The following words hold something who’s implications I hope will never leave me. I’ve prayed that as you read this, you will be a recipient of a newfound sense of Jesus’ deep love for people and his excruciating faithfulness to the brokenhearted. I hope you will see the hope Jesus has become for the sex slaves, but I also hope you will see his painful endurance through hardship become the restorative power he also has for you. Read carefully, as I have written carefully something that has become one of the most beautiful parts of my savior’s sacrifice.
Jesus was trafficked. The king over all we are and what we will be, ruling supreme over every force and energy; the giver of breath who permits hair to stay on our heads. This king, this ruler was sold as merchandise for pocket change. And so the king became not just a servant of the world, but a slave to those who bound him.
“And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of him on whom a price had been set by some of the sons of Israel.”
Sold for cash by his family Israel, he was robbed of the right to his own body.
“And they stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him… And when they had mocked him, they stripped him of the robe and put his own clothes on him”.
I didn’t know. I’ve read these words before, trying to understand what happened that day, but I never knew what lengths Jesus went to in order to set the slave free. He enslaved himself in order to show that freedom is entirely possible. For the sake of sexual slaves, Jesus was trafficked. He endured this with modern-day prostitutes in mind, determined to bear with them in their daily agony, being the only one strong enough to break their chains. You see, Jesus was and is the King; the one who placed himself on earth in hopes that you too may be exalted with him in heaven.
So to the girl whose parents couldn’t afford to keep her so they sold her for some change and she is now the property of her madam or pimp. This is for the one who is repeatedly robbed of her innocence and no longer possesses control over her own body. To the one who sits in darkness and numbness to the world because feeling something would be too painful. This is to the child who is left only to her thoughts, the only remains they cannot steal or sell. The community mocks her and puts her to shame; she cannot show her face. Living has become death to her. Jesus is the only one for her. He is her only way out, the only one who can both understand and loose her bonds. He knows the depths of her pain and has done something to heal her wounds. This is the gospel: That Jesus became a captive and died as a captive, but was ressurected as a King. This is why and how the captive is set free.
