Were they really worth the Ransom?

You don’t negotiate with terrorists. Anyone who’s ever watched a kidnapping movie or tv show or read a suspense book knows it. I’m not entirely sure if it works that way in real life but in fiction, that’s it. No negotiation. No paying the ransom. You find another way, you send in a rescue team, you sacrifice one for the good of the whole (thankfully not too often in romances!) but you never ever give in to the bad guy’s demands. That’s just how it works. 

And everyone knows it. 

Except Jesus, apparently. He missed that memo. He paid the ransom.

Not just part of it either. He paid the whole thing. 

This struck me so profoundly one morning in church last year that I started crying. Thankfully, no one saw or I would have had a hard time explaining it, especially since I was so overwhelmed I couldn’t talk. 

We were singing Amazing Grace, the Chris Tomlin version. 

My chains are gone. I’ve been set free

My God, my Savior has ransomed me

It was that one word which got to me. Ransom. 

Maybe I’d been reading a suspense novel, maybe not, I can’t actually remember but for some reason I couldn’t get past that word and the reality of what it meant. How much I was loved. 

Jesus didn’t negotiate with the bad guy. He never considered whether I/we were worth it or not.  He just paid the price. The whole price. He didn’t need to. Honestly? Nice a person as I think I am, I wasn’t exactly worth it. His life for mine? The all-powerful, all-knowing, all-everything God in exchange for me? Ha. Not even close to a justifiable exchange. Seriously, I’m not putting myself down here, it’s just reality. Not an even swap. Not worth the ransom. If it had been world leaders deciding, they wouldn’t have picked me. 

But Jesus did. He didn’t think twice. He looked at me and thought me worth the ransom. Every bit that was asked. Everything he had to give. 

Crazy. It makes no sense whatsoever. 

But…wow. Talk about humbling. 

Before I was born. Before I’d done anything worth anything, he thought me worth it. Worth going against every bit of logic and paying it. 

I came home, wrote it on a plate and put it up on my shelf to remind me, every time I start doubting my worth, that, though the world doesn’t pay ransoms, Jesus does. And he thought me worth it.  

He paid it for you too. He thought you worth the ransom.