Last December, during a unique opportunity to attend a Christmas concert in a women’s prison, I experienced a picture of what it means that Jesus came to earth.  While I have led Bible Studies in a women’s jail as part of the jail ministry of our church, this was the first time I had been inside of a prison.

Members of the local symphony played with the inmates who had used their time of incarceration to learn to play stringed instruments.  The featured artist, an internationally-renowned cellist, played a solo that was absolutely spellbinding and moving, an act of worship and an expression of his soul.  For another piece, he joined the cello section of the prison orchestra, playing right along with them.

Later in the program, he performed a duet with one of the inmates.  I had heard a little about her story, including some of the gruesome as well as the heartbreaking details of her crime.  Though she had never played an instrument before she came to prison, she now poured herself into the music, not bound by her past.  I sat in the front row, just feet from the stage, where I soaked in the experience.  It was powerful to see the world-famous musician with his priceless 300-year-old cello sharing the stage with this woman, creating beautiful music together.

Immersed in the music, I reflected that this was an image of how Christ, holy and perfect, entered our broken world to become one with us and now invites us to become one with him.

(Jesus), being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.  Philippians 2:6-7

http://performancetoday.publicradio.org/display/web/2012/12/17/zuill-bailey-prison-orchestra