Mark Twain...Alcatraz...Golden Gate Bridge

Mark Twain is reported to have said, "The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco." Can we have an "Amen" to that?

A day of seeing many sights of San Francisco in weather befitting late October in Minnesota left Kathy and me chilled to the bone. At the southern edge of the Golden Gate Bridge we offered to take a picture of a couple and asked the same favor in return. As we were both reviewing our digital images, one of them asked where we were from. We answered, "Minnesota, and even though it is known as being a cold place, we would never dress like this in August", pointing to our many-layered look for the day. The man laughed and said, "Yes, we are from a cold place, too--Austria--and it is never like this in the summer.

But the coolness of the day was nothing compared to the stark frigidity of a major exploration of the day--a trip to Alcatraz Island which served as the most secure federal prison for about thirty years, ending in 1963.

As we exchanged our e-tickets for real ones, we noticed that the trips to Alcatraz were sold out for today...and for the next seven days! One could not buy a ticket for the next eight days! It occurred to me that there is something odd about the fact that thousands of us were so anxious to get to a place that, 50 years ago, people would have dreaded, making that trip to an isolated island in the middle of San Francisco Bay. Why are we so interested in seeing a place of imprisonment for the likes of Al Capone and the Birdman from Alcatraz?

The cell blocks were cold and uninviting. Alcatraz was a place of punishment, not of rehabilitation or redemption. There is not one confirmed escape from the place. It successfully locked people in its jaws and didn't let go.

The sounds like a description of sin--a prison in which we all serve. And this prison seeks to lock us in it icy jaws--a perpetual winter of despair. But for God's people, the sun will shine, and the Son has risen. No matter how cold the day may be, we can be warmed by the sure and certain hope we have in Christ. No matter how bleak the situation may be, a new day in Christ erases the yesterdays of despair.

There is a Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco (even if we couldn't see the top half of it today for the cold fog). But there is a Golden Gate in a greater kingdom--ready to open wide for brothers and sisters in Christ