Praying Once Again for the Two Michaels

                                                                         Paul in Prison -- Rembrandt

 About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them. Suddenly there was an earthquake, so violent that the foundations of the prison were shaken; and immediately all the doors were opened and everyone’s chains were unfastened.  

When the jailer woke up and saw the prison doors wide open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself, since he supposed that the prisoners had escaped. But Paul shouted in a loud voice, “Do not harm yourself, for we are all here.” The jailer called for lights, and rushing in, he fell down trembling before Paul and Silas.  Then he brought them outside and said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” They answered, “Believe on the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.”

Acts 16:25-31

There are a fair number of references to jail time in the New Testament, if you stop to consider. The brash John the Baptist was incarcerated before his death by beheading. While none of the gospels say that Jesus was jailed the night of his detention and trial he could have been held briefly in the depths of the Antonia Fortress in Jerusalem.

The apostle Paul spends a fair amount of time imprisoned or under house arrest, and Paul and Silas are in the hoosegow in Philippi before making a miraculous jailbreak. Jails in ancient times weren't designed for long-term sentences. They were essentially holding cells until punishment was meted out, and for both John and Jesus this meant brutal execution. These deaths came under military rule and there was little sense of justice. 

This morning we heard that Canadian Michael Spavor wss sentenced to eleven years in prison after a farce of a trial in China. Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig are innocent men, pawns in an unjust show of power by the Chinese government after the arrest of Meng Wanzhou, a Huawei executive wanted in the United States. While her extradition trial drags on she is under comfortable house arrest in Vancouver. 

The sentence today was predictable but it must be devastating for Spavor, his family, and all who care for his well-being. The international community has expressed its outrage but the Chinese regime simply doesn't care.

As helpless and outraged as we may feel, we can continue to pray for the release of both of the Michaels, held under terrible circumstances. We can also pray for another Canadian, Robert Schellenberg, who was sentenced to death in China for drug smuggling a few days ago. After originally receiving a lengthy prison sentence he was retried and given the death penalty, again in what is an act of retaliation. His crime doesn't warrant this draconian punishment.