Free

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

Free – This is the Humpty Dumpty verse.  And it’s a bit more complicated than it looks.  What the text really says is something like this: to send forth in deliverance those who have been crushed by someone else.  If you have been broken into pieces (crushed), you are just like Humpty Dumpty.  All the king’s horses and all the king’s men can’t put you back together again.  And by the way, neither can you!

Human beings cannot save themselves.  We who follow the Lord acknowledge that fact.  But did you realize that human beings cannot put themselves back together either?  That’s what this verse implies.

Have you been broken into pieces?  Then you will need someone who can send you away in deliverance from that bondage.  And it isn’t you!  It isn’t the therapist, the minister, the good friend or the support group.  They can help, but they are broken too.  Jesus is the only one who came to send you away delivered.

Once again there are two thoughts in this word.  The Hebrew, from Isaiah, is paqach.  It almost always means “to open”, like “opening your eyes”.  In fact, many of the uses in the Old Testament are about opening our eyes to God.  Here in Isaiah, it means to open the prison cells.  But isn’t it interesting that the first step toward deliverance is to open our mental and spiritual eyes to God. 

Luke uses a rather different expression.  He writes two words: aposteilai aphesei.  The first means, “to send forth”.  We get the word apostle from this root.  The second word means “release” and is generally used for “forgiveness”.  It almost always implies being changed from a slave to sin into a servant of God. 

So, how do we get free?  Not by our own efforts.  We Humpty Dumpties need to have Jesus show up and repair what’s been broken.  The first step is opening our eyes to God.  Then Jesus puts us back together and sends us forth forgiven.  That transformation means we have shifted masters.  Freedom is not unrestrained license.  It is deliverance under God.  Broken, repaired, released and serving.  That’s the plan.