Prison Break! (Esther 7)

Prison Break! (Esther 7)

Esther 7.10 So they hanged Haman on the gallows that he had prepared for Mordecai. Then the king’s wrath subsided. [nkjv]

On the 19th December 1965, Ronald Joseph Ryan and Peter John Walker put a daring plan into action to escape from Pentridge Prison in Melbourne, Victoria. As prison officers were taking turns attending a staff Christmas party, the men scaled a five-metre prison wall with the aid of two wooden benches, a hook and blankets. They overpowered a prison warden and took his weapon. After a series of bungled attempts, they finally managed to open the outer prison gate and escape into the car park, and out onto Sydney Rd. By this time the alarm had sounded and prison guards were converging quickly on their location.

People abandoned their vehicles and ran for cover and trams banked up as these two armed men caused havoc at the busy intersection of Sydney Rd and O'Hea St. In the confusion that followed prison warder George Hodgson was shot and killed while trying to apprehend the escapees. He died on Sydney Rd.

Both men were eventually recaptured after 19 days on the run.

On the 3rd February 1967 Ronald Joseph Ryan entered the history books as the last person legally executed in Australia. He was found guilty of killing a prison officer during his escape from Pentridge Prison in 1965 and sentenced to death by hanging. With thousands of people protesting outside the prison and all calls for clemency denied, Ryan refused any sedatives and walked calmly to the gallows trapdoor. The hangman wasted no time and quickly pulled the lever. A nationwide three minute silence was observed at the exact time Ryan was hanged. His execution created massive public outrage and eventually lead to the abolition of the death penalty.

During ancient times, hanging was just as gruesome as it was in 1967 however back then it was usually done after the execution, not usually as a means of execution itself. Simply stringing someone up to a tree wasn't enough for the ancient Persians. The word 'gallows' mentioned here is a pointed stake set upright in the ground. In this case Haman had ordered it built 25 meters high. The intention was that Mordecai would be arrested, placed on the sharp point and then pulled down by his legs till the stake that went in passed up through his body, coming out through his neck. Haman would take great delight in the fact that Mordecai wouldn't die a quick death but would spend his last hours in excruciating agony.

This was the death planned for Mordecai but because of the love one woman had for her people, became Haman's ultimate fate. The guilty died in place of the innocent.

Fast forward a few hundred years into the future and we see history repeating itself. Satan had a plan to rid the world of the One who caused him so much humiliation. He stirred up the crowd, manipulated those in authority and falsely accused Jesus Christ, the Son of God of all manner of sin. They took Him and crucified Him to a tree, a gruesome form of capital punishment adapted by the Romans from the Persians.

This time around though it was the innocent who died for the guilty!

Because of my sin, I am the one who should have been punished, yet it was Jesus who took my place so I can walk free. During those excruciating hours, while hanging between heaven and earth, Jesus lifted up His head and said "Father forgive them for they know not what they do."

He did that so I can be free!