The Empty Prison on Robben Island

In Cape Town, South Africa, tourists file through the narrow corridors of Robben Island's maximum-security block. They stand before Cell 5, where Nelson Mandela spent eighteen of his twenty-seven imprisoned years. The guide points to the thin mat on the concrete floor, the small bucket in the corner, the barred window no wider than a man's forearm. The walls still carry the cold of decades.

But here is what strikes every visitor: the cell door stands wide open.

The lock that once held a man captive is rusted and useless. The guards who once patrolled these halls are gone. The prison that was designed to crush hope has become a museum — a monument not to the power of captivity, but to the triumph of the one who walked out free.

Paul wrote to the Corinthians with that same defiant joy. He did not whisper about death — he taunted it. "Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?" He spoke as someone standing before an open cell door, marveling that the thing which once held all humanity in terror had been emptied of its power.

Sin was the lock. The law was the wall. But God shattered both through Christ's resurrection. Death is now a museum piece — real, visible, but stripped of authority. Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. The door stands open. We walk free.