Captivity [kap-tiv-i-tee] (n): the state or period of being held, imprisoned, enslaved, or confined.
On Tuesday, Jan. 29, 2013, Jimmy Lee Dykes, a Vietnam War veteran, boarded a Dale County school bus, killed the bus driver, and abducted a little boy. Dykes took the boy to an underground bunker on his property. He held the boy there for seven days, until FBI agents raided the bunker, shot and killed Dykes, and freed the young child. He did all this because he wanted his voice to be heard.
It amazes me that it took the death of Mr. Dykes to free the little boy. Of course, the conflict could possibly have been resolved without any deaths (though it would still have required surrender/submission from Dykes), but unfortunately, that’s not what happened the afternoon of Feb. 4.
I bring this story up not to discuss the mental health system in America, gun control, or any other sociopolitical topics. I bring it up because I see parallels between this story and our story.
Jesus tells us that, “…anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it” (Mark 10:15). In order to enter the kingdom of God, we must have childlike faith in Him, not relying on anyone else but him, and we must be free from all captivity. The problem is, just like this little boy was held in captivity by Jimmy Lee Dykes, so our own sinful nature and desires hold us in captivity. That child was unable to escape his captor’s clutches for seven days, holed up in an underground bunker, essentially cut off from everyone else.
Are we not in the same position as the young boy? Are we not captives to sin, unable to escape by our own attempts, by our own power? In order for the child to be set free, he needed the help of someone else; in order for us to be set free, namely our childlike faith, we need the help of Someone Else, and God has provided Him! Jesus defeated death, and in doing so, has killed sin, our captor, and set us free! Aren’t the parallels here amazing?
The same way FBI agents freed the little boy, so Christ provided a way, the way, to free us from captivity to sin, to dissolve the confinement of selfishness, and to break bonds of the sinful nature we are enslaved to!
“In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.” Romans 6:11
“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.” Ephesians 2:8-9
