He Came To Free Us
Why did Jesus come? There are plenty of ways we could ask and answer that question. Recently I looked through the gospels to see where he himself said why he came; where he says things like “I was sent for … ” or “I came to ….” The first one I found is in what may have been his earliest sermon we have on record, a very short one, in Luke 4:16-21:
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.”
Jesus focused much of his ministry on those that the Pharisees (and other respectable types) considered the “wrong sort” of people: captives, the poor, the blind, the oppressed. Apparently (John 9:2) even a physical ailment like blindness was thought to indicate some spiritual fault; Jesus corrected this (John 9:3), and healed the man’s eyes there in the literal sense. In Jesus’ address above, though, there is clearly some figure of speech, because we have no record he even preached to anyone in literal, physical captivity. The closest he came to that was probably when he healed lepers. Law and custom required people with leprosy to isolate themselves “outside the camp,” away from all other people, and to shout a warning “Unclean!” if anyone came close to them.
Jesus released many from that. Besides being a real disease, leprosy is a symbol of the real captivity Jesus came to address: captivity to spiritual uncleanness, which separates us from one another and especially from God. It keeps us outside the camp, outside the place of joy where we can enjoy the fullness of real company with others without masks or pretending, where we can engage in fruitful work together, where we can know and have fellowship with God.
We all need this release. Mark 2:15-17:
And as he reclined at table in his house, many tax collectors and sinners were reclining with Jesus and his disciples, for there were many who followed him. And the scribes of the Pharisees, when they saw that he was eating with sinners and tax collectors, said to his disciples, “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?” And when Jesus heard it, he said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”
He was speaking ironically, as we know from the rest of his ministry. The ones who thought they were spiritually well were not; they were if anything sicker than the “sick,” for they did not see their own illness for what it was. On another occasion he said (Matthew 9:13), “Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.’ For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.” He saw right through their religious exterior to their interior mercilessness.
Which brings us back to the “oppressed” that he came liberate. He came to square matters. This, too, certainly refers to the spiritually oppressed, those who are weighed down with their own weakness and failure before God. In view of the Old Testament context from which he was quoting, it appears he is also calling all of us to free others we may be are holding down unjustly, whether it be as employers, neighbors, classmates in school, or whatever. In short, Jesus came to liberate us from our own failings, and to lead us to pass that blessing along by liberating others where we have power to do so.
This is the kind of thing so many people think of when they think of Jesus: he was one who came to help the needy. He certainly was that. I’m still being worn out, as Gene would say, over what it means to follow his example in that.
If, however, that’s all you think of when you think of Jesus, pause a moment and ask yourself this. If that one-dimensional view of him were true, would he have proved to be the single most significant figure in all of human history, as he has? We’ll continue to look at why Jesus came, and we’ll see that the picture is nowhere near that simple. Not even close.
