I Believe in Redemption

So, why does a group of men and women in orange shirts and pants with the big, white letter P at their back and dancing Psy’s “Gangnam Style” move me?

I’m not really an avid fan of Psy, and never even heard of him until a friend introduced his so-called “dance craze”.  I didn’t understand one word of that set of Korean lyrics, although the music video gives me an idea it has something to do with riding a horse.  But his song had a certain beat that make most, if not all, listeners tap their toes, or shake their heads a bit.  For some others, like the dancing inmates of Cebu, pour out their hearts in moving along those beats.

Watching them dance the Gangnam style stirred something in me.  You would forget how much money they’ve stolen, how many shabu they’ve inhaled, or if they did murder that neighbour of theirs.  The uniformed movement of their bodies along with the beat displays a set of faces having the time of their lives, relishing the appreciation of the people who scorn those-in-conflict-with-the-law, and taking in the sheer joy of the present.

I watched them and I saw human beings, not people with tattoos or colored hairs or heavily made-up faces – human beings so very much like me.  Human beings who, at one or more time in their life, have committed either intentionally or unintentionally something that violated standards.  Human beings, whose sins were so external that they were caught and jailed for it, not like me who kept mine inside my head.   Human beings, who are not exempt from Jesus Christ’s famous lines, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but will have everlasting life.”

The dancing inmates moved me because I saw the reality of hope in what they do; that at last, there’s already THE something which people can not look them down on; that there’s at least one thing that they’re able to do, and do it excellently; that the “outsiders” can not exclusively label them as useless.  Them dancing showed me that every person can still change, but not because they’re able to, instead because the Lord Jesus Christ can transform them so.

Yes, there should always be room for change, for second chances, for forgiveness, because God has done it for us, through Christ Jesus. Each of us has a sacred experience of being hurt, of tumbling down because of our own self-initiated wrong decisions, but it shouldn’t completely pull us away from the only help and hope available.  Whether jailed or “free”, every person is imprisoned to the greatest prison cell of all – Sin.  And only Christ can truly set us free to the REAL freedom, where nothing or no one can even condemn us, even if we’re facing life sentence.

To some, it may just be the CPDRC inmates doing the Gangnam style.  But to me, it’s Grace. :)