Set Free

The film 12 Years a Slave (directed by Steve McQueen, New Regency Productions, 2013), tells the story of Solomon Northup. He’s a free black man from New York, but his abduction into slavery begins twelve years of agony and despair. Solomon then meets a hired hand named Bass, an abolitionist from Canada, who happens to be working on the same plantation as Solomon. After a short exchange, Solomon decides to take a risk and confide in Bass. He asks Bass if he would be willing to write a letter to his friends in New York for him, informing them of his whereabouts and the unjust fate he has suffered. Initially reluctant, Bass obliges—and Solomon is soon saved and set free. Similarly, Christ, our Savior and Redeemer, liberates us from the slavery of corruption and emancipates us from the bondage of guilt through his once-and-for-all sacrifice on the cross. What God did for Israel in the days of the Babylonian exile he then did for us in the days of his Son, the Messiah, Jesus Christ.