Ransomed for Life
Back in September, four men dressed as policemen went to the home of Maura Villerreal in Caracas, Venezuela. They forced her into a car and have held her hostage since.
She is the mother of Ugueth Urbina, a professional baseball player who plays for the Detroit Tigers. On Friday she was rescued by a special anti-kidnapping unit.
Demanding a six million dollar ransom, the kidnappers had hidden her away in a remote mountainous area in the southern part of the country. Authorities urge ransoms not to be paid, lest it create an atmosphere of "open season" for abductors.
Urbina has not talked to the press about his mother. When she was kidnapped he left his team and flew home to Caracas. But you know it had to be emotionally wrenching for him to think that if he just wrote a check, his mother could go free. A professional ball player easily has the resources.
What has he been thinking these five months? What would he say to his mother if she were found? How can he live with himself if she were killed? Why not pay the money and be done with it?
Now freed from captivity, Villerreal is quoted in this morning's newspapers as having said, "You can't say they treated me either well or poorly. The most hurtful thing was having to hear them saying that my son didn't love me because he didn't pay."
What would it feel like to be held hostage? What would it feel like to have your captors tell you that no one loved you enough to pay your ransom?
You know where I'm going with this by now, don't you?
Jesus once describes Himself and His life this way: "For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many."
Jesus paid the ransom. Of all the ways Christian theology looks at the sacrifice of Jesus, the people of Latin America (where 75% of the world's kidnappings occur and estimates are that many are not even reported because families quickly pay the demand) ought to understand the ransom view of atonement more deeply than any of us.
Jesus loves us so much He buys us back. He redeems us. Even though the captor continues his worn out threat, " No one loves you enough to pay the price for you!" And even though many of us, sadly, believe that to be true, Jesus still paid it.
Tragically many Christians live their lives as if the redemptive work of Jesus is only a religious theory. Or maybe worse, many Christians live as if they are still captive! That is why it is written, "It is for freedom that Christ has set us free." We need to be reminded.
Don't behave in life as if Jesus, having come not to be served but to serve and give His life as a ransom for you, makes little if any impact on how you live once freed. You say you are free, but do you live as if your Christian faith is mostly wrapped up in waiting to die in order that you might go to heaven?
I wonder what Maura Villerreal will do today, live as is she's waiting to die or live as if she is free for the first time in months?
What if the ransom Jesus paid is not just for salvation (when you die) but for that portion of your life between your rescue and your death?
This article was taken with permission from:
http://simsdanny.blogspot.com/2005/02/ransomed-for-life.html
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