Years ago my family and I toured Alcatraz. If you took the tour of the bay, you actually paid less and got the prison tour included than if you just went to Alcatraz. Perhaps the only deal to be had in a city where it is over $6/hour to park, if you can find a space. But the tour of the prison was much more than we had expected. Instead of clean white cells like shown on old Warner Bros. movies, it was paint peeling, water leaking, and falling down. After the place was shut down in 1963 it fell quickly into disrepair, and after the Indians held it captive in the seventies, no one felt that it should be rebuilt, and by letting it fall down was even cheaper than tearing it down. And when it became a national landmark in the seventies, it still was not restored, but left in its eerie mystique. Besides, when it really gets unsafe, just close it down. And be stuck with only the tour of the bay. Still more than the inmates got.
If you are left with only one impression of Alcatraz, it is one of isolation. True, it's an island, and true there is no other reason than the prison to go there, but you are isolated in, and from the world. And to really get the full effect, you are allowed to go down into the isolation cells. Horrible rooms, less then four feet wide, with no light, where you were thrown naked, with only a pot to go in, and with no protection from the cold. Dark and wet, with only the breezes from the bay for company. And at night, the wind was said to carry the sounds of night life the mile and a half from San Francisco, and have a tortuous effect psychologically on the man in the hole. Isolation from life, and all it has to offer. No way out past the double doors. All the comforts of home with no comforts.
But isolation works both ways. And for a place named after pelicans, you would think of it in terms of being free. But although you could be in isolation from the others, they were also isolated from you. Protected from each other, sort of speak. Like my new riding boots, they don't let the rain and cold in, but don't let the heat out either. Isolated, yet insulated from the world, and what is going on out there. A door that could swing both ways, but swings neither. Also isolated from the truth. And if you watch the Birdman of Alcatraz with Burt Lancaster, you could almost feel bad for old Robert Stroud, until you find out the truth about him was not quite the story told in the movie. He was a unrepentant child molester, who used to throw feces at the guards. Not quite Burt in the film. But sadly, Hollywood seldom has regard for the truth, and being isolated from the truth can have eternal ramifications. Deadlier than the for the ones in isolation in prison.
Fortunately God is truth. But because of sin, we are isolated from Him. We cannot get to Him unless it is through His grace in the form of a person, Jesus Christ. Sin separates us from life, as the view from Alcatraz illustrates, but also from God. And He is patient with us, that no form of prison we are in, will He let separate us from Him. Walls and bars cannot hold back the spirit of God. And for those who believe, Jesus is a welcome pardon from sin, and death. But to those who have not yet repented, He stands ready when you call. Ready to pardon you from all sin, and welcome you into his eternal arms, and the peace that surpasses all understanding. And sadly without Jesus, we are in a form of isolation, where we cannot get to God, but He can get to us. That is why knowing Jesus is the most important decision you will ever make. And that without Him,the spiritual prison walls we live behind will never be broken. Walls without bars, a spiritual prison with only Jesus knocking at the door, wanting to come into your life, so He can give you life. Truly a life sentence if you would. But also being fully pardoned from your sin. No longer isolated from God, but now insulated by Him.
Between Alcatraz and the city was a 1.5 mile watery chasm that separated freedom from prison. And no one escaped it. Just as no one escapes hell without Jesus. Consider that now. Do I really want to go to hell? God sends no one, if you do it is because you rejected Jesus and His gift of heaven. God is offering you a complete pardon from sin and death right now. No parole or even probation. But a total pardon where when the books of your life are opened in heaven your sin is never mentioned. Like it has never happened. Your choice. Isolated from Jesus, or isolated from sin? The choice is yours.
love with compassion,
Mike
matthew25biker.blogspot.com