The Price

There is no better human feeling possible than receiving redemption. In the process of being redeemed, you leave the terrible circumstances you suffered through and gain something of great potential value. This transformation from bad to good happens simultaneously, thus the exhilaration.

Redemption is modernly defined as the action of regaining or gaining possession of something in exchange for payment or clearing a debt. However, the archaic definition is:  the action of buying one’s freedom. This concept is introduced very early in The Book and repeated throughout. Both definitions imply a transaction, an exchange based on a payment.   

In the historical context, if you were captured, kidnapped, or in servitude, you needed to pay a price or have someone else pay a price to be redeemed. If you failed to pay the price, you either remained captive or were killed. Redemption, as tremendous as it feels, comes with a cost. Typically, the cost is so high that someone else has to pay it.

Redemption, and the required payment, are the critical substance of Easter. Everything else in the narrative only supports redemption. A price was paid for your deliverance—an ugly, disgusting, sickening price—so that you could regain your freedom.

Right now, we are not talking about religion, the story, the rules, or whatever. None of those things comes close to being able to transform  your life. Only redemption can do that. And redemption is only possible if the price is paid. The only thing that matters at all is - the price.

This brings us to the Great Exchange. If you are willing to exchange your life as you own it – with the mistakes, faults, shame, disillusionment, crap, etc. – you can redeem it for a new one. People try to make it so complicated – but it’s not – it’s really just this simple, by design.

Your redemption has been fully paid, a great price you can't pay on your own, by a check written in blood. The price of your redemption costs that much. 

At Easter, we tend to focus on the resurrection because it is so miraculous. However, what the resurrection really means is that your redemption payment is validated—the check has cleared. Resurrection makes me feel good—redemption makes me good. You can leave the past behind with the opportunity for a much brighter future. In that, redemption is miraculous on a personal level.

Deep inside, we hunger for redemption—and that’s by design. That’s why the most incredible human emotion possible is the joy you feel at the moment of spiritual redemption. There is no word for that feeling in the English language. It is beyond words. The best I can do is: internal rejoicing on an exponential level.

The fact that you have the freedom to choose to be redeemed does not cheapen the price that was paid. You hold that check, written in blood, in your hand. Whether you buy your redemption with it, is up to you.

 

Be Ye Glad – (Michael Kelly Blanchard) 

Now from your dungeon a rumor is stirring
Though you've heard it again and again
Now but this time your cell keys are turning
And outside there are faces of friends 

Though your body lay weary from wasting
And your eyes show the sorrow they had
Oh the love that your heart is now tasting
Has opened the gate be ye glad

Oh, be ye glad
Oh, be ye glad

Every debt that you ever had
Has been paid up in full
By the grace of the Lord
Be ye glad, be ye glad, be ye glad