Oppressed

“to set free those who are oppressed”  Luke 4:18 from Isaiah 61:1

Oppressed – Who are the oppressed?  Do you think about the citizens of third world countries who suffer who ruthless dictators?  Do you see imagines of people in Haiti or the Sudan?  Do you recall pictures of the homeless, the AIDS victims or abused children?  Just what does the Gospel have to say to these people?  Why would Jesus say that he came to set these people free?

In Isaiah, the word is asar.  It means, “to tie up, to bind, to imprison”.  If oppression has chained your body, you need to be set free.  But bondage isn’t just a physical condition.  It is also a spiritual and a mental condition.  And when Jesus comes to free you, he intends to make you free indeed.  His freedom reaches every part of who you are.

Luke wrote in Greek.  He used the word tethrausmenos.  It isn’t exactly the same as Isaiah’s meaning.  This Greek word means, “to be crushed or broken into pieces”.  But the grammar tells us that it should be read like this:  those who have, in the past, been broken into pieces by someone else.  You see, Luke used the Greek translation of the Old Testament for his quotation, so the meaning shifted just a bit.  Not everyone who is tied up is oppressed.  But everyone who is broken into pieces by someone else certainly is.  That’s what we need to see.  The ones around us who have been crushed by anything or anyone are the oppressed.  Jesus came to set those people free.

I have never been physically tied up.  I’ve never been in jail.  But I know oppression.  I know what it’s like to be broken into pieces.  I know what it feels like to be bound by addiction and sin.  I know the horror of not having a way out.  I might look like a free man on the outside, but I know what it’s like to be in prison on the inside.  Jesus came to set me free too.

Our world is filled with all sorts of bondage.  Not all of it seems like oppression.  Bondage to power, to money, to fame, to status, to beauty, to acknowledgement, to our religious and ethical images.  Bondage to spending, to anger, to depression, to self-indulgence.  There are lots of different kinds of ties.  And Jesus came to set us free from them all.

Where have you been crushed, broken into pieces?  There is One Who sets us free.  Only One.  Have you asked Him?