Jesus shackled.

Good Day.

Everything in John’s gospel has just taken a dramatic turn.  Jesus had been preparing his disciples for his departure, but suddenly, he is ripped from their presence, and all seems uncertain for them.  What a long day it had been, concluding with going into the garden at Gethsemane.  But then a huge lot of soldiers and officials break into the night to take Jesus away.  Our Lord has just been arrested. 

Since Jesus surrendered to them, it hardly seems necessary that the men would bind and shackle him, but they did. I cannot say why this has so greatly disturbed me, but it has.  All of the times I have read and even taught the gospels’ retelling of Jesus’ arrest have never gripped me like this time.  Perhaps it is learning that the Roman academy of soldiering taught that the ‘accused was to be taken by the right wrist, twisting his arm behind him so that his knuckles touched his shoulder blades, while at the same time, the heel of the soldier’s boot was jammed down onto his right instep.  The left arm was tied with a loose noose around the neck.’¹ Every blow Jesus sustained from this point forward was while his hands were behind his back.    He allowed himself to be rendered absolutely defenseless—do you see that?

Yet nothing is done by accident in God’s economy.  So I have been thinking much about why Jesus had to be bound thus … oh, it hurts my heart.  Was it to identify with those who are shackled in this life, either literally or by sin, addiction and self-destruction?  I believe

Jesus was shackled so that we never had to be …

                  Jesus was shackled so that we could be free.

Sometimes we are shackled by what other people have said of us—a dominant spouse who knocks us down at every turn, or the voice of a parent who said ‘you would never amount to anything’, the hurts sustained when your loved one left you because you did not match up somehow. 

Reminds me of a song – by Big Daddy Weave²: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFC76Z_2oC4

“Seems like all I can see was the struggle, haunted by ghosts that lived in my past…
bound up in shackles of all my failures, 
wondering how long is this gonna last.  
Then You look at this prisoner and say to me “Son,
stop fighting a fight that’s already been won…”

I am redeemed, You set me free.  
So I’ll shake off theses heavy chains, 
wipe away every stain, now I’m not who I used to be.  
I am redeemed.

All my life I have been called unworthy,
named by the voice of my shame and regret--
But when I hear You whisper, “Child lift up your head,”
I remember ‘oh God, you’re not done with me yet!’  I am redeemed.  I don’t have to be the old man inside of me,
cause his day is long dead and gone…
I’ve got a new name, a new life I’m not the same, 
and a hope that will carry me home.  I am redeemed.”

Jesus wore the shackles so we do not have to wear them. 

Christine