Kidnapping cases seem to bring out the best in some people; they bring out the worst in some people; it seems like they bring out the voyeur in all people.
Go to the FBI's website, and you scan learn of six famous kidnapping cases, beginning with the lesser known to the most celebrated.
In 1956, six-month-old Peter Weinberger, from a middle class family in the suburbs of New York City, was snatched from the family's front yard. The kidnapper demanded a ransom of $2,000. The baby eventually died from exposure.
In 1937, Charles Sherman Ross, a 72-year-old retired executive of card manufacturing company in Chicago, was kidnapped and held for a $50,000 ransom payment. Incidentally, the kidnappers took Mr. Ross to a hideout in Emily (about 25 miles south of Longville), and part of the ransom was delivered to Walker (25 miles in the other direction.) Mr. Ross was murdered by his captors.
In 1953, Bobby Greenlease, Jr. was kidnapped from a private school near Kansas City. His father had made a fortune selling automobiles. After being held for a ransom of $600,000, Bobby was eventually released.
In 1935, George Weyerhaeuser, the 13-year-old son of the lumber tycoon, was kidnapped near Tacoma, Washington and held hostage for $200,000. The young Mr. Weyerhaeuser was released.
In 1932, Charles Lindbergh, Jr., son of the famous aviator, was kidnapped from the Lindbergh's home in New Jersey. The kidnapper's original demand was for $50,000. That figure later increased to $70,000, before being reduced to the original sum of $50,000. The son died and was never returned to the Lindbergh family.
Finally, in 1974, Patty Hearst, granddaughter of William Randolph Hearst, was kidnapped by a radical group called the Symbionese Liberation Army. The kidnappers didn't want any ransom money for themselves. Instead, they demanded that every poor person in California be given $70.00 worth of food. This would have cost the Hearst Family an estimated $400 million. In a good faith move, the family established a foundation to feed the poor. After raising two million dollars, food was distributed at several points across California, which resulted in riots. Miss Hearst was eventually returned to her family alive, but not until she had served a prison term for allegedly being a willing accomplice to her kidnappers in a bank robbery.
Six famous kidnapping cases with ransom demands of 2,000, 50,000, 600,000, 200,000, 50,000, and 400 million dollars. Three of the kidnap victims were returned alive; three of the kidnap victims were killed. In terms of money, that's a total of four hundred million, nine hundred and two thousand dollars. In terms of life, that's a total forfeiture of three lives. And I ask you, what is the value of a single human life? Can anyone truly put a ransom figure on a single human life? Jesus says, "For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many." I used to read that verse and scratch my head. It's a strange term for the Lord of the Universe to be using, isn't it? Anyone demanding ransom will have in his or her possession a hostage. Allow me to ask a question: if Jesus is offering Himself as the ransom, who, then, is the hostage? And perhaps more to the point, who is the kidnapper?
Flip to Exodus 30:12 and you'll find another rather strange verse. "When you take a census of the Israelites to register them, at registration all of them shall give a ransom for their lives to the LORD, so that no plague may come upon them for being registered."
When I first read this, I got the impression of God with a mask over His face. The Almighty was going up to parents, sticking a gun in their bellies and saying, "Look, if you don't want anything bad to happen to your kid, fork over some money right now and everything will be fine." It was as if God were a Mafia thug, a spiritual Lucca Brozzi shaking people down for protection. It was kind of like ransom money up front. If not, the firstborn kid would be kidnapped.
What threw me was how the New Revised Standard Version uses the word "life." Mention "life" and the first thing that comes to my mind is physical life or the physical quality of life. In other words, "Pay up or your kid's either going to die or have serious problems with his kneecaps."
But in Hebrew, the word translated "life" is often translated "soul" or "spirit." So if we re-translate that one word, the verse reads, "S
What this is saying is that people come into the world doomed anyway. Every baby coming into the world arrives in with a death sentence hanging over its body. Hebrews 9:27 says, "It is appointed unto every human being to die once, and after that: the judgment."
In other words, everybody dies and every body dies. On the other hand, the soul--the spirit, the sum total of a human being's yearning after God--goes on ad infinitum.
Even more amazing is what this "ransom" money paid for. It didn't go into God's pockets, nor was it transferred into an offshore bank account in the Cayman Islands. God used this money for the construction of the first Tabernacle. Even though a death sentence hangs over the physical body of every human being, God is still with us. That's what the Tabernacle was all about. It was God dwelling among His people, weak and conceited and self-centered and egotistical and rife with sin, yet there He is among them.
The scriptures show us a second way where ransom enters the picture, and it is related to matters dealing with family. I don't care who you are or what your last name is, not every member of every family will be savvy and wise in the use of money. I don't care who you are or what your last name is, not every member of every family will always be healthy. And I don't care who you are or what your last name is, not every member of every family will always be in the best circumstances. Sometimes, family members don't handle their finances wisely. Sometimes, family members become sick and disabled. Sometimes, family members just seem to have what anyone other than a Presbyterian would call "just plain dumb luck."
For family members in Old Testament times, God gave a proviso for paying a ransom for lives or redeeming goods that have fallen into bondage. The bondage can be a heap big pile of debt; it can be debilitating illness or disability; it can even come when it seems like everything has gone against a family member. When that happens, there's a provision for what is called a Kinsman Redeemer.
The Old Testament gives us two wonderful stories about the Kinsman Redeemer. Both involve God, one figuratively, the other literally. The figurative one is found in the Book of Ruth, where a poor foreign woman, a Moabite at that, has her Jewish husband wink out on her. Ruth finds herself penniless and homeless. At the end of her rope, a blood relative of her late husband Boaz comes along. And even though Boaz the relative is under no legal obligation to pull Ruth out of her dire straits, purely out of love and grace, he redeems Ruth. They fall in love, marry, and have babies. And not coincidentally, by the way, a few generations later, Ruth becomes the great, great, great, etc. grandmother to none other than Jesus Christ Himself.
