Escape from Shawshank

“Remember Red, hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.” -The Shawshank Redemption

Remarkably, this Monday is the 25th anniversary of the release of “The Shawshank Redemption”—that timeless story of an innocent man who spends 19 years tunneling out of his prison cell behind a poster of Rita Hayworth (pictured above). The movie is about many things, including the perils of group showers with randy men and the educational benefit of prison libraries. But it is especially about the dangers and difficulties of Hope. Prisoner Andy Dufresne and his friend Otis “Red” Redding argue about hope’s merits: why seek it when it leads only to disappointment, Red wonders. It’s cruel to give hope to others when there is none to be had.

Andy refuses to cave, though. There is always room to hope, even when there’s not. It’s what keeps him digging for 19 years, tunneling his way to freedom, to “redemption.”

We are living in Shawshank right now. It’s hard to have hope. For those who don’t know, my 19yo son Mitchell is in a slow yet steadfast decline resulting from a mysterious neurological disease. Despite the best doctors’ best efforts, we have watched this illness take everything away from him like a pickpocket that won’t leave you alone on the street until you’re stripped bare. For every gain Mitchell makes, the pickpocket returns to take it away—and something else while he’s at it. But it’s not just his watch and wallet that Mitchell has had stolen away. Those things would be easily replaced. No, this disease has robbed him of his legs, his hands, his hearing, his vision, his voice. His joy. His life. Whatever reasons to hope for a better future we’ve held onto along the way have been eventually stolen by a mysterious illness—an illness that seems determined to beat the living hope out of us, like Warden Norton and Captain Hadley at Shawshank, one bloody pummeling at a time.

But what do you have if you don’t have hope? To quote Andy Dufresne, without hope, you might as well “get busy dyin’.” Andy stays busy livin’, and completes his breakout. Red struggles in his loneliness, left behind by himself in Shawshank. He struggles to move on. But he eventually finds his hope in a postcard from Zihuatanejo, Andy’s post-escape heavenly destination to which he invites Red down. Following his own release, Red boards a bus and breaks his parole: “I hope I can make it across the border. I hope to see my friend and shake his hand. I hope the Pacific is as blue as it has been in my dreams. I hope.”

We hope, too—in brilliant doctors, state-of-the-art medicine and the power of prayers offered from friends and strangers around the country. More than anything, though, we hope in the gospel of Jesus who died for sins and destroyed the power of death in his resurrection, witnessed by many. I mean, think about it: whatever hope we might have for an escape from this prison of Shawshank (aka Children’s Hospital), the sad reality is that on the other side of this wall lies another prison from which there is NO earthly escape. If Mitchell makes it out, he will still die eventually. We all will. After a hoped-for escape from the hospital we will all remain trapped here on earth, a larger prison with thicker walls. What then?

It’s why we need a Greater Hope. We need a Savior who can tunnel his way through the stone rolled in front of the grave from which no man can escape. That’s where our hope comes from. Other hopes might inspire for a moment, but not for long. As Paul writes in Romans, “THIS hope does not disappoint” (Rom. 5:5). That’s where Mitchell’s hope lies, and where ours does, too. Medicines will disappoint, breathing machines will disappoint, his body will disappoint. We need a Greater Hope that won’t. And that would be Christ.

This is not to say Mitchell’s giving up. Even while his body is “busy dyin’,” he still wants to live, and here on earth, too. He’s fighting for breath because he wants to keep breathing. (To quote my favorite Switchfoot song, “Every breath is a second chance.” Breathe on, buddy.) He hangs Rita Hayworth on his hospital wall as a reminder to keep digging. But if he has to cross the border, he knows what he’ll find. He will find all his belongings generously returned to him: his watch, his wallet, his legs, his ears. He will find the Pacific as blue as it is in his dreams. He will find his Savior, his friend. He will get to shake his hand, cry on his shoulder, and enjoy a long, eternal embrace, free from the confines of Shawshank. That is his hope, and it is ours.

I hope it’s yours.

-MRH (9/21/2019)