Advent Lutheran Church

"Release to the Captives (Lent 3 Midweek)"

            Grace and peace to you from God the Creator and the Lord Jesus.  Amen.

            In the early 1800s a prison was constructed in the very heart of New York.  It was called The Tombs, and it was as formidable as its name.  It was a primitive place, even by primitive standards.  A couple of years after it had been built, the wealthy contractor who had constructed it was convicted of forgery and sentenced to two years in prison.  Guess where he served his time.  The Tombs.

            As he was led into his cell, this wealthy contractor is reported to have said, “When I built this prison, I had no idea that one day I would live here.”  That contractor was the victim of self-inflicted captivity in a couple of respects: first, physically; but then also he suffered from a deeper spiritual or moral captivity that led to the first.

            When Jesus told us that he had come to proclaim release to the captives he was referring not to physical captivity but to the various invisible captivities into which the human spirit can fall, self-inflicted or otherwise.  The Samaritan woman we met in Sunday’s Gospel reading, a person who had been captive to a particular cultural system, is one ancient example.  We could think of other examples with which we might be able to identify, captivities that begin so gradually that it might be hard to think of them as harmful.

            Just dabbling in internet porn, is that so bad?  Overdoing it a little with the prescription medication, spending a little too much on gambling or on alcohol or letting others’ opinion of you shape your opinion of you – is any of that really so harmful?  Truth is, it doesn’t take much for those activities to become full-blown captivities of the human spirit.

            The greatest captivity of all might well be the one that sinks its claws in the deepest: despair.  It’s the feeling that there are no options left, that I’m at the end of my rope, that I’m at the very end of the dead end.  Despair.  It’s a brutal captivity.  Even Jesus tasted it.  As he hung on the cross and cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”, Jesus was sunken in despair.  And it looked like despair had won.

            Ah, “but on the third day” – Resurrection!  Resurrection is always the antidote to despair.  It turns out that Jesus’ weapon against despair was the strongest weapon against any captivity: surrender – surrender to the will and the power of God.

“I have come to proclaim release to the captives,” Jesus told us, and he showed us the way to freedom through surrender.  He showed us the way, so will you follow – through surrender?