The Book of Ruth is a wonderful story, but the one that strikes me the most on this Ash Wednesday evening is found in the Book of Job. As you remember, Job is the archetypical guy who has everything: wealth, a happy family, a great relationship with God and everyone else. Then, Job is smitten and loses it all.
I don't want to get bogged down in details over who it was that did the smiting and whose ultimate responsibility it was that old Job got smote. You can make a case that every last boil on Job's belly was there because Satan tossed Job around like a crab in a boiling kettle. You can make a case that it was God who did the smiting because He allowed Satan to do such a horrible number on Job in the first place. But regardless of what you and I think, in Job's case it was a no-brainer. Listen to what he says about God:
"God has put me in the wrong, and closed His net around me. Even when I cry out, 'Violence!' I am not answered; I call aloud, but there is no justice. He has walled up my way so that I cannot pass, and He has set darkness upon my paths. He has stripped my glory from me, and taken the crown from my head. He breaks me down on every side, and I am gone; He has uprooted my hope like a tree. He has kindled His wrath against me, and counts me as His adversary (19:6-12)."
Part of the Kinsman Redeemer's job is not only to ransom or redeem those who have gotten into insurmountable debt, but also to be the Avenger of Blood. In other words, when a family member suffers at the hands of another and blood is shed, it's up to the Kinsman Redeemer to exact vengeance.
In Job's eyes, it's God who has done the smiting. It's God who has drawn blood. Yet a few verses after stating that it is God who has done all these terrible things to him, Job turns right around and says, "O that my words were written down! O that they were inscribed in a book! O that with an iron pen and with lead they were engraved on a rock forever! For I know that my Redeemer lives, and that at the last He will stand upon the earth; and after my skin has been thus destroyed, then in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see on my side, and my eyes shall behold, and not another."
This is amazing! God has smitten Job, but the same God is Job's Kinsman Redeemer. God will accuse Himself when He causes Job to see God after death. The slain and risen Job is in the hands of the same God.
But there's a third way that ransom is used, and for me, at least for this Ash Wednesday, it's the most telling about the nature of God. Back in 1966, Don Knotts starred in a comedy movie about a haunted house called "The Ghost and Mr. Chicken." Inside this haunted house was a huge pipe organ that the owner of the house was playing while he was brutally murdered. When he was killed, the man's blood was splattered all over the organ keys and remained there many years afterward. Every time this fact is mentioned in the movie, and it's mentioned quite often, a little old lady says, "And that blood still won't come off there even with Bon Ami." Here is a bloodstain so bad, so dark, so red, and so ingrained in the organ key that not even the best chlorine based cleanser in the world can remove it.
Ever had a stain like that: a stain that was so intense, so deep, so set-in that no matter what you used to try to clean it, that stain stays there? Every time a new miracle spot remover comes along, your ears perk up and you rush up to Wal Mart, buy it, bring it home, saturate the spot and blot it with a wet towel. Yet every time it's the same thing: that stain just sits there looking up at you and laughing. It's like it's saying, "Hey, hon, you might was well get it out of your system, 'cause I ain't goin' nowhere."
That's the way sin used to think of itself. Sin was everywhere; it permeated everything, it set itself deep within every heart; it discolored and ruined every life with which it came in contact. In Solomon's Temple, bulls, goats, turtledoves, and practically every walking and creeping critter you could name were sacrificed on the altar. Yet an ocean of shed blood couldn't really blot out the stain of sin. Nothing says it better than the old hymn: "Sin had left a crimson stain." Not even Bon Mai could get rid of it.
Here's where Jesus' words about ransom come in. You see, there's a wonderful word that the Hebrew people borrowed from the Assyrians called kopher. Originally, kopher was bituminous pitch, the primary ingredient in tar. It meant, "to cover." Sin could not actually be removed from a person. It was deep set. That sin, however, could be covered up with a different substance. The sin wasn't cancelled. It would always be there. But God gave the means to completely cover the stain so that it could no longer be seen. It was paid for vicariously. And that's where we get this marvelous word called "atonement." The shed blood of Jesus Christ covered your sin and mine. The shed blood of Jesus Christ paid the ransom that sin had caused. Sin had left a crimson stain, yet He washed it white as snow.
When Jesus says that He offers His life as a ransom for many, He uses a very simple Greek word called luo. In beginning Greek class, luo is the first word a student learns to ascertain Greek case endings. Luo means, "to loose" or "to destroy." When combined with certain prefixes, luo can mean being released or loosed from prison. It can me the opening of that which is closed or the destroying of foundations or the taking off of shackles.
So here's what it is. When Jesus offers His life as a ransom, He pays the ransom Himself and then lives among us.
When Jesus offers His life as a ransom, He becomes our Kinsman Redeemer. He assumes our debt and pays our debt. He avenges the blood that sinful human beings have shed. When Jesus went to The Cross, His shed blood covered and atoned for every sin that every human being would ever commit.
And finally, when Jesus offered His life as Kinsman Redeemer, He assumed our sickness. By His stripes we are healed. He who knew no sin became sin on our behalf.
Kidnapping seem to bring it all out of people. It brings out the best in some people; it brings out the worst in some people. And it brought out Jesus Christ to pay the ransom for all people. The King became a pauper and paid with His own blood the King's ransom.
© Rev. Duane Brown, 2003
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