I don’t know about you, but within me there’s something that recoils at the thought of a person being locked away for a crime they didn’t commit. It is more than just sympathy; it is a profound, visceral revulsion. It feels like a violation of the very fabric of humanity. In recent years, our national conscience in the UK has been rocked by two staggering examples of such injustice: the case of Andy Malkinson and the Post Office Horizon scandal.
Andy Malkinson spent 17 years in prison for a rape he did not commit. For nearly two decades, his life and liberty was taken from him – not because of a lack of evidence, but because of systemic failures that ignored the truth. Even more harrowing was the “Catch-22” he faced: had he admitted guilt, he might have been released years earlier. By maintaining his innocence, he was viewed as “unrepentant” and kept behind bars. It is a modern-day nightmare.
Alongside this, we have watched the slow, agonizing unravelling of the Post Office Horizon scandal. Over 900 sub-postmasters were prosecuted and many imprisoned because of a faulty computer system. These were very often pillars of their communities – hardworking, honest people whose reputations were ruined, whose homes were lost, and whose lives were broken by a bureaucracy that chose to protect its reputation and sub-standard software rather than its people.
Our reaction to these stories is one of righteous anger. How can these things be? We feel it because we are made in the image of a God who is Himself just. When we see the innocent suffering, it’s the world as it was never meant to be.
Of course, this sense of “imposed darkness” is nothing new. In Acts 16, we find the Apostle Paul and his companion Silas in a remarkably similar position. They were in prison in the city of Philippi, not because they had committed a crime, but because they had set a slave girl free from spiritual oppression. Their “crime” was simply doing good.
The response of the authorities was brutal: they were stripped, severely beaten with rods, and thrown into the “inner cell” – the deepest, darkest, most secure part of the prison – with their feet clamped in heavy wooden stocks. If we were in that cell, our prayers might have been ‘Why, Lord?’ and we might easily have been consumed by bitterness and despair that is a normal human reaction.
But Luke records a detail that is utterly staggering: “About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them.” (Acts 16 v25) In the middle of the darkness, with their backs bleeding and their legs cramped in the stocks, they didn’t just endure – they sang and praised. For me, this is the most remarkable part of the story. They didn’t wait for the doors to open before they sang; they sang while the doors were still locked. Their worship was not a reaction to their freedom, but a declaration of who God was, even in the midst of their captivity.
And then, as we might say ‘God did the rest.’ A violent earthquake shook the foundations, the prison doors flew open, and the chains fell off. But please note, the praise came first.
This Sunday, at St Mary’s, we will be exploring these themes in our service when I’ll be offering the second instalment of Paul’s journey (and letter) to the Philippians. We’ll consider how we might learn the secret of Paul and Silas – to sing a song in the dark of night.
If you are feeling trapped by your circumstances, or if your heart is heavy with the injustices of the world, please join us. I can’t promise that every problem will vanish with an earthquake, but we can to stand together in the darkness and look toward the One who is the Light of the World.
God sometimes changes our circumstances; more often, He offers to change us in the middle of them. I trust you’ll be encouraged as we explore this together.
Revd Paul