Something I have pondered through this Easter season, thanks to the Bible Project Exodus Way series, is Jesus’ motivation for His mission and how His ministry confronted oppression in the 1st century. Oppression from sin, society, and the corruption of the Jewish leaders, all under foreign occupation. It was a tense atmosphere. That is something I tend to forget. I think that the Pharisees were petty, and Rome was a casual player; instead of Jesus existed in the context of people who wanted to be free.

The Romans were incredibly brutal. If you have watched Gladiator or Gladiator II, there is a temptation to get caught up in the splendors of Rome, but they were a society sustained by oppression. Gladiators were slaves; any immigrants or conquered nations were slaves, there was a strict class divide, and women were not valued. With newborn baby girls and disabled babies being thrown away to animals, off of cliffs, or sold to human traffickers. It was a common practice.

Doesn’t this sound like eugenics and the practices we saw in the extermination plans of genocides? Yep. It’s a cycle of evil and sin that we fall into over and over again. Same ship, different day.

Under Roman occupation, the cross and crucifixion were a common and calculated practice of execution. Men, women, and children could be crucified, usually by the roadside. It was designed to instill fear and was engineered to be a horrific death, and yet Jesus willingly allowed himself to be crucified for us. All of us, His mockers, those scheming against Him, even those Romans.

He came to challenge our understanding of love through the radical expression of it, taking the sin of the entire world – past, present, and future – on His fully human, yet fully God, shoulders – to pay a price we cannot pay for freedom from oppression.

Jesus ministered to everyone in His path, but He sought out those who were abandoned by the society they lived. Jesus healed the sick, the lepers who were kicked out of society and left to live as outcasts, when they needed compassion and care. Those who were disabled were ignored, but Jesus saw them and healed them. He confronted the demons who took up residence inside people and cast the demons out, ending the oppression of their host and restoring peace.

He gave second chances. There were many times throughout His ministry when the disciples and His followers let Him down, yet Jesus forgave them. Even when they denied and abandoned Him, Jesus forgave. Forgiveness confronts the oppression of grudges, vengeance, malice, and bitterness.

Our society is embroiled in grudges, vengeance, and the oppression that comes with unwillingness to forgive. Justice with an iron fist, eye for an eye. That is not what the Bible calls for, even in those Old Testament passages that are brought up to challenge this – the Egyptians were free to join the Passover and be spared from the plague that killed the firstborn, the kingdoms that were in Canaan when the Israelites did it God’s way were conquerered not by violence. God is a just God, a righteous God, and even in the Day of the Lord is not a God of oppression. We are called to forgive, to be reborn in salvation as new creations in Christ, and to give second chances with generosity and love.

The Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.  In the temple he found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons, and the money-changers sitting there. And making a whip of cords, he drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and oxen.

And he poured out the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables.
And he told those who sold the pigeons, “Take these things away; do not make my Father’s house a house of trade.”

His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.” So the Jews said to him, “What sign do you show us for doing these things?”

Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”
The Jews then said, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days?”

But he was speaking about the temple of his body. When therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the Scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.

John 2:13-22 ESV

It’s been a daily struggle for me and the rest of us who have eyes open to the oppression occurring in our midst. I am angry. I want to fight against the pervasive corruption. This Holy Week has been a week of me learning about the El Salvadorian CECOT prison, where there are no second chances ever, hearing that Autism is an “epidemic”, Putin launching missiles during Ukrainian Easter celebrations, and my state’s governor being the target of arson because of his faith.

The ceasefire, which I knew was broken, just fills me with frustration at the ongoing suffering and senseless death. Like the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Romans, the apathy for suffering people and the greed for power and money is the “tale as old as time” plot playing on today. I wish the world would wake up. It’s also the tax deadline here in the United States, and I have to say, I am the least confident I’ve been in my adult life that my taxes are doing anything good for my community.

Especially when social services and disaster relief funding are cut. I want these leaders in my midst, and my fellow citizens who are lukewarm like the church of Laodicea, to stop perpetuating “Christianity” as a form tied up with politics and confront the ways that they are participating in the oppression of others and repent, because this week is about freedom. We are all invited to become a new creation.

True freedom. From who we are, have been, come from, or what we feel we can’t be. It is a transformative second chance of mercy and justice that we have not earned, but is freely given. No corruption or cronyism can take it away, nor can violence or tyranny.

If you are reading this and haven’t experienced this kind of freedom, may I recommend the Chosen, the Bible Project, and the gospel of John first? John is so thematic, and it’s a story that will pull you in. The world is a vampire, but there is hope. Stay strong, friends, and know that you are loved.