Ransom

Last night at church (a few weeks ago SLC added a Saturday night service to accomodate the Catholic/sports-loving community for a total of 3 services and it has been a HUGE success so far), we sang an incredible worship song called "Jesus Messiah."

I have sung it time and time again and I LOVE it!

It was written by Chris Tomlin, Ed Cash, Jesse Reeves and Daniel Carson (who are fantastic song-writers by the way).

If you are not familiar with the song, here are the lyrics...

He became sin
Who knew no sin
That we might become His Righteousness
He humbled himself and carried the cross

Love so amazing
Love so amazing

Chorus:
Jesus Messiah
Name above all names
Blessed Redeemer
Emmanuel
The rescue for sinners
The ransom from Heaven
Jesus Messiah
Lord of all

His body the bread
His blood the wine
Broken and poured out all for love
The whole earth trembled
And the veil was torn

Love so amazing
Love so amazing, yeah

Chorus:
Jesus Messiah
Name above all names
Blessed Redeemer
Emmanuel
The rescue for sinners
The ransom from Heaven
Jesus Messiah
Lord of all

All our hope is in You
All our hope is in You
All the glory to You, God
The light of the world

Chorus:
Jesus Messiah
Name above all names
Blessed Redeemer
Emmanuel
The rescue for sinners
The ransom from Heaven
Jesus Messiah
Lord of all

WOW! What rich lyrics, so many deep meanings and parallels!

And even though I have heard it many times before, for some reason last night that word ransom really stood out to me!

I was intrigued by the fact that the song-writers chose that word (probably because I am a suspense movie/detective show/Law & Order- SVU loving junkie) and I wanted to find out why!

So I did a little research...

And it turns out that:

Ransom is the practice of holding a prisoner or item to extort money or property to secure their release, or it can refer to the sum of money involved.

And:

When ransom means "payment", the word comes via Old French rançon from Latin redemptio = "buying back":[2] compare "redemption".

Hello, redemption!

Now there's a "church-word" that we would expect to hear in a worship song!

And we do find it in this one in the form of redeemer.

So of course I had to research the word redemption and here is what I found:

redemption (countable and uncountable; plural redemptions)

1. the act of redeeming or something redeemed
2. the recovery, for a fee, of a pawned article
3. salvation from sin
4. rescue upon payment of a ransom

And there is that word rescue which is also in the song!

Fascinating!

My conclusion:

-We are held captive by our own sin and the thief Satan. (Romans 3:23, John 10:10a)
-The ransom is death, someone has to pay the price (die). (Romans 6:23a)
-We are in desperate need of a redeemer/rescuer...a savior if you will. (Ephesians 2:1-3)
-Jesus paid our ransom by dying in our place/for our sins. (Romans 3:24-26)

Jesus IS the Messiah! Our Blessed Redeemer!

Sounds like the next episode of Law & Order to me!

With one exception...

The following story is not fictional and does depict an actual person or event!