Kidnapping and hostage-taking are, unfortunately, regular features of our age. Equally regular are government statements that no ransom was paid when victims are released. We can all understand parents being ready to pay any price for the return of their children and we can also understand the reluctance of those in authority to pay ransom money and set precedents that will encourage others to repeat such crimes. ‘Ransom’ is not a word we like to hear.
But in Mark 10.45 we have a significant use of the word by Jesus. ‘For the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve, and give his life as a ransom for many.’ This locates the centre and the purpose of Jesus’ life and ministry. It makes plain that the cross had a weight of meaning that gives perspective to the incarnation. We see that weight of meaning in the space given to the crucifixion in the Gospels. We see it in Paul’s statement that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5.8). In some way Jesus’ obedience, his unyielding purpose, his defiance of evil and the cost of that obedience brought about an escape for prisoners, a forgiveness for sinners, and a price paid on behalf of the bankrupt.
This is not a pretty picture of humanity. We see some of the forebodings in the hostile reaction Jesus provoked in religious leaders and in the faltering loyalty of his disciples. We see it too in the tectonic impact that Matthew registers in his Gospel when he describes the dead being awakened in their tombs. The cross was on one view an execution amongst many in a remote corner of the Roman empire. On another view it was the effecting of redemption for humankind that brought a shudder from the natural world.
Granted all this, the word ‘ransom’ is not without its difficulties. To whom was a ransom paid? How was it that this event signalled a momentous transaction in the sight of the Creator? Should we think of it as shading into the word ‘redemption’, buying back? Answers to such questions are elusive. But because we fail to find an explanation that satisfies us, we should not despair. The crucifixion of Jesus was not an everyday execution. It was something more. Much more. It was the evil in humankind rearing up and showing contempt for its Creator. Evil was transformed into salvation. Words, whether flat definitions or startling metaphors, cannot do justice to it. ‘Lutron anti pollon’ remains a three-word phrase that tells us something appalling, something magnificent about this event.
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