(You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.)
One element of Christian thought that is evolving these days is how we think about the Atonement. Doctrines of atonement articulate how Christ’s death on the cross (and/or resurrection) had a salvific effect for humankind. Some Christians reject the idea that humanity needed saving; others are put off by the notion that our God of Love could be so wrathful as to require an atoning sacrifice to meet the demands of his justice, let alone the sacrifice of his own son. Ideas that Christians have prayed, confessed, preached and sung about for centuries are suddenly in the recycle bin.
And guess what? I couldn’t navigate this in a short spiritual reflection even if I were equipped. I raise it only because of the last thing Jesus said in his discourse to his disciples about service and humble leadership:
“For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.”
If we wonder why there would be theories of atonement at all, that line about giving his life as a ransom is one reason. It tells us something about how Jesus saw his mission and impending passion. It suggests that “many” are indeed in need of being rescued, saved, liberated, redeemed like items sitting on a pawn shop shelf.
Whatever you think about sin and sinfulness, however you view your need to be forgiven and saved, or not, each of us can relate to the notion of being held hostage to something. Whether we are hostage to our own workloads or schedules, to cycles of disease or addiction in family members, to the materialism of our culture, the demands of social media, or our own broken patterns of relating to ourselves, to others and to God – each of us can appreciate the notion of being ransomed from that bound condition into freedom.
Even if we accept Jesus’ gift only in that light, it is enough to make us profoundly grateful to be ransomed – meaning, someone else has paid the ransom so that we can walk out of captivity into the bright sunlight of liberation.
From what in your life have you been ransomed? From what do you need freeing now?
You might ask Jesus in prayer today how his offering of himself unto death and back into new life has provided you a key for the door.
Do you owe a debt to another person you can never repay, perhaps a hurt you caused or joy you stole? Can you accept that Jesus may have paid that even debt for you?
In what ways might we still be sitting in our captivity, even though the door has been opened – because it’s scarier to move out of our patterns of unhealth into the responsibility of freedom?
There’s a beautiful song called Be Ye Glad, with this refrain:
Be ye glad, O be ye glad; every debt that you ever had
Has been paid up in full by the grace of the Lord;
Be ye glad, be ye glad, be ye glad.
We are ransomed. Open the door and step into the Light!
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