Happy Captives

Chains clanked; a macabre rhythm of sorrow, pain and far too often, of death. Blood dropped dripped from the wound caused by the chafing of the coffle around his neck. Bare feet shuffled in the dust, raising great yellow clouds which filtered the sunlight and signaled the presence of the slave procession for miles on either side of the trail. Captured, imprisoned, sold, he knew his fate existed in a future time and unknown place, full of hopelessness and pain. Too weary for tears or anger, his only thought of making enough steps to rest in the evening chill around a campfire. The thin gruel of the evening meal loomed in his mind as real and as rich as the banquet held in his honor the night before the betrayal. Agony of mind and body surged and waned as he relived the capture and anticipated with terror, his future. Words cannot express the unhappy lot of a captive. Whether taken as a slave from Central Africa to the slave market on the coast or a prisoner of war or of a displaced person forced from home and hearth by war, famine or earthquake, the lot of the captive and refugee is bare minimal subsistence and terrible uncertainties. However, there is one procession of captives which does not fit the mold. It is a festal parade, full of the vanquished, the utterly defeated, the destroyed and defeated ones of God. He breaks the nations with a rod of iron, subdues His enemies, wades in their blood, shatters their bones and they rejoice in their defeat. Defeat, for these captives of the Most High are not just content to accept their fate, they rejoice in it, revel in it. Enemies once, their battle lost, they find their true selves, their true love, the One who died Himself to bring them into this joyous slavery, this rejoicing train of freed captives. What a joy to be dead, to be raised into this new captivity, this happy captive throng. The chariots of God are myriads, thousands upon thousands; The Lord is among them as at Sinai, in holiness. You have ascended on high, You have led captive Your captives; You have received gifts among men, Even among the rebellious also, that the LORD God may dwell there. Book of Psalms Chapter 68 verses 17 and 18 11.1.12