Out of the Depths

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn wrote the book, The Gulag Archipelago, his memoir about being a political prisoner in the Russian jail (gulag). He writes this:"It was granted to me to carry away from my prison years on my bent back, which nearly broke beneath its load, this essential experience: how a human being becomes evil and how good. In the intoxication of youthful successes I had felt myself to be infallible, and I was therefore cruel. In the surfeit of power I was a murderer and an oppressor. In my most evil moments I was convinced that I was doing good, and I was well supplied with systematic arguments. It was only when I lay there on rotting prison straw that I sensed within myself the first stirrings of good.Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either—but right through every human heart—and through all human hearts... That is why I turn back to the years of my imprisonment and say, sometimes to the astonishment of those about me: 'Bless you, prison!'... I nourished my soul there, and I say without hesitation: 'Bless you, prison, for having been in my life!'"In the darkest place imaginable, Solzhenitsyn had an experience with grace that changed him forever! Jonah is in a watery prison as well and, as we will see Sunday, experiences grace in a way that starts a radical process of transformation. This Sunday we are looking at Jonah experiencing death, so that life can be worked in him. It seems to be the pattern of real grace. We don’t really know Jesus is all we need until Jesus is all we have.I hope you will join us. There is no better story that the story of grace and redemption!Blessings,Jim