Posts by Chris Hoke

I work with men in American prisons. Mostly gang-affected guys, often spoken about as savages, animals, less than human. 

Our work at Underground Ministries is to empower communities to befriend and embrace precisely these neighbors of ours: men and women sacrificed to the criminal legal system who have been released from prison cages and are re-entering our communities. 

So, while this story is about Jesus physically healing a woman in a public space, his choice of words — “untie,” “set free,” “bondage,” “eighteen long years” — speaks to me on another level.