The Hostage Negotiation
1 Peter 1:18-19 You know that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your ancestors, not with perishable things like silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without defect or blemish.
The idea of being taken hostage is one of the scariest of all things to contemplate. Some bad actor comes along, grabs you, demanding that someone else pay an impossible ransom, upon which your very life depends.
Whatever your take happens to be on the conflict between Israel and Hamas over the Gaza Strip, I don’t think any of us can fail to have compassion on those 251 people taken hostage during the attack on Israel on October 7, 2023. The fear in their hearts as they were abducted, as they were held in darkness for those many months as one by one they died is impossible to comprehend.
It’s that terrible reality of hostage-taking and then the joy of the payment of the ransom that underlies these words from the Apostle Peter to the many fearful Christians who were being persecuted, tarred and feathered, tortured and killed across the Roman Empire in the First Century AD:
1 Peter 1:18-19 You know that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your ancestors, not with perishable things like silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without defect or blemish. (NRSV)
We all have been taken hostage by the sin in our lives; our rebellion against God; the behaviours that contribute to the ruination of our lives and the lives of those around us. But then God, out of His great love, paid our ransom – not with money, but through the death of Jesus His Son on that blood-drenched Cross.
Freedom today, and for all eternity, for every hostage who puts their trust in that ransom … Jesus. Complete, eternal, freedom.
That’s God’s Word. Fresh … for you … today.
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