Welcome to Hank’s Place
I’ve been sharing chapter titles for Michael Card’s wonderful book, “A Violent Grace.”
“Jesus was born to die, so we could be born again to new life.”
“Jesus suffered temptation, so we could experience victory.”
“Jesus was betrayed, so we might know His Faithfulness.”
For today, “He was arrested and bound, so I could be rescued from bondage.”
It was a torch illuminated nightmare. John uses the Greek technical term “spera,” in Jn 18:3, which indicated 1/10 of a legion. That’s 600 men.
In the soldiers faces, you would see serious attention, discipline, brutality, prejudice, and perhaps hatred. And then there were the faces of the priests and Pharisees and temple guards, all fellow Jews — who in the name of God wanted Jesus dead.
In the garden the one who measured the oceans in the hollow of his hands, Isaiah 40:12, chooses to be powerless and have His hands bound. The one who has 12 legions of angels at His command, Matt 26:53, chooses to go with His captors.
He refuses to cling to power – or protest His innocence. Instead, He takes OUR guilt, and purchases OUR innocence.
If someone asked where are you taking Him, the soldiers would reply, to the authorities to make sure He gets the punishment He deserves. But Jesus would say He was going into captivity, to make certain you and I would be set free.
If the Son has set you free, you will be free indeed. John 8:33, 36. Now we are set free from sin – and self – and every kind of human bondage — the kind of slavery that so enchains our being that the price of freedom had to be Jesus tied up like a common thief and led away under arrest.
Remember Gal 5:1? “It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery.” There are many yokes of slavery today. The yoke of dead religion is one. Bondage to fear is another. Fear of death, of sickness, of a virus. Of unemployment. Of a crashed economy. A ruined nation? MANY fears, and the news media is NOT helping us.
Fear NOT my friend. God will see you through, and He will see America through as well. Today, see Jesus arrested and in chains – for OUR freedom – and COME ALIVE!
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