Captivity and Freedom

Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Amen.

About a mile and half off the coast of San Francisco stands a once fortress known as Alcatraz. It once housed the greatest, criminals; the criminals with no hope of recovery - no hope of restoration back to normal life. It is isolated, it has a large and difficult swim if you were going to try to escape back to the mainland. And in fact there has been documentation - there has been movies of the Escape of Alcatraz. As we know Hollywood really plays up the drama. But even in the real life escape from Alcatraz, we know three men escaped but many people believe they never made past the difficult swim. If you were on the mainland in the day that it was still running or even now if you go and visit for vacation - you can’t help but wonder what really happened in that prison; what was the everyday experience life, perhaps even looking at that fortress of a prison with fear. And if you were a prisoner in the great Prison of Alcatraz it would feel like there was no hope, no way out, no hope to ever experience the outside world.

Captivity was not uncommon in the Scriptures. Multiple times God’s people experienced what was like and what it meant to be held captive by someone else. There was the slavery in Egypt in the days of Moses’ and they labored under the strong hand and power of Pharoah. They suffered in slavery and cried out to God to be set free, to be delivered from it. There was the captivity in Babylon as King Nebuchadnezzar conquered Jerusalem and forced the people away from their homes to move to a land in exile. They were taken from their homeland, and forced to live under new laws in a new land. And even in the days of Jesus - God’s people lived underneath the thumb of the Roman Empire and its governors and rulers. They people of God knew captivity. So did individuals. In the Old Testaments we hear about Joseph, Jeremiah, and Daniel, spending time in prison. And in the New Testament we hear about John the Baptist, Peter and Paul all doing the same.

None of them were ever residents of Alcatraz, but they knew what it meant to be held captive. They knew what it meant to long for freedom. They understood and experienced the helplessness by those who had little or no hope of escape.

Unlike them, we live in the land of the free. We are not captive; Praise Jesus! We don’t serve foreign masters. We enjoy the freedom of living in a country where we can do whatever we want. Right? Maybe not. Regarding our government, we do live in a system of relative governance. “Of the people, by the people, for the people.” But this doesn’t mean that we are free from captivity. Indeed, tonight, I’d like to help you consider the fact that we do, in fact, know what it means to be captive, to be imprisoned. But I have a different kind of captivity in mind. We may live in the land of the free, but we are imprisoned by more insidious masters. Greed. Lust. A desire for more. We suffer from a longing for more stuff, more pleasure, more recognition. It’s the father who can’t stop taking on more work - either because he needs more money to keep up the family appearance to keep the same standard of living or because his reputation is never secure enough to let him relax. It’s the woman who can’t stop filling her closet or who can’t stop working out because she’s captive to an image of herself from 10 years ago. It’s the teenage girl who can’t stop checking social media because she needs more likes. It’s the teenage boy who’s imprisoned by his phone and the images it so freely delivers.

These people are captive, not in a stone prison like Alcatraz, but they are just as stuck. Just as confined. Just as helpless. There are other prisons, too. The unhealthy relationship you can’t get out of. The addictive behavior that overpowers any force of will. The dead-end job that you can’t live, with but you also can’t live without. I’m afraid we know captivity all too well.

This Lent we are trying to find ways to confess the Gospel in short and succinct summaries. We’re trying to find words - seven words - to be exact - with which we might proclaim what God has done for us in Christ. There are actually many ways to do this. As we read the Scriptures we see many images and metaphors and descriptions of God and His work of salvation. We hear about the Good Shepherd rescuing His lost sheep. We hear from Isaiah the suffering Servant taking on our punishment. We read about the Lamb of God reigning on His throne.

Today, I’d like to do this exercise with our various prisons in mind. As we do so, our reading from Luke provides some direction. In Luke 4, we read about one of Jesus’ first recorded sermons. Here’s how Luke puts it:

Luke 4:16–21 ESV

And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. And as was his custom, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and he stood up to read. And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” And he rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. And he began to say to them, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

When Jesus said these things, the people marveled. They wondered, They were amazed at the authority He spoke with. I have to believe that among the reasons for their marveling it was the imagery that Jesus picked up from Isaiah. “He has sent Me to proclaim liberty to the captives.” Jesus said. One way to describe the good news of Jesus is that He frees His people - He frees you and me - from captivity.

Earlier we talked about the number of prisons in which we live - greed, lust, popularity, addiction. Behind them all sin. Paul talks in Romans 7. In this chapter, he describes the experience as a Christian. He describes how badly he wants to live faithfully, but how the sin in his heart compels him to follow its desires. In the end he recognizes how hopeless, how helpless he truly is. He comes to recognize that He can only be saved through the work of Jesus.

Thanks be to God, who freed Paul - who frees us- from all that imprisons us. Sin, death, despair, selfishness. He has freed is through His life and death and resurrection, and He continues to free us from every single prison, every single master, every single captor. That’s it! Seven words. How might we confess the Gospel tonight?

Jesus frees us from all our prisons.

For us tonight, the good news is that Jesus frees us from all that holds us captive. Through the might of His word, and for His glory and our good, Jesus frees us from sin and death and the devil so that we might live in Him in freedom and love. So that we might share this freedom with those still suffering in captivity. Jesus frees us from all our prisons. And He frees them, too, as we proclaim this good news to them. This is one more way to confess the Gospel, but don’t this stop you from thinking of other ways too. Keep working on your own confessions, Keep reflecting on God’s love in Christ. And keep preparing to share the hope you in have in Jesus.