they are: on the road, at work, in graveyards, and at home.

Perhaps following our formerly incarcerated Lord today means that we, like Peter, must learn to go to new places. Like Peter, we must acknowledge when we haven’t been there for people in prison, offer friendship despite previously failing to do so, meet basic needs, and learn to be church beyond the walls.

But most important, if we want to follow a God who made it through prison and into the resurrection, we must be willing to change our perceptions and see formerly incarcerated people for who they truly are: not risk, threat, or even thieving gardeners, but images of the Risen Christ.