12 Years A Slave: Part 4

In my second post about 12 Years A Slave, I concluded with the verse “The last shall be first and the first shall be last.” (Mark 10:31)   As Eugene Peterson paraphrased in The Message, “This is once again the Great Reversal: Many who are first will end up last, and the last first.”  The Great Reversal he refers to is the reality of the resurrected life, the great reckoning where justice will finally come and those who have suffered on earth will be rewarded, where things will be put right, where earth’s values will be shown to be upside down and real values will prevail.  

We Jesus followers have been commissioned to do this on earth.  We are filled with the Holy Spirit so we can bring the kingdom down to earth – that means we do what we can to make earth like heaven.  We redeem all things, right wrongs, love unconditionally, show mercy, work for justice.  

But we will never complete it.  That’s why verses like the one above are so important.  It’s the promise that it WILL be made right, even if we can’t achieve it here.  There will be justice.  There will be redemption.  There will be freedom, and love, and beauty.

Surely this is one reason so many slaves clung to Jesus and chose Christianity, despite all that hypocrisy they saw in American Christianity.  They were totally powerless to change their own suffering and reality here, but they knew it would all be redeemed and justice would win out.  I’m not claiming desire for justice after death and hope that all is made right proves that Christianity is true.  Proof lies in the death and resurrection of Jesus.  But it certainly makes Christianity winsome for the oppressed. 

What other religion promises this?  This is an honest question – I can’t find this concept out there in other religions, so show me if it’s there.  And what other religion presents a God who suffers and gives up His own life to deliver those very slaves the freedom and justice they so long for?  Thanks be to God for our suffering Savior, who came as a servant and died as a criminal.  He is one of us and dignifies the least of us.  

This is the work Jesus began and He will finish – redeeming all things, righting wrongs, loving unconditionally, showing mercy, working for justice.  And this is why we continue this work here on earth, because this brings heaven to earth: “your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” (Matthew 6:10)  And we wait for the fulfillment of all things.